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TITLE: Counterpoint, Interfolio - Etude AUTHOR: Daffodil Bolger PAIRING: F/M RATING: NC-17 SUMMARY: Um... sex. That's all. (No, seriously -- that's all.) ILLUSTRATION: 'Etude' by Daffodil Bolger
For Mews, because she's always very good to me.
Etude: A musical composition written solely to improve technique. Often performed for artistic interest.
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ETUDE
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Merry doesn't understand tenderness, not unless he's the one offering it. He is not only a creature of the moment, a creature of now, but of right now, this moment, and he understands want, he understands the immediacy of that want, and Frodo thinks he only really feels sure when that immediacy is turned back on him.
And so Frodo gives it to him, lets his hands complete their instinctive greedy grab, lets his body surge and thrust, and his pleas wind thin and hurried from his mouth as Merry's hands pull cries from him as though he's reaching right into Frodo's skin and forcing them through his pores. Fast and hard and desperate; Merry can take each moment and live it, react to it, turn each second on its head and throttle it like a striking snake; they blur together for Frodo, moving too fast for him to sink into them, let them settle into his skin then shed themselves in favour of a new one, sensation and experience reeling past him too fast to enfold, hold, hold down.
It's like trying to catch smoke in his hands, though he knows there will be another time, another moment that will be just for him, where the blur will reel into shapes he can see, define, take hold of and feel. This rush of sensation and the wash of emotion that slashes over him in vague misty reality is precious in its own way, and he wouldn't miss one slippery second of it for anything. He's free in these moments, more free than inside any other moment, when he lets his body take over, ripple and flex with the sparks of instinct that rip through him, make his back bend nigh to breaking with the pulse of sensation that jolts through tendon and muscle, so deep and alive inside a core of jagged awareness.
Merry watches him, eyes always open, catching every flicker of visceral feeling that fleets over his face; Frodo knows it, adds the weight of the gaze to the millions of sparks that light his skin, scrabble and dig at his nerves and send them in a flash-fire through his body.
Slowly, he opens his eyes, locks his gaze with Merry's. Fire in those eyes, and thunder rolling behind them, and Frodo lets the corner of his mouth lift in a feral little curve, small grunting breaths spilling from it with the force of Merry's movement against him. He unsnarls his fingers from sun-gold curls, reaches up, winds those fingers about the spindles of the headboard. Another smile, this one sly and knowing -- almost a dare -- and Frodo locks his arms to prevent his head from going right through it.
Merry growls then, hooks his elbows under Frodo's knees, takes hold of his hips, and these are the only moments when Merry's hands are hard against him, almost brutal, and the strength of them, the power, makes Frodo arch up, bend, and begthreatendemand, faster, now, more, don't stop. And that's when the fire leaks from Merry's eyes, soughs out onto Frodo and sends his mind into blank oblivion.
The words 'wanton' and 'debauched' might come to mind later, but now there is only freedom and untamed abandon.
He lets the animal inside him come out and show its face, lets it snarl and snap, teeth bared with Merry's name caged behind them until Merry's eyes go dark and muddy then roll, close, and then together they are one creature, ancient and earthen, born of primordial lust. One entity, thrashing with and against, hands turned to claws and voices turned to rumbling growls, and they fling themselves into a rhythm that winds up from the earth, pulses with its own heartbeat, the slap of sweat-slick skin and rasping breaths rising in crude harmony.
Frodo's mind whites, flames sizzling and popping all through him, hoarse shouts jarred loose by the staccato bursts of Merry's body pounding against him, in him, and he's weightless and far away, but right here, right inside the moment, when Merry's throaty cries join his own.
Sometimes he thinks he should be terrified by the feeling of his mind leaving his body, spiralling up and into the stars with barely a tether to hold it to him, a web-thin thread anchoring euphoria to reality. He isn't terrified, for these are the moments when he is truly bound to the primal pulse of the earth, Nature's child, following her dance in the steps she mapped when the world was born. And Merry is always the one who brings him back home when he's wandered too far, guides his feet back down to touch the earth again. Frodo sinks into its cadence with the reality of solid weight pressing him down into damp sheets, hot breath gusting into the crook of his neck, small aches and discomforts that he knows will only grow when the exhilaration has receded and the reality of separation leaves a void to be filled with the dull burn of emptiness.
Too soon, Merry draws back, draws out, rolls off, but a reach and tug and he pulls Frodo to him, arms slick with cooling sweat winding about him, almost filling the hollowness of disconnection with the salty-sweet promise of damp, lazy kisses in the dark. Sated and smiling, Frodo folds in, keeps the moment with him, burrows himself inside it and closes his eyes, falls asleep waiting for his mind to come back from the stars.
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Frodo doesn't understand immediacy, not unless the moment captures him and sucks him into the absolute now of it. He doesn't scrabble greedily at an individual instant, because he knows that another is right 'round the bend, and if it doesn't wait for him, he just assumes it wasn't meant for him anyway. So, he examines what he has like a valued gem, appreciates and evaluates it, gives it the respect he thinks it deserves and then savours it.
And so Merry gives him those moments, stretches them out with a slow ripple of his backbone, the languid sweep of fingertips over a thigh, muscles loose and heavy beneath his hand, and then the slightest press into the hollow behind a knee, slung up and crooked over Merry's hip. Frodo is warm and still sleep-heavy, a little bit clumsy, but his breath drops hot on the knobs of Merry's spine, his hands sweep leisurely over Merry's chest, his ribs, hips rocking ever so slightly, almost maddeningly-slow, building pleasure, gold and brilliant, like the slow-blooming rose-caramel of sunrise.
The urge to push back, snap his hips, is almost overwhelming, but Merry only sighs, lets Frodo's body push his own then pull him back, lets him guide the moments to slide in a lazy chain of soft-gilded lace, tatting itself behind his closed eyes and pooling in a sluggish burn at the bottom of his skin. He won't rush these moments, and if asked, he'd say they were for Frodo, but they're really for him, too; he can lose himself inside them, let them enwind him, bind him in filigreed webs that pull him as close to inside Frodo's soul as he thinks it's possible to be. This is Frodo: slow and methodical, pulling every feeling from inside Merry and demanding that he feel it, taste it, until he thinks he'll drown in it. He has no control in these moments, when Frodo takes him so close to the edge, dangles him over it for ten eternities and then draws him back again, shaking and nearly weeping with the intensity of dilatory pleasure. He has no control, and he is always surprised that he doesn't want it.
A lazy little bite to his shoulder-blade and it sometimes bothers Merry a little that he can't see Frodo's face, can't watch building desire roll over it like a slack-sloughing wave, but he sees even more behind his eyes: sees the thin sheen of sweat over Frodo's back catch the gold of early morning as the muscles beneath it gather and contract; sees the warm red of his mouth as his tongue swipes over Merry's nape, flicks then sucks at the slope where his shoulder meets it; sees the deliberate flex of long fingers as they press firm into Merry's hip then move in infuriating feather-strokes between his legs, wrap about him, fingers warm, blood-hot, and strong, still oil-slick and slippery.
Frodo moans then, deep and rough, as though he's been waiting time without end just to touch Merry, and Merry half-believes Frodo could. Frodo firms his hold, and Merry lets his hand clench into the bedding, twist. The tempo slips up half a notch, the pushpulltugtake only a little more aggressive, but more than enough to take Merry that much closer to serene insanity. And that's when he lets go completely, lets Frodo possess him entirely, his body giving not even the smallest resistance, and willingly allows Frodo to slide him into indolent bliss.
The words 'sappy' and 'romantic' might come to him later, but right now there is only the warm-soft haze of shameless craving and the hard reality of Frodo sweat-tethered to Merry's back, guiding him into oblivion.
He lets his body go loose and lax, lets the groans wind easy from his chest, lets them shape themselves into Frodo's name. Every feeling he's ever had contracts to a pinpoint within this one moment, scattering outward and smearing through him, dragging through his chest and limbs in silky striations of concentrated heat, unhurried, and he doesn't have to grasp for them, capture them and hold them, because they wind around him, lash him together -- bone to muscle to tendon to nerve-ending -- even as his mind flies away and leaves him with nothing but unadulterated sensation.
He strains then, presses himself back, rolls his hips; not to reclaim control but to feel even more, every sense focussed on the fire-slick pulse inside him, Frodo's hands pulling reaction from him that rolls like a laggard thunderhead, slow-burning lightning-strikes taking what little mind he has left. And with indolent, lazy love on a Sterday morning, Frodo brands himself inside Merry, makes him his own.
Merry sometimes feels as though he should worry, as though giving away so much of himself will somehow make him less, make him a loose poppet, held together by strings that only Frodo knows how to jink and snap. But he knows that Frodo has no idea how much Merry hands him, would give it back if he knew, and that thought is twice as frightening. So, Merry only folds into the moment, sighs a little when Frodo peels himself away, the cool morning air a little jarring and unfriendly against the film of sweat on his back, but Frodo soothes it away with sweeping strokes of his long fingers over Merry's backbone and shoulders, dawdling, open kisses to his nape, and Merry smiles, burrows back into Frodo's chest again.
He'll rise again soon, check on the kettle he'd filled and set to boil before he'd slipped back between sleep-warm sheets and dragged Frodo's leg up over his hip, rocked himself back until Frodo half-woke, rising against Merry's tailbone, then chuckled a little, throaty and knowing, before taking Merry on a lingering journey through soft-burning passion. Now he simply lies here and feels Frodo's breath in his hair, Frodo's fingers still ghosting over his skin, Frodo's heart knocking itself down to a steady rhythm against Merry's spine. Sated and smiling, Merry folds in, keeps the moment with him, burrows himself inside it and closes his eyes, listens to Frodo fall asleep again while Merry waits for the dawn to take hold of the day.
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