A swipe of the key card, and Loki leads the way into his hotel room. He's done no more than drop his bags in a corner: one carry-on, one suit bag so that he doesn't have to get ironing done before showing up for the more formal events of this trip. It's no presidential suite, even if it's a perfectly good quality hotel room for the location.
     "The minibar in here isn't worth much, unless you go by what the hotel charges for those little bottles. I could probably put together another rum and Coke if you wanted one, though." He slants a look back over his shoulder, even if it's not strictly necessary for gauging mood. It still feels less peculiar to deliberately check on these things if he's looking at someone when he does it.

     He's slower, though the cane does help. Pres limps his way into the room and drops onto the edge of the bed, groaning and then rolling onto his back on it, letting the cane slide away. Folding his hands behind his head, he looks up at the ceiling. "I'm good, thanks. I'm glad you're here. I love my sister, y'know? But this is just kind of painful."

     Loki sits on the edge of the bed, toeing off his shoes. Even in a hotel room he isn't ready to start getting his shoes on the bedspread. "In a crowd this big, at least it's easier to disappear for a few hours without being missed. How bad's it been so far?"

     "Bad enough. Mumsie insisted on picking me up at the airport. I told her I could take a cab, you know?" Pres broods a bit, kicking off his shoes one at a time. "She's been trying to talk me into transferring down to Florida and moving onto the boat with her and dad."

     Shoes disposed of, Loki slides further onto the bed, rolling onto his chest. "Fuck. That's a good sign it's time to transfer to Hawai'i. Massive time zone difference and inconvenient to fly to."

     "Yeah," Pres agrees. He rolls over onto his side to look over. "Hawaii or somewhere further. Hawaii just ... it seems to fit, y'know? I don't know." He shrugs one shoulder, ignoring the hair flopping into his eyes. "What do you think I should do?"

     Loki rests his head on an elbow, watching Pres. "Get enough space that you can figure out what to do. Short of signing into a monastery somewhere, you're not going to get out of contact entirely, but reducing the threat of someone showing up and trying to manage your life for you may get you some breathing room to work in." He offers a half smile. "Hawaii sounds like a good idea to me, but this is me you're asking. My success rate at long-term plans isn't great. You can always transfer again if you change your mind, though. It's not too much of an investment to spend a year trying something different and seeing if helps."

     "Yeah, I guess." He doesn't sound entirely happy or satisfied, but Pres nods and drops onto his back again, transferring his attention back to the ceiling. "I just figured I'd see if you had any preferences. Y'know. Because I don't really have a direction. I'm just - moving away from mumsie as fast as I can. She has the advantage."

     "If we're going by my preferences, London's really convenient for visiting. Or just somewhere in the UK. But then you're right near Gillian, and much as I like your sister, I'm not sure you want to be that close to someone who'll come and try to organize your life for you." Loki draws a fingernail across a loose thread in the bedspread. Distracting, when it's right there in front of his face. "It's all a lot of trade-offs. Believe me, if I knew how to get a parent to actually back off, you'd be the first to hear about it."

     "Yeah, if Gillian got a boyfriend or something," Pres grumbles. "It'd be easier. I don't want to deal with her trying to get my life in what she thinks is in order." He glances over, idly poking Loki in the ribs. "I'd go to London except it's cold."

     "That," Loki says, poking Pres back in the shoulder, "is what jackets are for. And scarves. And gloves. And hats. There are companies dedicated to nothing but keeping people warm in cold weather. Also, no matter what your parents may have told you, you're allowed to adjust the thermostat however you want once you're renting a place yourself."

     The poke leads to another poke, and Pres grins a little. "You have an answer for everything, don't you?" He tugs at Loki's shirt. "Anyway, you know what I meant. Tell me what you want."

     Loki rolls onto his side, a knee curling up towards his chest. "I want to get to hang out with you more often. Importing you to London long-term is probably out as an option, but I can still do really obvious hinting about that just in case you change your mind. And I want you to get enough fixed that you're happier." Which doesn't just mean that leg, but he's not in the mood to expand on that.
     "Right this minute, I want stuff that's a lot less deep and significant but can also be done in a few hours. Are you up for trying anything before lunch?" He's trying so hard to make that a suggestion as casually given and with as little implied pressure as Want a drink? that it almost succeeds.

     "Yeah, I guess I'm not really cut out much to be a foreign import," Pres cracks, grabbing one of the pillows and stuffing it under his head. He closes his eyes. "I kind of wonder if I'd be happier if the shark never took that bite out of me, but I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter. It's all moot."
     He turns his head to look at Loki, eyelashes almost on his cheek. "We have two hours, maybe. Less including cleaning up and looking the part again. I, uh. Wouldn't mind. You think we could?"

     "We work with what we've got," Loki says, as answer to one or both topics. His slide nearer rucks up the bedspread in his wake, getting him close enough to draw a hand loosely across Pres's shoulder. "After lunch, I'm running on caffeine until I get a chance to collapse and deal with jetlag. Might as well take advantage of being awake and having some free time while the two are matching up."

     "As long as you're not going to be falling asleep in the middle. That'd just be kind of cruel." Pres' smile is somewhat lopsided and a little bit uncertain, but there's nothing really uncertain about the way he drops his hand onto Loki's hip and begins tugging his shirt up out of his trousers. "Y'know, I could tell mumsie I'm not feeling up to lunch and that I'm going to keep you company..."

     "If there's a better than even chance she won't burst in and try to be helpful, I like this plan." Loki props himself up on an elbow to give Pres more freedom to rearrange clothing, and starts undoing the buttons on Pres's shirt while he's at it. "In the unlikely event that the cabin depressurizes--sorry, wrong speech. In the unlikely event that I start nodding off, I have a bottle of caffeine pills in my bag."

     "Lock the door," Pres retorts, breathing a little erratic for a minute. He grins a bit, rolling onto his side and towards Loki to steal an open-mouthed kiss. "...Caffeine pills, huh. Mixing stimulants and depressants."

     Loki holds for the kiss, and another button undone, before he pulls back. "You know me. Living dangerously." He slides off the bed, locks the door, and he's dropping down beside Pres again before anyone can get second thoughts. Not that any seem likely at this stage of things.

     "Yeah, I guess I do. More dangerous than me, anyway," Pres mutters. He watches Loki move through veiled eyelids, rolling towards him when he drops back onto the bed. There's a bit of nervousness in him which he's trying to cover with nonchalance. He isn't nearly as drunk as he was in Oahu.

     "That's my life. Full of adventure and daring. Just last week, I went to a completely different grocery store on the way home from practice." Loki drops his eyes as he begins picking the buttons out down Pres's shirt.
     This would be easier if I could figure out the difference between giving someone space and implying I'm not interested. But then, undressing someone is usually a sign of some kind of interest. "Do you want to go to any shows while you're in London? Most I can get tickets for at whim, but there are a few I'd want to line up ahead of time. They're doing a revival of Balanchine's Apollo and Agon, consecutively."

     "Spontaneity's not really your strong point, huh," Pres murmurs, voice a little bit strained. He lets himself fall onto one arm, propping himself up on the elbow as he watches the buttons mysteriously open themselves one by one. "Not that I can talk. These days I'm spontaneous if I grab rum and Coke instead of Mac 'n' Jack."
     He reaches over to roll his fingers over a hip, attention not surviving the division between what's happening and what's being talked about very well. "Huh? Balanchine? Yeah, sure. Sounds good. Whatever you want, really. I'm mostly coming to hang out with you, y'know?"

     "I'm about as spontaneous as a Senate subcommittee," Loki says, frank about it and not apologetic. He tugs Preston's shirt out once the buttons are open, eyes still focused on what he's doing. "I figured I should plan a few things to do. Otherwise we'll both just end up staying at home except when I'm out for groceries or band practice, and while there's fun in that--" As if to demonstrate said fun, he reaches back around Pres to get the last stretch of shirt hem worked free. "--it's a waste of a good city with lots of options."

     The sound Pres makes is rough and he shifts his weight to make it easier for Loki to go on undressing him. "Yeah, I guess you're right. What about - I don't know. Uh. Whatever you want." He lunges forward suddenly, bringing his hands up to cradle Loki's face for another kiss. It is a bit rough and unpracticed, but the intent and urgency in it is honest.

     The kiss is very effective in shutting Loki up for a minute, whether or not that was the intent. His hands rest loosely on Pres's hips just above the waistband of his trousers. In the midst of his own response to the kiss--equally interested, less aggressive--his fingers slide down an inch or so, hooking on the edges of the fabric there.

     The presence of hands there has the effect of instilling in Pres a certain hyperawareness of himself; of the ultimately male world of hips and cock and ass and thighs which are, ultimately, Not A Girl. And in turn that the boy he's kissing is, in fact, a boy. Not A Girl...
     He rolls closer, the hooking at his trousers making him slide a little bit forward. He is warm and flushed, expression almost feverish with drooping eyelids and parted lips and the painted stain of red in his cheeks and lips, eyelids a little darker for it as he brings both hands up to Loki's chest. "How many times've you done this?" Pres asks abruptly. His voice is still low, intense without angry noises.

     "Not counting Oahu?" Loki looks up at Pres from a face tilted down towards his hands, through eyelashes. "Maybe... half a dozen times? Less than a dozen. Not that many different people. I messed around some in college. Some while traveling through Europe."
     One of his hands slides nearer the front of Pres's pants, and doesn't quite get there. "It usually didn't get very far. And, uh, I'm not counting any of the times I was too drunk" or high, or outright unconscious, or dreaming "to remember the details."

     "Just wondered," Pres mumbles. He drags his palm up over Loki's stomach, pulling his shirt away a bit in the process, then pulls his hand back with a quiet, frustrated sound in his throat.
     "I ... yeah, I've done stuff with girls." It sounds as if it's difficult for him to say it. "...Nothing with other guys except for you."

     "There's not a lot I can tell you about it that you don't already know from basic porn." Loki pulls his hands up to start pulling Pres's shirt off the rest of the way. "It's just...whatever feels good, with some different options below the waist." He shoots Pres another look from below. "Tell me if there's anything specific you want to try. Or want me to stop doing, or do more of, or... I'm not saying I need a checklist. Just that I'm winging this, same as you."

     "I don't - I don't really know," Pres admits, looking frustrated. He cooperates with the undressing, then reaches down to touch Loki's face somewhat tentatively. "I'm winging it too. This isn't much like porn. I mean, I guess it could be, but..." His eyes suddenly light up. "That gives me an idea, though. I mean. If you're up for it. Did you bring your laptop?"

     "Just my phone." It takes a moment of pocket-checking for Loki to find it. He'd be faster and remembering where he put it last if he weren't distracted, by Pres and by the sudden switch in topic. "Small screen, but there it is. I can get it to hook up to the room's television, though, unless they haven't replaced it in the last ten years."

     Pres looks disappointed and shakes his head. "Nah, don't." He rolls over towards and a bit onto Loki, throwing his good leg over Loki's thigh. "We can grab my laptop later. I was thinking we could - y'know." He drops a kiss on Loki's chest where his shirt gapes open. "Record it."

     Loki pauses with a frozen look on his face that vanishes almost immediately. It's not a terribly strange concept to process. "I hadn't thought of that." I'm not sure I'd want to try that if I had, but this is not the moment to say so. He settles for resting an arm over Pres, phone tossed aside to the floor. "Just so long as it wouldn't turn into a freeze-frame critique of my performance," he murmurs, tugging at the waistband of Pres's trousers.

     "I just thought it'd make a better souvenir than a Boston t-shirt," Pres answers with a grin that ends with a bit of a grunt and an answering press of his hips into Loki. "You know. Something to do when you're not flirting with groupies."

     "I don't flirt with groupies. They all swoon in front of Balthazar, and then no one else can get past the heap of unconscious bodies to see the rest of the band." Loki takes the press as encouragement to start undoing Pres's trousers. "Video, T-shirt. Video, T-shirt. I'll have to think about this one. I'm told they have shirts with pictures of bells on them here. How can I pass that up?"

     He slides onto one hip - the better to allow Loki to continue undressing him. His skin is very flushed now, the nape of his neck visibly reddened. "Well, if you'd rather have a t-shirt, I could get one made for you." There's a look in Pres' eyes which suggests the shirt might not be the best idea. He reaches over and around Loki's hands to begin undoing his trousers as well. Tit for tat.

     "Somehow I get the idea it would be one I couldn't wear in public." Loki presses a kiss, a little uncertain but not too brief, to Pres's shoulder before starting to work the trousers down. "Video it is."

     "Probably." Pres grins agreement into the kiss, closing his eyes and following the kiss up with one of his own, landing on the side of Loki's neck. "C'mere, you." An arm slides loosely around Loki's shoulders, squirming and lifting his hips to help with pushing his trousers away. He's wearing boxers with a certain amount of tenting in front, the tip poking out a bit comically.

     Loki doesn't need to be asked twice. He moves into the offered space once he's dealt with the trousers, a certain amount of pressing up against Pres's groin going on in the process of both trouser removal and settling in closer.

     He isn't feeling very talkative, for some reason, ignoring his trousers tangled around his ankles. Pres groans at the pressure, eyes closed and his mouth falling open. He grabs Loki's hand, directing it to that spot, giving him a heated look. "Didn't have any interest in getting in bed with anybody until you visited me. Not since the shark took my life away. Shit, I thought it might as well have bitten off my dick."

     "That would make this a lot more difficult to pull off," Loki says, sounding more than half distracted. It's unlike he'd be punning if he were giving a lot of thought to what he was saying. He snakes his arm down between them, for the moment only gripping through the boxers.

     "Yeah, well." Pres groans, hips jerking a bit as he's grasped, eyes rolling back in his head. He finds his tongue after a moment, arms sliding around Loki's waist to pull them both tightly together as he rucks his hips against Loki with one thigh draped over his friend's. "You're good at getting past any second thoughts."

     Loki ducks his head down for a delicate kiss to Pres's arm, grip tightening slightly in the meantime. "We have two hours," he says, breath against skin. "Not enough time in the schedule for second thoughts."

     "Less than two hours, now," Pres mutters. He glowers for a moment, then lets his expression relax. "But mumsie's not going to check up on me once we turn in tonight, y'know. We can hang out all night if we want."
     He puts a hand to the side of Loki's face, turning it gently so that he can lean in for a hungry, ardent kiss. "Thanks," he murmurs after he pulls back. "I ... thanks. We should probably give ourselves twenty extra to be able to shower, before we have to go."

     "If I can grab a nap mid-afternoon," Loki begins, and is somewhat distracted by the kiss. Distraction keeps happening, with Pres being so very much Right There. He shifts his grip somewhat. Not entirely sure how far to go and when, but it's not like he doesn't have the basics down, if usually from a different angle. "--then tonight works for me." That was what it took a moment to remember. "Twenty minutes. Right. Longer if you want to try anything in the shower."

     He's visibly considering it, then his face falls. "Can't," Pres grudgingly admits. "My leg - I wouldn't be able to. Too bad you didn't get a room with a jacuzzi. We could sneak down and use the hotel's late tonight, but..."

     "Fuck," Loki says, the annoyance directed at himself. He places an apologetic kiss on Pres's shoulder, with a flick of his tongue there. "I should've thought of that. Hotel showers never fit chairs in them decently. If the hotel's not too full, I might be able to cadge an upgrade. Go complain about not liking the view or something, and offer to pay the difference."

     "Not your fault, it is the way it is." Pres grins, though it's more of a grimace. "Let's wait on that until mumsie finds out what room you're in. Keep her guessing. You know it's bound to happen sooner or later, right?" He shivers, dragging a hand down along Loki's chest. "...How many languages do you know?"

     "Two fluently." Loki lets his head rest on the nearest part of Pres available. "Just English and French. I can get by with Spanish, German, Italian. Tourist-level stuff. It's the usual grab-bag for Europe."

     "Damn. Half the family speaks French." Pres drags a finger along Loki's spine. "I was thinking we could discuss stuff without the fam figuring it out. There goes that idea." He sighs. "Text messages won't work either - you know how mumsie is, she'll demand to see. We'll just have to start going to the restroom in pairs."

     "Think anyone will notice?" Loki shivers at the touch, pressing his face against Pres's side. "Dodging around your relatives is going to get weird fast. I'm already looking forward to when you get to London, and the only people to dodge will be a train ride away, minimum."

     "Not if I leave my cane in your room and lean on your arm," Pres suggests. "...But if I do that, I really will be leaning on you hard. You might get tired of that." He smirks, then. "Well, we could just wait until London if you really want." He pumps his hips against Loki a couple of times.

     "Bastard," Loki says, too affectionately for the word to have any heat. He draws his hand between the two of them up and down, and slips a thumb inside the waistband of Pres's boxers. "Lean on me all you want, but I draw the line at making out in public restrooms."

     He groans at the touch, the jerk of his hips more involuntary now. "I don't want to get arrested," Pres agrees a bit hoarsely. "I'm going to end up with blue balls, though, at this rate..."

     There is the shrill alloy sound of a cellphone going off by Pres' ankles, all of a sudden...

     Loki presses his face into the bedspread, and mutters, "She's going to come looking for you if you don't answer. Isn't she?"

     He groans, falling back against the bedding. "Yeah," Pres mutters resentfully. "I can give it ten minutes and claim when I call her back that I was in the shower. Otherwise she'll call out the friggin' National Guard."

     "I wonder how hard it would be to fake a cold and just claim you need a lot of bed rest... She'd probably hover in the room. Or drag you to a hospital." Loki shifts around, leaving his head resting against Pres. "I almost wish my dad were here. They could go commiserate together about ungrateful children."

     He sighs, rubbing a hand against Loki's hip. "Be careful what you wish for," Pres answers, groaning as he begins squirming to reach for his phone. "I think mumsie said something about him being in town when they picked me up from the airport."

     Loki mutters something under his breath. It's in French, and far more religious than his usual choices in obscenities. "Maybe we can point them at each other and flee," he says, without much hope.

     "Maybe." Pres doesn't sound too hopeful. He gets his phone out of his pocket, struggling to sit up while still leaning back on his hips, erection still painfully obvious as he answers the phone. "Hello? Hi, mumsie." He rolls his eyes expressively at Loki. "Yes, mumsie, everything's fine. No, I'm not in my room, I'm hanging out with Loki. - Don't worry about where we are, yes, we're in the hotel.."

     Loki props himself up on an elbow, watching Pres. He's not cruel enough to start up anything just now, though the idly picking at the bedspread he's doing has no small amount of redirected energy to it.

     "We'll be down in a bit." Pres' voice has gone flat and toneless. "No, mumsie. No. Look - just NO, okay?" He bites off an angry retort. "I'm hanging up now, mumsie, we'll be down in fifteen minutes. Where's Maddie? What do you mean, you don't know?"
     He stares at Loki, expression one of disbelief. It's clearly meant for his mother instead. "You don't know where my sister, your daughter, the one we're here because of is, and you're bugging me because I'm not downstairs yet. Yeah, mother, maybe you should think about that. I'll be down when I'm down." He shuts the phone before he can say anything else, biting off a profanity.

     Loki says dryly, "Don't hold back on my account." He sits up, and leans over to kiss Pres, quick and on the lips, before continuing. "Tonight. She isn't going to call middle of the night, right?"

     The kiss does more to shut him up than anything else. "She won't unless it's an emergency. She knows sometimes I take pain meds to sleep through the night." Pres sighs, looking down at himself and at his frustrated erection. "We have fifteen minutes before she calls again. Hopefully she's looking for Maddie now. Goddamn it!"

     "Fast shower," Loki suggests. "You can lean on me if you want. That gives us up to twenty-five minutes, since if she calls while you're in the shower, it'll take her a few to find my room."

     "Yeah, true. Okay, let's do that," Pres agrees quickly, too quickly to have thought it through. He rolls onto the edge of the bed, hopping to get his good leg under him. "...We can look down on the unemployed."

     Loki slides off the bed right behind him, offering a shoulder for the walk to the bathroom. "Ideally."

Posted by rowan at April 24, 2009 09:00 AM