Title: Conquests

Summary: Rufus and Nik appreciate how long they've been together and the advantages that that presents

Rating: PG-13 for only mildly dirty fluff

Spoilers/Timeline: Between the two books; 2002

Characters: Nikolaj, Rufus

Note: They're in lurrrrve. Also, Ru is bonkers

Conquests

It’s times like these--lying in their bed, Rufus lazing pleasurably at his side, looking rumpled and well-rutted-- that Nikolaj starts to think about all the times he and Ru have spent together doing such things.

All the times, including one of the first.

He recalls being seventeen and wrestling with Ru by the lake; splashing each other, tackling each other... They knew it would happen eventually. After dating for a year, they’d known that what other couples did, they would do, sooner or later.

It had been nearly farcical in its inevitability… a silly game that had ended in frantic kissing and fumbling, slippery exploration. They’d had to pull themselves together long enough to retreat to Rufus’ house (not quite rendered stupid enough to dare continue in public).

He remembers peeling damp clothes off both himself and Rufus with trembling fingers, but is distracted from the memory by the man he shares it with.

Rufus has propped himself up on an elbow, resting his chin in his hand, one hand tangled in his even-more-than-usually mussed brown hair. He stares down at Nik intently, one finger gently tracing over the Dane’s cheek and hairline.

Nik smiles. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing,” Ru muses, his voice quiet, but still throaty from sex. “Just… admiring.”

Nik snorts with amusement.

“What?” Rufus asks with an indignant grin. He clambers onto Nik, sitting astride his hips and putting on a look that Nikolaj thinks makes him look rather like a demented imp. “Am I not allowed to admire my conquests after I’ve ravished them?”

“Conquest?” Nik rolls his blue eyes emphatically.

“Mmm hmm,” Rufus nods, languidly stretching forward to pin Nik’s hands above his blond head.

“You look like a demented imp.”

Rufus eyes his pinned down, very naked boyfriend. “And you look like what would happen if IKEA marketed porn.”

“Berk.” Nik goads with a smile and yelps as Rufus gives his side a playful pinch.

It’s terribly satisfying, Rufus thinks with a grin, making Nik yelp.

Which is why tickling is by far one of the most useful weapons he has in his Demented Imp Arsenal. It’s one of the few things that can crack Nik’s guard. One of the few things that can reduce him to a writhing, blushing, Danish-sputtering mess—a state that Nik hates, but Rufus finds deviously appealing.

“It’s actually rather sexy, d’you know that?” Rufus had offered after one particularly brutal episode.

“And you’re actually rather lunatic, do you know that?” Nik had panted, getting his breath back, which had only made Rufus beam.

Rufus beams now, remembering, and can’t resist giving the soft spots just above Nik’s hips a few more deft pinches.

The sound that Nik lets out is sweet and sort of snuffled, not at all like his usual laugh. “Get off!” Already his voice has that edge to it; the thickening accent that makes something in Rufus’ stomach curl pleasantly.

“But it brings out the Nordic Viking in you!” Rufus grins down at Nik’s futilely kicking feet. “Sort of…”

“St-sta-ha-hop!” Nik laughs, “y-you…”

“‘Y-you’ what?” Rufus teases, digging his fingers suddenly into Nik’s ribs.

“D’yaiiiFuck!” Nik yelps and Rufus laughs. No one ever believes him when he says that Nik swears. Just like they don’t believe that Nik sometimes leaves his sensible, wrinkled business socks on the bathroom floor after he showers. Or that sometimes when Nik laughs really hard, he snorts.

And then Rufus can’t help but let up the torment, affectionately smothering his grin into the crook of Nik’s neck.

Nik tries to catch his breath beneath him, figuring, not for the first time, that Rufus is probably the only person on this planet who knows that he’s ticklish. And for an insane instant, instead of resenting the cruel advantage that presents, he appreciates that Rufus is still the only person on this planet that he’s ever been intimate enough with to figure that out.

“Mad man.” He tells Ru, who’s laughing wickedly against his shoulder. “Sadist.”

Rufus finally manages to pull himself together long enough to look Nik in the face, though he’s still smiling. “M’sorry.” He puts on his most convincing look of sobriety (that is to say, not convincing at all). “I’m sorry. Oh dear...” He observes the reddening marks his fingers had left on the otherwise pale skin of Nik’s ribs. “I do believe I’ve butchered you.”

“You shouldn’t abuse the tickling,” Nik smiles, still a little out of breath. “S’dangerous. Remember the first time you did it?”

“You mean when you punched me in the nose?” Rufus asks innocently.

“I didn’t punch you.” Nik corrects. They’d been cuddling in bed together when Ru’s thumb had slipped, prodding him in the side. He’d let out a rather undignified squawk and Ru’s face had lit up like he had been given an early birthday present. “You were…taking advantage…and I…flailed…and my fist… hit…your face.”

Rufus sniggers in a way that Nik finds oddly endearing.

“And you laughed,” Nik reminds, “… even when I took you into the bog to mop you up.”

“I’m sorry…but your face…” Ru’s grin is so wide, it’s starting to hurt a little. He can’t help it though… not when he thinks of that moment: Perched on the edge of the bathtub, holding tissues to his bloodied nose and absolutely mad with laughter as Nik peered into his face, looking worried that he’d broken some cartilage or possibly dislodged Rufus’ brainstem (judging by the way Ru was acting). His expression had been so sweet, so helpless and motherly, that Rufus hadn’t been able to keep from laughing… nor to keep from snogging Nik senseless, swollen nose be damned.

That had been five years ago-- just two seventeen-year-old boys kissing in the loo, trying not to let Rufus’ bloody Kleenex stain Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild’s bathmat.

Now in their own apartment, complete with a bathroom where they can do whatever they well please (and have… a couple of times), Rufus, too, appreciates how long he and Nik have been together. Not just shagging, but together… even only as friends when they were little boys.

Rufus’ face scrunches into an adorably confounded expression that Nik recognizes as the one he gets when he can’t, for a change, think of anything to say.

And Nik knows what he’s thinking about-- the way you can when you’ve given all of yourself to somebody.

He sits up, Ru still in his lap, finding his boyfriend’s mouth with his own. When Rufus eagerly responds, Nik marvels at how well they still fit. How all the funny curves of Ru still fill his hands. How he still gets that thrill when he realizes that that sudden, hot slick in his mouth was Rufus’ tongue. It was the same thrill he’d gotten when Ru had first dared it…when they had been scared, clumsy teenagers just trying to snog when oh my God, that was Rufus’ tongue. How Rufus still shivers when he runs his fingers over that deliciously sensitive strip of skin low on his belly, right above where the hair starts.

How wonderful and familiar and real it all still feels.

“I love you.” The words are already there, unnecessary, but he says them anyway.

“’love y-” Rufus moans into Nik’s mouth.

Nik gently pushes Ru off his lap, crawling up his body, pinning him down to the mattress. He nips at Ru’s lower lip and though Nik has never been one for revenge, the image of slowly teasing Rufus like this until he’s a wet, flushed, moaning mess squirming beneath him becomes one very difficult to resist… especially as he feels Ru melt and harden against him all at once.

He pins Rufus’ hands above his head. “I love you.” He says again, only just brushing his mouth against Ru’s. “But you are toast, min skat.”

Rufus smiles up at him a little too innocently, eyes glowing, still able to taste him. He wonders how he ever got so lucky to be with someone with such a skewed sense of payback. “Poor me.” He says as he grinds his hips up against Nik’s. “Poor, poor me.”

“Berk.”