by Josan
He came down the stairs, yawning, rubbing his stomach through the shrunken
black t-shirt he wore with the matching beginning-to-bag sweat pants.
He stopped at the door, opened it to find the usual pile of Sunday papers.
Once, he thought as he stooped to pick them up into his arms, he would have
found only the Washington papers there. No more.
He ambled into the kitchen, reading the headlines on the top one. The usual
stuff, he thought, dropping the papers on the table.
Coffee.
Coffee had to come first.
No use doing anything without coffee.
He filled the pot, scooped out the appropriate quantity for coffee as he
liked it—strong.
As the coffee dripped, he took his time rinsing out the large thermal
carafe, filling it with hot water to prepare it for the first pot of the
day.
He served himself a large mug of the Hawaiian roast, dragged a chair out
from under the table with his foot, sat and, sipping happily, started going
through the Washington Post.
He was into the sports section when another body suddenly appeared in the
kitchen.
Alex still didn't make noise when he entered a room. After all this time,
Walter no longer expected it, though it had taken some getting used to at
the beginning.
Alex and he said nothing. Morning was not a time for talking for either of
them.
Alex poured himself a coffee, passed his hand on Walter's shoulder by way of
greeting and took his usual place, back to the counter.
Walter glanced up from the football results. Alex was his usual sartorial
morning self: wash-greyed t-shirt with the ripped collar, misshapened
sweats that Walter had tossed out weeks ago, only to have them pop up again
in Alex's part of the laundry. Mind you, thought Walter, they added a
certain je-ne-sais-quoi to the tousled hair and the morning beard.
Alex was immersed in Le Monde when another set of footsteps could be heard
coming into the room.
Neither man looked up from his paper, ignoring the newcomer. This one, they
had learnt to their peril, was even less of a morning person than they were.
At least until the second cup of coffee.
Still, Alex had to push. Just a little.
As a long leg stood by him, hand steadily pouring coffee into a mug, Alex
wrapped his arm around the leg so that his hand was in position to slip
slowly under the shorts until his fingertips found the soft thigh skin just
near the balls. And then stroked just the slightest so that the gesture
produced a reaction in the faint twitch of a cock that had experienced more
than its fair share of last night's work-out.
Walter said nothing, pretending to be reading, all the while watching to see
how the other man would handle Alex's invasion.
There was a soft clearing of the throat.
Alex looked up, innocently.
Into a pair of unimpressed, cold, grey-blue eyes.
John raised the still open carafe, threatening to pour the hot coffee over
Alex's head.
With an even more innocent expression, Alex's hand suddenly reappeared to
turn the page of his newspaper.
John replaced the carafe on the counter and went to sit opposite Alex. He
rummaged among the papers until he found the New York ones and pulled them
to him.
The three men sat drinking their coffee, quietly reading.
Author's note: No, the John is not John Byers.
alter was the first down.
