Ocean View
Pyro woke up to the sound of the waves and the feel of cool sheets scrunched up under his chin. He rolled over, reached for his lighter, saw the green glow of the clock. It was five o'clock, and for a long moment he wasn't sure if it was morning or evening, and had decided it didn't matter by the time the fog cleared from his head.
Evening, yeah. He'd come in from the beach to find nothing much to do--Magneto had been asleep again, and Mystique was lying on the deck reading a book, basking like a gorgeous blue lizard in the sun. The deck railing was high enough that you couldn't see more than people's shoulders from down on the beach. She answered his attempts at conversation with monosyllables, which he took as go away and let me read. He'd gone in to change clothes and maybe watch some TV, and the bed had been so nice and flat. He got up now and pulled on clothes.
Magneto had given him some money to go down to the beach shops, and he'd gotten a couple of T-shirts and some shorts and a pair of sunglasses with black plastic frames. It made him look like a tourist, but it was better than the clothes Mystique had found for him before they'd left the States, which had made him look like a dorky tourist. Protective coloration, Magneto had said, looking at a T-shirt with a giant shark on it, in this tone of voice that might have been laughing at him and might have been laughing at everybody else.
He went out past the other empty guest room and down the hall into the living room. He'd picked the guest room on the front of the house, with a window looking out toward the road instead of over the cliff face. He didn't like having no way out except that long drop to the rocks below. Probably paranoid, but, hey, this was the side for that, right? He could just hear what Magneto would have to say to that. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
He walked into the living room and stopped, staring out the window to the deck, and then trying not to stare, and then deciding he couldn't help it, damn it. Because it was one thing for Mystique to sunbathe naked--she was almost always naked, when you really thought about it, and Pyro certainly had--but Magneto . . .
He was stretched out next to her in the sun on the blanket spread across the deck, head down on his arms. Naked, and, sure, it was their house, and you couldn't see them from the beach, but he'd never imagined someone Magneto's age just stripping off his clothes and lying there in the sun. Mystique spread her hand out on the small of Magneto's back. He shifted position just a little under her touch, and then lay still again.
There were weird shadows across Magneto's shoulders and down his chest to his hip on one side, and then he got it that those were bruises, some old and fading to yellow, others still dark as smoke. Someone had hit him. He wasn't sure if that made him so angry because he was an old man or because he was Magneto, and he was supposed to be able to handle anybody.
Mystique lifted her head a little and said something to Magneto. He rolled over to answer her, and Pyro bit his lip at the fact that he could now see a lot more of Magneto than he'd ever expected to. And one bit he'd seen just once. He realized he was sucking on his own fingertips, and jerked his hand away from his mouth.
There were bruises along the line of his collarbone, too, and around the curve of his ribs. He smiled down at Mystique, and reached to run his thumb along her jawline. She leaned up to kiss him. It was a really long kiss. They pulled apart, and she leaned back against him. His hand came down to curve over her breast. She smiled. His other hand curved over her hip, stroking slowly. She leaned her head back, her arched neck catching the light, and spread her knees.
"Shit," Pyro whispered. He knew he should leave, like, ten minutes ago. He went around the couch and sat down instead, and then slid kind of over in a corner of the couch where he thought he might be in the shadows, because if they saw he was here . . . well, he wasn't sure what they'd do to him, but it was a long way down to the rocks.
He couldn't stop watching Magneto's hands, brushing at her nipples to make them harden, curving around her thigh, stroking between her legs.
She kept him in shadow; Pyro couldn't see more than the sharp lines of his shoulder and his arms and hands and his legs pale against her dark blue ones. She rolled to face him, her arms going around his neck, her cheek against his shoulder. Her hand slid down his bruised side, and his face tightened first with pain and then with something else. When she shifted her weight Pyro could see where she had her hand. He was getting hard under her fingers.
Pyro's own hand was in his lap. He kept it there, just kind of pressing there, because if he didn't he was going to have to go jerk off in his room, and then he'd miss it.
Magneto kissed her again, leaning over her and stroking the side of her face, running his fingers through her scarlet hair. He pulled away and they just watched each other for what seemed like a long time. He'd seen R-rated movies and he'd seen pictures in porn mags, but he'd never seen this. Magneto was looking at her, and his eyes were softer than Pyro had seen them before, the line of his mouth softening in a smile. She reached up to touch her fingers to his lips.
Magneto kissed her fingers, and then sucked on her fingertips. She laughed and said something Pyro couldn't hear. Magneto's eyes flickered to the window and then back to her face. Pyro froze, but apparently they didn't see him, because Magneto just shifted his weight to one side and began kissing her throat, hand making lazy circles on her belly. She spread her knees again, her own hand drifting between her thighs.
She was touching herself, with Magneto half-leaning on her, his hands keeping up their slow rhythm. He smiled, more sharply, and murmured something to her; she smiled in response, and their eyes met like they were friends laughing at some really old joke between them. He slid his hand down and his fingers tangled with hers. She pulled her hand out from under his and looked up at him, her smile changing to something almost but not quite like pain. His fingers moved insistently.
Pyro had never actually seen a girl get off, but he was pretty sure he was about to. Magneto leaned back and pulled her against him so she was almost lying on him, spreading her knees farther apart. She closed her eyes and shivered. He bent his head to kiss her on the temple, very lightly, and then did something different with his hand, and she bit her lip and shook and clutched at the blanket with her hands.
Magneto pulled away a little and said something with a crooked smile. Her hands on the blanket relaxed, and she turned so she could look up at him. She didn't look away, like he was the only thing she could see. She reached for him and pulled him down to her, and he rested his cheek against her shoulder for a moment, and then began moving, rubbing himself against her.
Pyro could almost feel what it must be like to be under his weight, to feel his hard-on brushing against his leg, his breath on his collarbone. If he'd been out there, he wouldn't have been able to keep his hands to himself. Right now he couldn't keep his hand still. The whole thing was way too much like a fantasy to resist, even knowing that they could see him if they looked up. But then, they so did not look like they were going to look up.
They shifted position in a way that should have been awkward but wasn't--practice made perfect, maybe, because it seemed just as easy as kissing for them to move until he was in her, thrusting in so slowly Pyro didn't see how he could stand it. She smiled like she'd seen something wonderful, and when he thrust Pyro could see just where it was going in and out of her, and Pyro made a choked noise and rubbed himself hard and came in his pants way before Magneto did.
He sat there and listened to the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears and the surf outside and watched the way Magneto looked at the end, eyes closed and head bent, mouth parting for one sharp indrawn breath; for the first time, Magneto's hands went still. He didn't pull away, just sank down on top of her, and her arms went around his neck. She closed her eyes. They were very still. After a long time, he shifted to one side, his head on her shoulder. She rested her hand in his hair.
Pyro watched them for a while longer, even though he knew they'd probably be mad about him seeing this, too. Eventually he realized that the sun had dipped below the horizon, the red in the sky rapidly fading to gray, and that he'd better get up and go change before they got cold out there and came in. He did, and then lurked in his room for a while so that it wouldn't look like he'd been anywhere near the living room.
He got hungry after a while, and decided it had been long enough that he could go scrounge in the kitchen. When he passed the window out to the deck they were still out there; they'd pulled an extra blanket over themselves and were curled against each other, apparently sound asleep. He guessed they could sleep out there, too, if they wanted to. No walls. Hell, no roof. He could see why it was what Magneto wanted. And that Mystique would do a lot more than that to make him smile right now.
While he was in the kitchen he heard them come in and go quietly up the steps to the second floor. He watched TV for a while. He was way too wired to sleep. Eventually he went out and sat on the deck, watching the stars and the way the white crests of the waves made patterns against the blackness of the ocean.
He looked up when he heard the door open. Magneto came out onto the deck. He was wearing a black bathrobe over grey pants. He was barefoot. He sat down on the edge of one of the deck chairs without a word, looking up at the sky.
"Hi," Pyro said.
"Can't you sleep?" Magneto asked.
"It's only eleven o'clock," Pyro said with a shrug.
"Ah." Magneto smiled a little.
"Can't you sleep?"
"I slept all afternoon. Now I seem to think it's morning."
"Oops."
"Yes, indeed." Magneto stretched out in the deck chair and looked up at the stars.
"It's pretty here," Pyro said.
"Very."
"I saw you earlier," Pyro said, because apparently he had a death wish. But Magneto just smiled a little and kept looking at the sky.
"Did you," he said. He didn't sound particularly surprised.
"It was weird."
Magneto raised an eyebrow at him.
"I mean--you really love her," Pyro said.
There was a pause.
"Yes," Magneto said. "What did you think?"
Pyro shrugged.
"I just never--I mean, you don't say nasty things to each other. She gets things for you at the store just because you like them. You don't talk trash about her behind her back."
"No," Magneto said. He sounded mildly shocked. "We get along very well."
"I've just never seen that."
Magneto shook his head. Pyro half-expected him to say something about "young people today," and was glad when he didn't.
"What happened to you?" he asked, before he could lose his nerve.
Magneto raised his eyebrows questioningly, and then frowned when he understood. His fingers brushed his collarbone, very lightly.
"Stryker," he said. "And his quest for truth."
"It really sucks," Pyro said. "That they can get away with anything."
"I wouldn't say that," Magneto said.
"Stryker's dead?" Pyro asked. He hadn't asked. It hadn't seemed like his problem. Magneto nodded. "And whoever else hurt you?" Magneto nodded again. Pyro nodded slowly in response.
"Okay," he said. "Good."
Magneto reached out and patted him on the arm. He could feel the warmth of his hand through the sleeve of his shirt. It felt good.
"It's cold out here," Magneto said. His eyes were gray in the darkness, the color of the water far below.
"We could go inside."
"We could," Magneto said.
They did. Magneto paused at the foot of the steps.
"Shall I come tuck you into bed?"
"Sure," Pyro said.
He climbed into bed and let Magneto pull the covers up. Magneto smiled while he did it the same way he'd smiled at the T-shirt. He still wasn't sure if it meant Magneto was laughing at him or at other people or maybe at himself.
"I'm not a little kid," Pyro said.
"I'd noticed," Magneto said. He smoothed Pyro's hair with a warm hand.
"That feels good," Pyro said, because it did. He could smell him, a faint hint of dried sweat. He turned his face to press against his hand. Magneto's hand brushed his cheek and then withdrew.
"Go to sleep," Magneto said, and went out, closing the door quietly behind him.
Pyro rolled over in bed and stared up at the ceiling. It was weirdly like the first night, when he'd lain awake thinking about what they'd just done and trying to imagine what Magneto and Mystique were doing back in their bed. Probably sleeping, he realized now. He knew how Magneto looked when he slept now, curled against her with his white hair stark against her blue shoulder.
And he should be sleeping too. He curled up in the sheets and blinked at the flare of distant headlights across the window, a car speeding down the road back past the bluff. He thought maybe in the morning he'd move his stuff into the room that looked out over the ocean. It was further away from people outside, and it really did have a better view.