I wrote this at one in the morning, so I misremembered the initial quote. The poet Bill Berkson said in an interview, "Sex is best in the morning, if possible. Then I stretch, and inspect the big window." The second one is a paraphrase from Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird, wherein she quotes her father: "This is the great tragedy of California, for a life oriented to leisure is in the end a life oriented to death - the greatest leisure of all."
Title: the ren and stimpy show (after The Scary Jokes' song of the same name)
Pairing: Paul/Tord
Warnings: sexual humor, discussion of death/suicide (kind of?), cursing, and no quotation marks. That's on purpose. :P
There's some quote somewhere that says the best thing to do once you get up in the morning is have sex in front of an open window.
Kinky, but classy. He likes it, insofar as he likes the fantasy of it, and not the nearly assured reality that either he or Paul would end up tumbling out and smashing their heads open like pumpkins on the concrete.
Tord takes another drag on his cigar and leans a little bit over the windowsill, enough to see the laundry lines gently swaying in the breeze between buildings, watch a raccoon gorging itself in the overturned trashcan in the alleyway. They'd probably both fall out together, being honest, either naturally or yanked out thanks to the same instincts that had them pushing Tom in front of grizzly bears or burning cigarette-sized holes in Yanov's sheets after the moths had skipped over him.
(How quickly seventy-five million years pass, huh?)
That established, assuming Paul fell first, could Tord reasonably survive? You know, a body to break his fall. They're only on the sixth floor of this complex, after all. He's scaled almost as high once simply because he forgot his key. No biggie - he has a hook, they have balconies.
(Though he'd need to either superglue himself into his electric arm or -)
Behind him the door wheezes as three metal locks disengage, and the door opens with Paul's loud groan of relief and heavy, stumbling footfalls before it automatically closes and the locks reinstate themselves. 6:30, a little late, but Paul still drops down into his worn-out chair to pry his shoes off, and Tord's voice asks in Dutch how his day was as Tord himself wonders about death, and Paul says, I hate these fucking people, and Tord says, What else is new?
Everything the same, everything in its place.
An unusual hollow thud that makes Tord jump ever so slightly before he forces himself to relax, thumbnail digging sharp into the callus of his index. Paul says, You got some more black boxes in the mail.
Excellent, excellent. Tord nods. It's probably the huge tentacle dildo I ordered a few weeks ago.
The one with the -? Tord doesn't need to turn to know Paul is miming twisting a new hand module into place.
Absolutely.
Oh god.
If God exists, he has long since abandoned us, he retorts absently. Tord taps off the ash from his cigar, watching the wind pick it up, thinking how long he could handle listening to "Sunshine and Lollipops" in Hell, is it possible to kill yourself there, wouldn't you just respawn?
He should take Paul to Hell. He's curious now.
There's another quote from some other guy, who really cares for authors when to be an author is to be dead? - anyway, the quote says that to live a life of leisure is to live oriented towards death, because death is the ultimate leisure.
Tord thinks of the dark layer-cake of nightmares he had to fight through last night, only to find it was two in the morning and the neighbors above them were still playing that shitty fucking trap music and still talking about their shitty lives so loudly he could hear them echoing through the bathroom vents, and thinks that death should announce a comeback tour.
He doesn't ask anymore how Paul can sleep through it all. Paul still tells him the sound of his erratic typing at four am is so oddly relaxing it makes it hard to fully wake up.
Sneakers across the floor crunching scattered draft paper, the scent of cigarettes and whiskey wafting in. But Tord only gets jealous when Paul's had a lot more, and he can tell without smelling Paul's breath that it's merely the last of his flask from the night before.
Because when he's really drunk, he sings.
(Shots on me tonight – a whiff of the cherry pie the old woman next door has placed on her own windowsill, the wind carrying more heat than scent, and Tord thinks of the great red stain it would make if it drunkenly tripped and – well, whatever happens, happens.)
Paul drapes himself across Tord's shoulders, hunching over to nuzzle his unshaven face behind Tord's ear. What cha looking at? he asks.
Tord takes another drag, turns his head so they're more cheek-to-cheek. I was just thinking - assuming you had a body under you to break your fall, but you also had a dick inside you, firstly is the fall long enough for you to lose your erection, and secondly how bad would it hurt?
How far are we falling?
From this window.
Ass first?
Technically your dick first, but yes, my ass would be a close second. I'm trying to imagine what that would feel like but all I'm picturing is that episode of Spongebob where he breaks his ass into a million pieces, except someone also came by and dumped spaghetti sauce everywhere.
Paul plucks the cigar out of Tord's hand and takes his own drag, breathing out slowly. Why are you thinking about this?
Because some rando said the best thing in life is having sex in front of an open window.
Ah, is all Paul has to say, lips heavy on Tord's jaw as he places the cigar back in Tord's unmoved hand.
You'd pull me over if you fell out, Tord adds simply.
Only because you've pushed me.
No, I wouldn't intentionally push you - you just wouldn't be able to handle my raw sexual power.
Paul nods sagely before he pulls away, leaving Tord unbalanced in the second before he sweeps Tord up bridal into his arms, rubbing their noses together with a knowing smile. And how long were you airborne last night? he asks, brown eyes glinting with mischief.
Tord can't help but laugh, pinching Paul's cheek with his two metal fingers, wrapping his legs around Paul's waist so he doesn't get dropped - not alone, anyway.
Not nearly long enough, he says, and Paul motions to throw him, telling him he can be airborne plenty out there.
Tord relaxes his nails in Paul's shoulder, almost says he prefers his spaghetti sauce to be inside him, but on second thought at least the raccoon would be happy.
Instead he lets Paul kiss him as he's held just a little bit out of the window.