You haven't heard his voice. Not really. There's grunts - pain, pleasure, frustration, acknowledgement. Sighs, hums. Once a laugh, but it wasn't happy - humourless, brought about when you two shared a pipe and someone told a bad joke. You don't remember what it sounded like. Might have been handsome. Might have been scratchy and harsh on the ears. You don't remember.

You asked if he was mute, and Jacket said no. You asked if he was ever going to talk, and Jacket said no. And at that point, you stopped asking. You don't make habits of beating your head against brick walls, and at times, that's what Jacket is like. Impenetrable and nondescript. Silent. Kind of depressing. Really depressing. He looks around at the colours in your bedroom like he's never seen them sometimes. All yellow and pink with black zebra carpet that sticks out, pops a little louder. Maybe it's for the best you never get the chance to see what his place is like.

But he likes it. You think he likes it. He has a spot on your bed he sits on every time, leaning back against the headboard and slouched against the wall. Doesn't settle himself between the pillows, even if you're eventually just going to pull him down there. But - you take your place over him. Feels good, and you haven't even kissed him.

Jacket's eyes are heavy. They're sunken and tired and hang heavy on his gaunt face. You push your nose against the inside of his cheek to tilt his head back, and he does it for you. Cigarettes and whatever it was you shared earlier in your living room. Like tongue kissing a dream.

His mouth falls open for you. You hold his bottom lip with your teeth, and you kiss him with purpose while you slip your arms around him. It feels weird when he doesn't touch back right away, like he's letting himself be pulled and moved until he can find it in himself to reciprocate. You get the impression he isn't sure he's allowed to. It's all in the cues he tries to hide; the way his elbows press against your side when his arms are up but his hands wait to touch you. The way he doesn't kiss back until you're pushing his head into your psychedelic pillows, finding what you want yourself.

Pencil. Fence post. He's so fucking wiry you're surprised he's managed to do all the things he's done. You're larger, just enough that your frame covers his when you finally pull him onto his back, leading him with a heavy kiss that wants with tongue. Jacket doesn't know how to do that, but he lets your tongue break him open so you can show him. His breath is warm on your cheeks and yours is the same on his. You twist your body so when you lower your weight into him, your hips hit him first.

You can feel the outline of his legs in his jeans, the vague shape of his dick pushed against yours. Your hands are wide with short fingers, and his are long like spindles. You pull apart his belt and then shove your hand down, enough force to make it mean something. He knows you want to fuck him. It just means something when you're actually touching him.

Jacket looks down between you two. You can feel him tense, like he's hesitating again. It's not something you can crack. You're not a patient enough person, but saying it like that gives the wrong idea. You aren't patient. But - you still notice it. And it still rubs you the wrong way when he denies himself. Are you really that accepting of what you are, what you've become?

"S'alright," you insist, with a brush of your mouth against his cheek, close to his ear. "You good?"

He nods against you.

"Push me off if you're not into it anymore."

There's not much space for your hand and his dick inside his pants. It's hard to twist your wrist, but the pressure and constriction makes Jacket open his legs farther, breathe in through his nose a little sharper, and tips his head back for you to look at. You grin against his cheek and then meet his face with yours. He looks you in the eye when you pull him out of his pants. You keep the grin when his eyes shut when you press your thumb against the head. Averting his eyes from the kind of look that says you want to rail him. You don't like beating around the subject. Hopefully, he likes that in you. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't let you lead him into your bedroom every so often.

Jacket's hands aren't soft. Yours aren't either, but the blow is eased by your gloves, which you took off ages ago. It's all skin against skin while you coax his dick to attention in your hand, pushing your mouth against his throat and mouthing on the memory of marks from before. Jacket's hands are up your back, over your arms, testing every corner to find what he wants. Maybe he's looking for what feels the best to hold. You give him some kind of hard squeeze thinking about that, and Jacket's breathing sharpens like ice.

You don't have a belt on. Pushing your own jeans down is easy, letting go for just a few seconds to shuffle out, but your underwear stays. Oversight. You don't wait to pull Jacket in, bring your weight against him, chest against chest and arms around his back and waist inside the lining of the varsity. Hips into hips. You groan into his shoulder and his voice rolls over your back, into your room, like a smoke cloud. He finally can push into you, wire against brick as he looks for that kind of weight again. His jeans push up between the two of you and the zipper scratches your thigh. Breaking apart to take everything off is the longest couple of seconds. Your shirt is on, the vest isn't anymore. Jacket loses his jeans and undergarments. He looks at you like he's caught between arousal and a different thought. Hazy and in between. That's the kind of people you two are. Or maybe that's just Jacket.

You hold him by the hips when you go back in, hard and rough. Your hips are harsh and you grind into him like he's your purpose, like each shaking breath is yours to take in. You don't know if this is what you should have with him. The thought breaks into your mind like a hole in the glass. You don't know, suddenly, if you should want him so bad.

You shut the thought up by kissing him and pushing up with your next hip roll. Jacket groans. You want to fuck him. He wants you to fuck him. That is what you are going to think about.

Again, you part. This is to prepare yourself. You brush your hair out of your face for a moment to watch him while you reach to your bedside drawer, filled with shit for this. He watches your hands, and watches how you stroke yourself. Eyes wide. Mind elsewhere. You frown and you keep touching yourself.

"Hey," you ask again, "Ready?"

It brings him back. He looks at you. He seems surprised you have a second eye after all. He nods.

You take your time, because you mare Jacket's eyes roll back into his head and his body relax around you. You hold his legs apart for him and push, and you feel a heaving breath break through your lungs from how good it feels. Jacket. Fuck. Jacket. When you're inside him, when he is everything you feel against your thighs and skin and hands, you lean forward.

You fuck him. Hard.

One hand grips his side and the other curls into a fist by his short blond hair, supported on your arm while you push forward, deep, then back again. Your mouth reaches his jaw and cheek and you form an open mouth kiss while you breathe, sloppy and already falling apart. You can feel him breathe with his mouth by your ear, you can feel each sharp breath in when you pound into him and push him farther into bed. You feel each tense muscle and each roll forward, each twitch in the hand that grips on to your plain white shirt to keep you close. You're louder, with grunts into Jacket's shoulder that are humbled by his varsity, but you can still feel the way he hitches, and shudders, and his knees in your side.

Between your rags of breath and mounting desperation, you're saying his name before and after every curse. Jacket. Fuck, holy shit, Jacket, c'mon, oh god, Jacket. It never hits you that isn't a name. It can never reach you when you're like this, pressed against him and breaking him in two. Jacket. Jacket. Yes, oh my god, Jacket, Jacket.

Jacket, handsome and heaving Jacket, is all hard breaths and harder groans. He draws you in, rolling his head away and giving you more neck to bury yourself into. Breathing in then grunting out, betraying his hesitation with a deep groan in his throat. You've always been louder when it's you two. He's quieter. Begs through action and keeps his voice to a minimum. He breathes in your ear and you feel his hands twist in your shirt, like he's starting to fall apart. And when you feel that, you push on your knees to get to a deeper angle, bringing his legs up a little higher.

Jacket groans a heavy "Lieutenant" quietly against your shoulder when he comes.

Like the epiphanies and revelations before, you don't register it when you're busy. It sits in your brain and you feel it take up space when your own pace breaks, feeling your finish rush out of you with a stiff back. You roll inside of him a few more times, each more sober than the last, until you settle. You pull out only when you then realize, and mask it as your heaving breath.

You lay down next to him. On your side, but you don't want to - yes, you do. You do want to touch him, but you don't want to move. You try to think, but the haze of sex clouds you just enough that you can only remember what his voice sounds like. A whisper doesn't hold much of a voice, but it was rough. Smoke worn. Said a name. Military rank. It tells you everything you need to know.

You roll on your side, and his back faces you. The brown and gold of his varsity looks at you, and you wonder why you didn't help him out of that. Idly, you fix your hair, lifting your head off the pillow and looking around. Your room is the same, but it's larger. Uncomfortably so. Like there's more inside that there should be. You don't know what you should do. Maybe cover Jacket's eyes.

You don't touch him, though. You don't touch him until he rolls on to his back and stares at the ceiling. Your eyes roll down to the mess he made on the lower half of his shirt, but he doesn't seem to notice. He doesn't notice you staring at him. He only keeps his eyes on your ceiling. You settle a little closer, chin against his shoulder.

Your hand eventually, cautiously, reaches over to his other shoulder. He doesn't react. If he wasn't blinking, maybe you could trick yourself into believing you were fucking some boy shaped object. Maybe a creature. Maybe a dead body. Something you could grab and fuck and grunt against without it saying anything after all. Jacket allows you to rest your head against him, but doesn't move, and you don't say anything either.