Hello! I haven't actually posted my fanfiction to this site for over three years, but I was terribly excited to see a Peep Show section on the site (thanks, hyperStatic!), and I thought I'd show my support for it by uploading this Jeremy/Mark fic (originally posted to Livejournal). I hope you enjoy it, and I hope this section thrives.
Just to warn you: there's some sex in here, but it's not very explicit. It is also, due to Mark Corrigan's awkwardness, not very sexy.
Atypical Flatmate Behaviour
It begins, as do so many of the things that somehow boomerang around to ruin Mark Corrigan's life, with Jeremy and sex. Or, to be more accurate, with Jeremy not having sex. His latest lady love is a married woman (one might have expected him to have learnt from Elena, had one never met Jeremy before), and an unexpected return of the husband has left Jeremy sexually frustrated and very keen on informing anyone who'll listen, or indeed anyone who is forced to listen on account of living in the same flat as him.
"My balls are literally going to explode if I don't have sex, Mark," Jeremy says. "You're going to be cleaning my sperm off the kitchen wall for a week."
Mark winces. "Don't be revolting, Jez." He pauses. "And, anyway, surely you should be the one cleaning it up. Your exploding testicles; your responsibility."
"I can't clean it up; I'm rolling around in pain. My balls have just exploded."
"Well, I don't see how I'm supposed to help in the face of your inevitable testicular fate. I can't imagine you're asking me for romantic advice."
There is a pause, and eventually Mark looks up from his newspaper. Jeremy is looking at him. His expression is speculative, which is more than a little worrying; Jeremy is dangerous enough even when he isn't thinking.
"What?" Mark asks.
"Well, you're a person, right? You act like a robot a lot of the time, but you are actually a person. You've got" – he gestures, thankfully vaguely – "orifices and things."
Mark stares.
"So," Jeremy says. "Why not?"
It takes Mark a very long time to remember how to speak, but eventually he manages it. "Oh, my God, is this a come-on? Are you coming on to me? 'You have orifices'?"
"Well, you do."
"How can you think that's a remotely appealing proposal? 'Hello, I couldn't help noticing your body has places where I could potentially insert my penis; fancy a go?' 'Would you like to be a receptacle for my sperm?'"
"Look, Mark, we're both busy people," Jeremy says. He's using his 'reasonable' tone, which always means trouble. Then again, Jeremy saying anything usually prefaces disaster, regardless of tone. "You've probably got work and stuff to do, and I need to know whether I'm going to have sex tonight or whether I'm just going to have to go off and have a wank, so – "
"You're actually serious," Mark says, feeling slightly dizzy. Losing consciousness is beginning to seem more and more like the best possible conclusion to this exchange. "You are actually so sexually frustrated that you're propositioning me just for the sake of having it off with someone."
"And so my balls don't explode," Jeremy reminds him, gently.
"Your balls aren't going to explode, Jeremy," Mark says, pressing a hand to his forehead. Now that he really thinks about it (however little he may want to), this situation isn't just horrifying; it is offensive. "What, so I'm just the last resort? The fallback option? 'Nobody else in the world will have sex with me, but that's all right; there's always Mark'?"
"Don't be stupid; there are probably other people in the world who'd have sex with me. You've come in front of tons of people."
"Maybe, but only because you can't be bothered to seek them out." Perhaps, Mark thinks, rather wildly, if he keeps babbling, he won't have to think about the actual proposition.
"Oh, for God's sake."
"There are probably people in the world who'd have sex with me, but I certainly can't – " and when Mark came up with his 'just keep babbling' plan he hadn't considered the possibility that Jeremy might kiss him mid-babble.
Fuck. Fuck. Jeremy is kissing him. He's sloppy and overenthusiastic and, yes, perhaps some part of Mark is thinking it's quite nice to be kissed by someone who isn't kissing like they desperately want to get away from him, but for most of him it is just really really weird.
Maybe he should push Jeremy away. Yes, it would probably be quite a good idea to push Jeremy away.
He pushes Jeremy away and finds himself at a complete loss for the next step.
"Come on," Jeremy says, apparently unperturbed by either the kiss's truncation or the fact that they were just fucking kissing. "Haven't you ever thought about it? Not once?"
"No!" Mark splutters, because he hasn't. Has – has he?
He hasn't. Well, yes, his mind has thrown up the occasional unwanted image, because it hates him, but that can hardly be avoided when one's flatmate insists on wandering about the flat devoid of trousers, and, frequently, of pants, and oh, God, what if that was Jeremy flirting with him? Did he refuse to acknowledge Mark's requests for at least a little sartorial respectability in the home because he was hoping that Mark would be overcome by lust?
And now, of course, Mark has to wonder whether he himself was asking Jeremy to put something on not, as he previously believed, because the wanton male nudity improved neither the aesthetics nor the atmosphere of their flat, but because of some subconscious fear of his own even more subconscious attraction.
Christ. This is not the time for a sexuality crisis. Well, all right, Jeremy wants to have sex with him, so it may well be exactly the time for a sexuality crisis, but as far as Mark is concerned no time is the time for a sexuality crisis.
Even if he were gay, which he isn't, he would have higher standards than Jeremy, surely? He'd go for someone like – well. Someone like Johnson.
But, of course, Johnson hasn't outright asked Mark to have sex with him. (The idea makes Mark feel odd.)
"Mark," Jeremy says. "I understand that you like to be all weird and take seven years going 'oh, do I really want sex, the thing that everyone wants'," (which isn't true; Mark certainly doesn't like being trapped in a perpetual vortex of indecision,) "but I really do need to put my penis in something right now."
Maybe he could... do Jeremy a favour? He really doesn't owe Jeremy any favours, but... maybe? There are probably worse men to have sex with, if he has to have sex with a man.
Which, of course, he doesn't. And there is, on further consideration, a good chance that Jeremy is in fact the worst person he could possibly have sex with in the world. Well, apart from Jeff. Probably best not to go down that line of thought.
Why the hell hasn't he said 'no' yet? That's fairly damning, on the subject of sexuality crises. He's had minutes to say 'no, I'd really rather not have sex with you, thank you for the offer', and he hasn't yet.
"Forget it," Jeremy says, waving a hand and turning away, and – fuck, is that disappointment? That is not the correct response, Corrigan. Where's the relief? Well, there is relief, he can't deny that there's relief (why would he want to deny that there's relief?), but there's also – he's also – fuck it.
"Wait!" Mark blurts.
Jeremy turns around again, with the sort of smirk that usually makes Mark want to punch his face in.
Fuck.
Jeremy, not entirely to Mark's surprise, turns out not to be a great fan of foreplay. In a way, that makes this easier, because Mark doesn't have to see his face much, but on the other hand it means that the part that really scares Mark, the actually-being-shagged part, barrels up like a train.
"Are you ready?" Jeremy asks, brightly. Mark can hear his grin. It's unsettling.
"I'm not sure I'll ever be ready," Mark tells the sheets. "I've never actually done this before."
Jeremy's hand slips on Mark's bare back. "You've never done this before?"
"Is this surprising? Is this unusual?"
"Not... really," Jeremy says, doubtfully. "It's just – really? Have you never had sex with a man at all?"
"No. No, this is an entirely new experience."
"Jesus," Jeremy says. There is a moment's pause. "I suppose it makes sense; you've barely even had sex with women."
"I have had sex with women," Mark mutters. He suspects that he may sound rather petulant. "I've had sex with multiple women."
"All right," Jeremy says, taking on the air of an instructor. "You'll be fine. Just relax. You know, if it's actually physically possible for you to relax."
Mark tries to relax as much as he can, which in this situation is more or less confined to 'not hyperventilating', and makes a small noise that might be assent.
Which is how he ends up on his elbows and knees with Jeremy inside him, which is weird and uncomfortable and weird, and he should really have thought about Jeremy's history of venereal disease before he agreed to this. He's probably going to spend this entire encounter mentally forming his plan to sue Durex if the condom breaks.
And then Jeremy starts to move, and – and – and that's sort of distracting. Jeremy, friend-flatmate-bane-of-his-life Jeremy, is inside him, like he's Big Suze or Elena or – or – actually, quite possibly any woman Mark has ever known. Maybe not Dobby. Oh, God, he hopes Jeremy hasn't had sex with Dobby. Even with Mark's limited experience of being penetrated, he can already tell that he would probably be a disappointment after Jeremy.
That thought is unsettling in so many ways.
Mark makes a couple of attempts to mentally retreat into his familiar, safe war metaphors, but the entire situation is so unexpected it's as if dragons have fallen out of the sky and anally violated both sides at the Battle of Trafalgar, which isn't remotely comforting.
"You could do something, you know," Jeremy hisses into his ear.
Mark is immediately, painfully aroused. Oh, God, what if he has a Pavlovian erotic reaction whenever Jeremy speaks to him from now on? As if he didn't already have enough to worry about. He's so busy fretting that it takes him a moment to register what Jeremy has actually said. "Er, such as – what do you mean?"
"I don't know, anything," Jeremy says, still riding him (and Mark hates himself for mentally using that phrase) as if sex is a normal, healthy daily activity and not a ritual exercise in humiliation. "I might as well have cut out the middleman and just shagged the bed if you're not even going to move."
"Er," Mark says, feeling himself beginning to sweat for all the wrong reasons. This was a horrible mistake. He can hardly employ his usual 'escape your shame by avoiding the person you have sexually disappointed' strategy if he bloody lives with him.
Right. Come on, Corrigan. All he has to do is be a better shag than the bed, make this a bit less impersonal. It can't be that difficult.
He tries moaning a bit, but it sounds incredibly stupid, so he stops.
Never mind. Maybe if he just – shuffles about a little, which doesn't sound very sexy but is probably better than nothing. How is he supposed to know what to do? Is there some collective pool of sexual knowledge that everyone else in the world somehow knows how to tap into? It's probably the same reason everyone else seems to know the rules of having a normal conversation. Bastards.
His awkward shifting seems to have done something, though, because Jeremy lets out a loud moan. Mark resents him for it, because he doesn't sound nearly as stupid as Mark did, but in an odd way he feels slightly proud of himself. That is audible confirmation that Mark may not have been a complete sexual failure, assuming that Jeremy hasn't just contracted some sort of stomach upset. Mark's sexual partner is apparently enjoying himself, which isn't something Mark gets to think very often, even ignoring the unusual gender of the reflexive pronoun.
As for Mark himself...
Well. If he ignores the self-loathing and the fact that this is Jez, Jeremy, not only a man (with a penis) but the man who has ruined almost every aspect of Mark's life that Mark hasn't managed to fuck up himself, it's almost... all right. Pleasant. Enjoyable, even.
Of course, it is impossible to ignore those things, but Mark still has to admit that, even taking everything into account, this is one of the least unpleasant of his few sexual experiences.
He doesn't really want to think about what that might mean. If he doesn't overthink, though, there's nothing but the experience and Jeremy (Jeremy, God, how did it all come to this? Maybe everyone has sex with their flatmates? Maybe this isn't any weirder in society's eyes than 'oh, took them a while'?), and he can't cope with that.
He can feel Jeremy shift behind him, and suddenly there's a hand on Mark's cock and he yelps in surprise and comes all over the bedsheets. And, yes, it's been a very long time since Mark has actually achieved orgasm during sex, so that's nice, in a way, but he did just wash the sheets yesterday and he's sure Jeremy's forgotten to buy detergent.
He really didn't think this through.
When it's over, Mark is expecting Jeremy to bugger off and leave Mark to salvage the last frail shreds of his self-respect from the raging torrent of shame, a task made no easier by the fact that the actual experience was better than he had been expecting, but instead Jeremy flops on the bed next to him and grins into his face. Mark manages to hold eye contact for almost half a second before he has to roll onto his back.
"Thanks," Jeremy says, patting him on the arm. "You're a good mate, really."
Mark doesn't know what to say to that. The more he thinks about it, the more convinced he becomes that, no, having sex probably isn't just what flatmates do. His friendship with Jeremy, a bad idea from the start, is now more twisted than ever, and he'd set to work trying to repress the entire incident if Jeremy weren't making it rather difficult by sprawling nakedly on the covers next to him.
Lying rigidly and staring at the ceiling, Mark surreptitiously slips an arm over the edge of the bed and feels about for some clothes. All he can find is one sock. He sneaks it under the covers and pulls it on. He feels safer.
Minutes pass. The silence means that Mark has nothing to do but mentally self-flagellate, and he makes a soon-to-be-regretted inward wish that Jeremy would say something.
"I was thinking about you when I was fucking your sister," Jeremy says, abruptly. "Did I tell you that?"
"Oh, God."
"I mean, it's not like it was deliberate or anything. It was just hard not to."
"Please, Jeremy," Mark says. "Please, just – stop talking."
"She was just like you. A better-looking you, obviously, but still you. I was literally shagging you."
"You don't mean 'literally'," Mark says. Semantic pedantry: the last refuge of a man trapped in the world's most horrifying conversation. "'Literally' means it actually happened."
"It did actually happen," Jeremy points out, unhelpfully. "I mean, not then. Not at the same time. That would be weird."
Mark makes a tiny noise. He thinks he is probably going to cry.
"Anyway, that was all right," Jeremy says. "You're not as awful as I thought you'd be."
Which isn't brilliant, as praise goes, but is probably better than anything Mark could have hoped for. "...thanks?"
"We should do this again some time."
"Er," Mark says, his train of thought screeching to a halt for approximately the thirtieth time this evening. He can't have said that, surely. Nobody ever wants to have horrendously awkward Mark Corrigan sex a second time. "Do you mean – would we be – in a relationship?"
"We are in a relationship," Jeremy says, rolling his eyes. "We've been basically married for, like, a million years. I'm just saying our marriage should have less repression and more lovely sex."
Mark's conviction that their marriage is never going to have less repression aside, this is a terrible idea. This is the worst idea anyone has ever had. Not long ago, accepting Jeremy's initial proposition held that crown, but apparently its victory was to be short-lived. If Mark has any sense at all, he'll say no. Actually, if Mark has any sense at all, he'll devote the rest of his life to developing a time machine and going back to kill Jeremy before they ever met.
"Maybe," Mark hears himself saying. "I mean – I think that could be... all right?"
Great. Abso-bloody-sodding-lutely brilliant. Evidently, the misery of living with Jez and the misery of Mark's attempted relationships with women simply haven't been enough, so his latent desire for self-punishment has ingeniously combined the two into a scenario that is guaranteed to leave him a huddled, sobbing pile of hopelessness on the floor. Just another volume in the Mark Corrigan Sabotages His Life series: one that will take four hundred pages just to enumerate all the reasons why this is a bad idea, make the Booker Prize shortlist primarily by virtue of its enormous length and eventually be disqualified for what the judges will call 'unrealistic' levels of unremitting bleakness.
"Wicked," Jeremy says.