#johnsollux

Sollux kisses you honey-trickle slow, sticky-sweet, and holds your face in his hands, carefully keeping his claws away from your cheekbones, rubbing his palms into your late-night stubble.

You wish you could say this makes you stop being nervous, but it just keys you up more. In a slightly different way, to be sure, but the tension is still there. “Can we turn off the lights?” you ask him once he pulls back.

He doesn’t answer. Not verbally, anyway. He just does it, reaching out with psionics to flip the switch. Like what you did was a demand and not a request. You really like it when he listens to you. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, mouth hovering close to your ear. “I still know you’re naked.”

“I still feel naked,” you complain. It’s weird, having your clothes off in front of someone you care about so much. Bodies are so much more honest without any kind of drapery.

“What if I do this?” Sollux offers. Now, instead of both of you laying on your sides, he pushes back your shoulder so you’re on your back. He climbs over you, settles a skinny leg between your meaty thighs, lets his chest drop, and kisses you again.

“Hrmm,” Sollux groaned and shifted, a spark flickering up into the air with a crackle.

“It’s ok, Sollux,” John rubbed soothing circle on the troll’s bare skin.

He’d learned this trick when they were younger.  When John was about three, his father had enrolled him into preschool.  There were several other kids and grubs in the class, in particular a yellow grub that had a penchant for bad headaches named Sollux.  One afternoon when John had been preoccupied playing with a model airplane, the little yellow grub blindly bumped into him.  At first John was annoyed and turned to scold whoever had interrupted his playtime.  Upon seeing the little grub in pain, however, John became concerned.

“Soluks?” the little grub didn’t respond, only buzzed and twitched as tiny sparks of blue and red crackled in the air around his head.

“Yu hurt?” John watched the grub with concern.

Sollux’s little claws swatted annoyingly at his head, “Soluks yur head hurt?”

John laid a hand on the grub and it immediately pressed into the warmth of the contact.  John remembered an earlier time when he’s hurt his ear and his dad had picked him up and rubbed his back.  It couldn’t hurt to try, right?  So John began to rub gently up and down the little yellow grub’s back.  The buzzing and twitching became less and Sollux let out a little chirp.  Encouraged, John pulled the grub into his lap and continued to rub his back.  Soon, the sparks disappeared, the buzzing ceased all together, and after a series of soft chirps and clicks, Sollux even began to purr. 

After that, the two had become inseparable.  Whenever Sollux had a headache as school, John was there to soothe it away.  When they started Kindergarten, John had been mortified when Sollux began to look sick and then finally just stopped showing up for school.  It had taken a gentle talk from his dad to assure him that Sollux was ok and was going through something all grubs went through, he was pupating.  After a phone call, John’s dad even took him to Sollux’s hive to visit him.  There, a giant creature with two heads and totally white greeted him.  John about turned to run when he noticed a little yellow cocoon right inside the hive, in a corner, part way up the wall.

John cautiously approached and found that, if he looked just right, he could see the outline of his friend within.  After that, John came over every day after school and sat and talked to the cocooned Sollux.  He’d tell him about the letters they’d learned that day, the few simple words he could spell, how to count to one hundred, and much more.  John was even there when Sollux’s cocoon cracked open.

John’s dad had just come to pick him up for dinner when a sound like a cracking eggshell echoed through the room.  Sollux’s dad (Or that’s what John called the two headed creature anyway) got very antsy and excited and John stayed to watch as the glossy yellow shell broke open and out slipped a grey little naked body almost as big as John was himself.  The little troll shook its head groggily as it’s dad tossed a towel over it and began drying it off.  When it looked up, John recognized the mismatched blue and red eyes and ran to embrace his friend.  Sollux giggled and hugged him back.

All through grade school and into Junior High, they spent nearly every waking hour either together or, through the miracle of the internet, chatting and video calling each other.  When John’s hormones started kicking in, well it was no surprise to his father or anyone else that Sollux and John’s friendship budded into a more romantic relationship.  With an embarrassing talk about the birds and the bees and pailings (Told twice, once by John’s dad and once by Sollux’s Lusus), John and Sollux’s relationship budded.  Sollux still suffered headaches through all those years, and John never forgot the trick he’d learned all those years ago. 

“Mmm,” Sollux twitched again, the sparks already dissipating and a low rumble of a purr vibrating deep in his chest, “John?”

John slowly pulled the other troll up till he could press their lips together, another echoing purr rumbling through Sollux’s naked torso and into John’s.  The troll began to trail a few kisses down John’s neck and the boy moaned softly and thrust his hips up against Sollux, their naked bodies grinding into each other under the covers.  The sound off quickly approaching footsteps made John groan and Sollux roll off of him quickly.

“Boys?” John’s dad called from outside the door, “Time to get up.  Don’t want to be late for school.”

“That’th what you think,” Sollux chuckled under his breath.

“We’ll be down in a minute, Dad,” John called back before kissing Sollux with a giggle, “Don’t worry, he won’t be home till late tonight.”