Heavenly Rewards

Title - Heavenly Rewards
Author - Sabrina Cross
Archive - Yes
Category - PWP, more or less.
Rating - NC17-ish.
Warnings - Hot monkey love! M/M monkey love! If you don't like it, don't eat it, as my grandmother used to say. Still does say. Plus, there are naughty words.
Feedback - Oh, please - furrygirl@usa.net

Patience, they say, is a virtue. But so is expediency, and even a dead man's patience had its limits.

The shower'd gone off nearly ten minutes ago, and Chandler had yet to reemerge. Henry had left the toe-tapping, thumb-twiddling mildly annoyed stage and was slowly gearing up for the glowering darkly and muttering grumpily stage.

With a series of wriggles that would have amused the hell out of Chandler, had he been around to see them, Henry scooted to the edge of the bed, stood up, and peered down the hallway. The bathroom light was on, and the door was closed.

"Chandler?" Silence. "You alive in there, man?" Henry inquired with a snicker.

"You're lucky there wasn't a comedy trial in that barrage of tests, H," came the door-muffled voice of Chandler Smythe. "You'd have bombed."

"Seriously, Chandler, are you okay?"

Another silence. Then, "Define 'okay'."

With a resigned sigh, Henry tried the door, and was almost surprised to find it unlocked. Pulling it open, he was rewarded with a face-full of steam. When it cleared, he saw Chandler - NakedChandler! his baser instincts informed him - standing in front of the full-length mirror.

Staring at his reflection.

With two steps, Henry stood behind him. Their eyes met briefly in the mirror before Henry's gaze traveled over his partner's body. The millefluer patterns of bruising had all but faded - now they were little more than shadows on the flesh of Chandler's chest, neck and back, but even those ghost-wounds were enough to make Henry want to bludgeon something.

Preferably the stupid morlock motherfucker who'd tossed his partner onto the tracks like he was so much garbage.

Said morlock motherfucker being unavailable, however, Henry settled for saying quietly, with great sincerity,

"Shit, man, I'm sorry."

"What the hell for?" Chandler said, his eyes skating over Henry's reflection. "You saved my ass, Henry."

Henry smirked.

Could he resist? Probably.

Was he going to? Nah.

"And a nice ass it is, too."

Chandler rolled his eyes - the visual equivalent of a groan. "Come on, man, I'm serious."

"So am I," Henry said lecherously, then sobered. "But on the nobility scale, I think we're about even. You came back for me first."

Chandler stood very, very still for a long, suspended moment. "Well it's about damn time."

"Hey - " Henry began indignantly, but was rather effectively cut off when Chandler turned, took Henry's face in his hands, and kissed him.

Forcefully.

Thoroughly.

Completely.

For quite a long time.

"Thank you," Chandler said softly when the need for oxygen forced them to part.

"Hmm? Oh, well - thank you."

Chandler smiled. "I mean for acknowledging my noble-as-hell - and potentially self-sacrificing - actions."

"Well," Henry said. "My attention was wandering."

"Feels more like your hand wandering," Chandler commented idly, looking at his partner's hand, where it rested on his hip. Henry grinned.

"Like I said - nice ass." Henry's hand moved, and Chandler jumped, letting out a yelp.

"You did not just pinch me."

Henry blinked at him, schooling his expression into improbable seraphic innocence.

"You're right. I didn't."

"And they let punk liars like you into Heaven?"

"Security's pretty lax, I guess," Henry replied sardonically. "And the bouncer's no good."

"H?" Chandler asked after a moment of just looking at his partner's face. Studying it as if he hoped to etch it forever into his memory.

"Yeah?"

"You've got your hand on my ass."

Henry turned his head, looking downward. "Yeah," he said, as though it came as some sort of surprise. "It is. That a problem?"

"Problem?" Chandler grinned. "Nope."

"Bed?"

"Bed would be good."

***

His own ability to think quite clearly during sex had always bothered Chandler a little bit, for reasons that were somewhat vague in his mind.

Shouldn't he be too drunk with sensation to think? Was it a distraction tactic, some weird sort of self-hypnosis? An inability to ever shut up? What?

Even now, when he found himself in a situation - a position - that not many would call thought conducive,

(Namely: naked, pinned to the bed by - an equally naked - Henry McNiel, who had, for some reason, decided that Chandler's neck and ear resembled some sort of delectable late-night snack)

he could not get his brain to shut up.

Not that he was in any way unhappy with his current position - far from it.

He was thoroughly enjoying his introduction to the many and varied pleasures of Having Henry Nibble Your Neck, and he was more than happy to let Henry continue nibbling his neck - or any other bit of him Henry found appetizing - for the foreseeable future, he just wished he could shut his damn brain off for the duration and simply enjoy being nibbled on.

He couldn't, of course.

Instead, as Henry worked his way over the neck and collar bone, Chandler's brain spewed up fascnating-in-their-own-right-but-totally-irrelevant-to-the-situation bits of data such as the fact that New Zealand had more sheep than humans, and that homosexuality had been observed in geese. Well, technically ganders.

"H," he began as Henry apparently decided he'd had his fill of Chandler neck and moved on to some nice, crispy leg of Chandler.

"What?" he grumbled by way of reply.

"What kind of punishments do you think the Corps dishes out when you break the rules?"

Raising his head from his partner's thigh, Henry gave the other man a look - no, not just a look, but a Look - that said, as clear as anything, I do not want to think about anything right now, Chandler.

Nevertheless, after maintaining the Look for a few moments, he seemed to consider the question.

"Well, in the old days," he said, seeming to ruminate further. "Drawn and quartered? Nah. Keelhauling? Maybe." He punctuated each suggestion with a little kiss or nip along Chandler's hips, thighs or abdomen. "The iron maiden." Kiss. "The rack." Bite. "Thumbscrews? Or," lick, nibble, "they used to cut a hole on your stomach, about here - "
kiss, kiss, " - and pour molten lead into it."

Henry paused thoughtfully, and then sucked at the area he'd just kissed until a sizable hickey appeared. He grinned at his partner's scowl. "Lovely image," Chandler said.

"But these days?" Henry mused aloud, but still half to himself, "these days…"

He trailed off and bit down - pretty hard - at the juncture of hip and thigh, watching hungrily as Chandler's back arched and his whole body snapped into whipcord tension with a startled - if somewhat pleased - cry.

"Jesus," he gasped, a harsh, choked-off sound. "You're nuts."

"Sure am," Henry said with borderline flippancy.

"Oh, yeah," Chandler agreed. "Do you think I'd be lying here panting in anticipation of a blow job if you were sane?"

Smiling - smirking, really - Henry slithered up Chandler's body in a swift movement, almost serpentine in its fluidity.

Chandler gasped again at the feel of sweat-slick skin-on-skin, of Henry's body against his, and again he moved, arching with a feline grace that seemed totally unselfconscious and nearly involuntary, arching into that full-body caress.

Henry loomed over him, leaning down towards his mouth, but didn't actually connect.

"Panting in anticipation of what?" he asked softly, tauntingly.

"Oh, come on," Chandler said, grinning. "If you can do it half as good as you kiss I'll fuckin' pass out."

"Half as well," Henry muttered and kissed him - but it was only a tease. Mouth open, he lapped and nipped at his partner's parted lips, but each time Chandler lifted his head, trying to deepen it, Henry backed off, just out of reach, refusing to be drawn in.

Then Henry began sliding downward again, working his way down the front of Chandler's writhing body, kissing a trail over his chest, pausing at each nipple, then continuing on, nibbling down his stomach, stopping only when he reached Chandler's

(rather impressive, I must say)

erection, breathing in the musky scent of the satin skin.

Every muscle in his body tensed to the point of pain, Chandler was holding his breath, thinking that whatever unnamed punishment Deacon might hand down would be a fucking cake walk compared to this - he'd never figured Henry for such a friggin' tease…

The tease in question swoop-kissed the taut skin of his partner's hip, and Chandler groaned

(growled)

aloud. "Quit messing around, Henry," he grumbled. "Just…just fish or cut bait, okay!"

Henry stared at Chandler, and raised one eyebrow - a talent that tends to rankle those who do not posses it. Chandler did not.

"Fish or cut bait?" Henry repeated incredulously. "Did you just tell me to fish or cut bait?"

Chandler rolled his eyes. "So it's not a sweet nothing - I'm not at my best here, man - "

"A sweet nothing! You're damn right that's no sweet nothing - that's the antithesis of a sweet nothing, that's - that's a…a sour something!"

"Henry," Chandler said calmly, "you're not making any sense. And you're wandering from the point."

"And what is the point?" Henry snapped.

The look Chandler gave him, as well as the tone of voice he used when he spoke epitomized the concept of Duh.

"My blow job," he said.

After a brief pause of all speech and motion, Henry's eyebrow raised again.

"You have to ask me nicely," he said in a tone that could only be described as smarmy. He was flying on a heady sense of power, here, and he knew he'd probably end up paying for it, but it was too good to pass up. "Come on, Chan, what's the magic word?"

His partner glared at him.

"Now," he snarled.

Henry grinned. "That famous Smythe charm."

With a small shrug, Henry gave up - and went down.

The sound that tore from Chandler's throat - which would be best described as a howl - no doubt alarmed the neighbors.

***

About two hours later - quite sated - they were still in bed. Chandler was flat on his back, smoking his second cigarette. Henry lay on his side, propped up on one elbow.

"You're…pretty good at all of this," Henry said, his fingers trailing absently over the back of Chandler's hand. "Practice or natural talent?"

Chandler favoured him with a slow, sexy grin.

"Wouldn't you like to know." He put the cigarette out in the ashtray on the bedside table as Henry rolled onto his back.

"You know," Chandler said after a moment, "if this ever gets out, Deacon'll have our ass in a sling."

Up went the eyebrow. "Our ass?" Henry said. "Our asses - we've got two asses between us, Chan - "

"Oh, knock it off," Chandler grumbled. "You know what I mean. The point being: this gets out and we're toast."

"Yeah, well," Henry said comfortably, snuggling

(never figured him as a snuggler, either - Henry's just full of surprises)

closer to his partner, "tell me somethin' I don't know."

Chandler turned off the light.

"Male geese have been known to form homosexual bonds," he said.

END