Title: Midnight Vignette 4 - "Restless"
Author: Surreal
E-mail: surreal666@hotmail.com
Website:  http://netjeru.ma-at.net/SurrealArts/
Feedback: Yes, please!
Status: complete, series
Category: Slash, Langly/Byers, PWP
Rating: R
Summary: Langly can't sleep and it's Byers turn to help.
Archive: Lone Slasher, Basement
Disclaimer: Not mine.  Unjust captives of ugly rich men who don't 
know how to treat them right.
Notes:  Fourth of a four-part vignette series of midnight 
conversations.  


~~<>~~

It's almost four in the morning and I haven't gone to sleep
yet.  As much as I hate nights like these, it does give me a
rare and very pleasant opportunity.

I roll onto my side so I can watch John.  Tonight he ended
up on the side of the bed closer to the window and the faint
moonlight barely makes it past the small slit between the two
curtains.  The little line of yellowish white streaks over the
rumpled sheets covering his legs, up over his perfect, round
ass and across his pale, lean back.  The very end of the 
line ends in the middle of his hair, the red highlights shining
out from the darker strands and completely in contrast to his
soft, white skin.

His right arm is tucked under the pillow supporting his head,
which is turned away from me.  His left arm curls next to his
face, where his hand makes a loose fist just above his head.
His breaths are slow, even, and soft, the line of moonlight
across his back shifting gently with each breath, in and out.

On impulse I reach out and lightly trace the line with one 
finger, from his hair down to where the sheet is bunched
up at the small of his back. 

I want to follow it further, but not on the sheet.  I want to 
touch his skin.  I push the covering off his body, all the
way down to his feet.  In his sleep he shivers slightly and
mumbles.  Moving my body closer to keep him warm, my 
hand continues its route, following the line over the soft 
curve of his ass and down to his thigh.  

To reach the rest of him I have to slide down and stretch out
my arm until it gets to the end, right at the peak of his right
heel.  The muscles all down his long, slim legs twitch just 
under the skin, and the tiny dark hairs tickle my palm as 
my hand moves down.  When I get near the bottom of his
right leg it tapers off gently down to his thin, bony ankle
twisted to the left so his foot lays flat.

His foot twitches when I get there and I remember that he's
ticklish.  I glance up to see him turn his head my way and 
glance down over his shoulder at me.  

"Whattre you doing?" he mumbles sleepily through a wide
yawn.

"Sorry...wasn't trying to wake you up.  Just...thinking, I
guess.  Got out of hand," I give him an embarrassed smile
and slide back up to lay even with him.

"Kinda hard to sleep with you stripping off my covers and
feeling me up," he chuckles softly, scooting onto his side
and reaching out to stroke my arm.  His hair is mussed and
his eyes are half-shut, the lines from the pillow pressed 
into his sleepy face.  

I reach up to ruffle his hair even more and he squirms
away.  "Don't DO that!" he wrinkles his nose at me and tries
to pat down his hair.  Why, I don't know, since it's four in
the morning.  That's just John.

"You are so cute when you're flustered."

"WHY are you even awake?  And groping me?"  He pauses
then adds, "Okay, don't answer the last part."

"Can't sleep," I sigh, letting my hand stroke down his warm
chest.  

He catches my hand and squeezes it gently, his thumb caressing
the inside of my wrist.  "At all?"

I shake my head and disentangle my hand, resting it on his hip.

His hand runs lightly down my chest and stops just above my
groin.  "Do you want me to..." he starts, and I feel the back of
his hand gently slide down the length of my cock.  The sensation
sends a warm tingle through my body, but this isn't what I want.

"No," I take his hand to stop him.  "It's okay, I'm not...really
in the mood for that..."  I reach up to stroke his hair and kiss
his lips lightly.  

"Oh."  He clears his throat and rubs my arm.  He's quiet for a 
while, then moves away as if to get out of bed.  

"Where you going?" I whine, reaching for him.

"I have an idea, something to help you go to sleep," he pats
my hand and reaches for a pair of boxers on the floor, which
happen to be mine.  "It's in my room."

Wondering what my lover is up to, I lay back and wait for him
to come back to me.  

He returns to my room with a heavy-looking book in his hands, 
dropping it on the bed so he can strip the boxers off again.
I start to reach for it but he smacks my hand.  "Ah ah!  This 
is my area, hands off."

Chastised, I flop onto my back as he slides into bed next to
me, pulling the covers back up over us.  Stretching out on 
his back and propped up against the headboard on his pillow, 
he pulls me up to sprawl halfway on his chest, his right arm 
wrapped around me snugly.  

He opens the book, scans the index quickly and flips to the
page he desires.  Without my glasses I can't see for shit so
I'm completely at his whim.  

"Comfortable?" he asks me while rubbing my arm.

"Mmmhmmm," I answer, laying my head on his shoulder and 
closing my eyes.

His voice changes into a soft, breathy tone as he starts to
read.  I can tell right away it's a poem, which normally would
annoy the hell out of me but not the way he is reciting it.
It's...absolutely beautiful.  

"Lay your sleeping head, my love...Human on my faithless arm..."
he starts quietly.  

The rise and fall of his chest with each breath is rhythmic and
I soon find myself drifting with it, with his body and his voice
in syncopation.  His right hand moves on its own accord, softly
caresses up and down my arm, up my ribcage and over my 
shoulder and back again.  Over and over, never the same route
twice and always in motion.

"Soul and body have no bounds...To lovers as they lie upon..."
Smooth...perfect soft wonderful words floating over me and
my mind begins to slowly wind down into the pattern, concentrating
on only his voice and his body against me.  

"Certainty, fidelity...On the stroke of midnight pass..."
Drifting...matching my breathing with his, slow, even intake
of air.  No longer interested in opening my eyes.  Simply resting,
my body begins to fall into sleep one piece at a time with every
one of his words.

Finally...not sure if I'm dreaming them anymore, but the words
are there, the last of the poem floats past my mind and crosses
the border between consciousness and dream...
"Nights of insult let you pass...Watched by every human love."


~~<>~~

End.

Lullaby by W.H.Auden

 Lay Your Sleeping head, my love,
 Human on my faithless arm:
 Time and fevers burn away
 Individual beauty from
 Thoughtful children, and the grave
 Proves the child ephemeral:
 But in my arms till break of day
 Let the living creature lie,
 Mortal, guilty, but to me
 The entirely beautiful.

 Soul and body have no bounds:
 To lovers as they lie upon
 Her tolerant enchanted slope
 In their ordinary swoon,
 Grave the vision Venus sends
 Of supernatural sympathy,
 Universal love and hope;
 While an abstract insight wakes
 Among the glaciers and the rocks
 The hermit's carnal ecstasy,

 Certainty, fidelity
 On the stroke of midnight pass
 Like vibrations of a bell
 And fashionable madmen raise
 Their pedantic boring cry:
 Every farthing of the cost.
 All the dreaded cards foretell.
 Shall be paid, but from this night
 Not a whisper, not a thought.
 Not a kiss nor look be lost.

 Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
 Let the winds of dawn that blow
 Softly round your dreaming head
 Such a day of welcome show
 Eye and knocking heart may bless,
 Find our mortal world enough;
 Noons of dryness find you fed
 By the involuntary powers,
 Nights of insult let you pass
 Watched by every human love.

~~<>~~