Something Involving Nuts
Also posted as part of a charity event in 2017
Set after the events of The Imp and Mr. Sunshine but before The Wolf in the Garden or The Dragon’s Egg . It’s really a part two to the previous story.
Summary: Rennet is feeling anxious. And a bit horny. But mostly anxious. m/m
“Rennet.”
John’s tone was oh-so-careful. Not mad, but careful . “Rennet, is the water not working, or is the sink broken?”
Rennet poked his head around the dividing wall between the kitchen and the living room. John was at the entrance to his bedroom, wearing a towel around his waist and nothing else. He’d bothered with the towel possibly on the off chance that they weren’t alone, which had happened once or twice. Daphne hadn’t minded the view, but the mailman had just been uptight. Everyone else usually worked for John and made scandalized noises before averting their eyes.
Averting their eyes was a crime, as far as Rennet was concerned. His human was a fine figure of a man at almost fifty. Rennet took a moment to appreciate the body on display, but stopped when John sighed. “Rennet.”
“What?”
Rennet gave him the most innocent look he could muster. “I can’t help it.”
“I’m almost fifty years old,”
John complained, albeit mildly. “I know that’s nothing to you, but it’s a lot to us humans.”
“Please. Humans live to be a hundred these days. I think it’s the city sewage systems, honestly. Everyone takes them for granted, but they wouldn’t if their toilet was the river that was also their source of drinking water. Shit is a serious issue.”
John studied him for a moment. Then he somehow got even more mild, which was his best talent after intimidating people through quiet cleverness, and the way he gave head. He leaned on the doorjamb, with one hand lazily holding up his towel. “First of all, I was in the Army. I’m fully aware that shit is a serious issue. Secondly, is this your way of telling me the toilets aren’t working either?”
“They would be,”
Rennet shrugged, “if the water wasn’t shut off to the entire house.”
John didn’t even blink. “ETA on the water being back on?”
“Ten minutes or so, if I can fix the kitchen sink by then. Something is blocking it.”
Rennet hummed. He was totally innocent. Totally. He was a babe in the woods. A lamb in the springtime. A virgin in a whorehouse.
Which… probably wasn’t the model he should go with here.
“I’ll call Margery, tell her I’ll be a little late.”
Unaware of Rennet’s internal idiom debate, John answered him with a similar shrug, then disappeared into the bedroom, probably to get his cell phone.
Rennet watched him go before swinging around to face the sink. He cracked his knuckles and then his neck before opening his toolbox. Then, wrench in hand, he got down beneath the sink. He’d already removed the boxes of trash bags as well as the jars of vinegar and furniture oil that Yvonne used to clean the house. The sink trap was the most likely culprit for whatever was going on. Hopefully, Rennet could take care of it before anyone could question why the sink would suddenly get blocked.
“Why did the sink suddenly get blocked?”
John inquired smoothly from much closer than he’d been before.
Rennet flinched and bumped his head on a pipe. It didn’t really hurt, but some sympathy would have been nice. Not John’s silence… which meant John was suspicious. Possibly because Rennet was jumpy.
He looked over, saw John—well, a towel and John’s legs—in the doorway, and his tail thumped against the floor, not at all like a guilty dog’s.
“Um.”
Rennet focused on loosening the nuts on the pipe while internally sighing over the jokes he would have made about this back in the day when he’d first met John. Getting ogled by a client while doing jobs around the house had been surprisingly nice, a first for Rennet in all his years. He wouldn’t have minded some porn dialogue to go with it. “I’m hurt, John. Hurt. Here I am, in my underwear, performing manual labor on my back for you, and you didn’t even notice.”
“Those are my boxers you’re wearing.”
John’s voice was steady. “That tear near the bottom is from your teeth.”
“Also, my underwear comes in colors, and sometimes has pictures on it.”
Sometimes it had lace on it too, but only if Rennet was feeling it and if John had done something to deserve it. Really, Rennet would wear panties for him any day, and dance for him too with all the moves Destiny had taught him, but Rennet liked to keep things lively. And possibly in the back of his mind was a small fear that John would someday get bored with him if he did those things too often.
“Are you implying my underwear choices are dull?”
It was impossible to tell what John was thinking from his voice, or his legs.
“Oh, I’m saying it.”
Rennet had put a bowl on the floor earlier, and he held it under the trap to catch any leftover water as he pulled the pipe away. “I don’t mind the plain colors, but cotton? If there was ever a man who could pull off silk shorts outside of the 1920s, it’s you.”
“Rennet, you’re the only one pulling off my shorts. If you think they’re boring, I’ll get new ones.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Rennet stopped, then wriggled out from under the sink without using his hands, which were currently holding the bowl and the P pipe. He stared up at John. “I don’t think they’re boring. You could wear polyester pants to bed and I’d still want to pull them off you.”
“Thank you for that.”
John seemed uncertain at that answer, but smiled anyway. “At least you wouldn’t steal polyester pants.”
“Ha.”
Rennet fake-laughed at him. “Clearly you haven’t seen pictures of me from the 1970s.”
The delight that took over John’s expression was positively evil. “Where are they? Does Kaz have them? I’m going to call him later.”
Rennet narrowed his eyes. “ Anyway ,”
he moved on, loudly. “We can’t all be a hot piece like you in all our old pictures.”
“Your look in the ‘50s was better than you think. We should get you another leather jacket.”
John licked the side of his mouth. “And I always like you in uniform.”
“I’ll wear that the day I get you in silk shorts.”
Rennet considered. “In your office,”
he added, to make it more interesting.
“We got caught in my office last time.”
John was not objecting.
“By Margery. That doesn’t even count.”
She’d known they were in there and what they’d been up to. She’d just been pissed that John was ignoring the buzz of the intercom. Cockblocking wench. Rennet had gotten her back by not stopping what he’d been doing. “Also, you were being loud.”
John was unfazed. “You were grinding your panty-clad ass on my lap, in my new chair, in my new office. Of course I was being loud.”
“You deserved a reward, Mr. Mayor.”
Rennet hummed. People had elected John as their mayor despite him living with Rennet… being engaged to Rennet, although most people ignored that. Including Rennet, because it made his tail whip around whenever he thought of it. Kaz, of course, thought it was fucking hilarious that Rennet would be nervous. As if human-being, male-male weddings happened all the time, and they happened to Rennet . John was incredible and he wanted Rennet, even with all the trouble, maybe because of the trouble too, and it was so… it was just…. Looking at John was like…. “Fuck.”
Rennet closed his eyes. He was too old for this.
“Your boxers are tenting,”
John remarked evenly. “Sorry, my boxers are tenting. My dull, boring, plain, cotton boxers.”
“You aren’t boring!”
Rennet snapped and opened his eyes. John blinked, a sign that Sunshine was startled. Rennet took a breath, but didn’t lower his voice. “You aren’t boring. Not to me. Not ever. I’m half dressed, fucking fixing the sink in your underwear, making you late for your very important job, and you haven’t batted an eye. You aren’t boring. You’re… kind of the best.”
“Half dressed is a little optimistic, don’t you think?”
John took a step closer to him. “Half-naked seems more accurate. Those boxers are getting thin.”
Rennet huffed and sat up. “I noticed, Rennet,” John went on. “I always notice. You look like a porn star on a normal day when you’re fixing something. In just boxers under a sink, I expected you to make a comment about laying some pipe.”
“I was thinking something involving nuts, actually.”
Rennet grinned crookedly and tipped his head back to make it easier to look at John. “I could get my tool belt.”
“Or, you could finish that and we could go back to bed, since I’m going to be late anyway.”
The purring quality to John’s voice wasn’t like the sound a cat shifter made, but it was still animal. Sunshine was a little wild beneath the surface, but Rennet already knew that and knew it well.
“Really?”
Rennet shouldn’t have asked, but it slipped out.
John lifted an eyebrow. “‘Really,’ what? Do you not want to? That’s fine. But you’re half hard and on your back for me, and I’m practically fifty, but my dick isn’t feeling fifty this morning, so, if you wanted to mess around….”
“Yes. I, uh, yeah.”
Rennet wasn’t in his youth anymore either, but aging was different for humans. “Yes, but, really? I mean, I know you liked it when I fixed things, but we’ve done handyman stuff. We could do plumber stuff if you want.”
“Rennet…”
John started, then stopped. He tried again. “Have you been worrying that I’m bored with you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “I should have known. That explains your obsession with getting me to wear silk—you’re deflecting.”
Rennet squirmed. “What? So? No. What’s deflecting?”
John came over to kneel down next to him. “You aren’t a handyman I’m screwing on the side. You’re my husband, Rennet, or you will be as soon as I get them to change that stupid law—where’s your ring?”
And now there was concern in Sunshine’s voice.
Wordlessly, Rennet upended the P pipe over the bowl. Water splashed out, followed by a small circle of gold.
John nodded slowly. “I see.”
“I was going to make coffee.”
Rennet heaved a breath. “Then we were out of grounds, so I went to get the grinder and the beans, but I needed a spoon. So I opened the silverware drawer and a butter knife was stuck in there wrong or something, and it popped out. Which scared me—uh, startled me. I wasn’t scared. But I, uh, spilled beans all over the counter, which I had to clean up, right? Long story short, we’re out of half and half, I found leftovers from three weeks ago at the back of the fridge, gross, but the counter is all clean. Then I had to wash my hands.”
“Rennet.”
John’s shoulders were shaking. He was laughing, the asshole. “Rennet, what happened?”
“The top came off the soap dispenser, and my hand got too slippery. And when I rinsed it off, the ring just… went right in the drain,”
Rennet finished, and put the pipe down with a grunt of displeasure.
“There are two of those rings in my bureau.”
He could feel John watching him as he spoke. Then John took the bowl from him and poked around until he got the ring on the tip of his finger. “You lost two, then found them, so we saved them. You didn’t need to panic over losing this one.”
He studied the ring in question for a moment, then wiped it off on his towel and held out his hand. “Gimme.”
Rennet raised his hand with a stupid feeling in his stomach and sizzling heat in his face. John slid the ring back into place but didn’t let go of him. Sometimes, he made Rennet feel like a kid again, but better. He tried to tease to cover up the fluttering in his chest. “You really like seeing me with that on, don’t you? Kinky.”
“There is absolutely nothing kinkier,”
John agreed. “Which is why I’d like my husband-to-be to finish up in here so I can take him to bed, strip my boxers off him, and fuck his brains out. If he’d like that.”
“ Sunshine .”
Rennet stared as John got to his feet and the towel mysteriously did not go with him. “This is so respectable. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”
His tail wrapped around John’s ankle. “I thought you wanted me to fix the sink first.”
“I wanted the water back on first. I don’t care about the sink.”
John paused, then frowned. “Wait, why did you shut off the water to whole house? Why not just the sink?”
“Well, I was…. That is….”
Rennet felt his wings droop. “I was worried something might happen.”
As John had correctly guessed, Rennet had been anxious about John truly wanting to marry him and still desiring him. Not a huge amount, but enough that it would make more things happen than usual, more than his normal amount of chaos. If there was a normal amount; chaos might have its waves and fluctuations like everything else. “I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve never fixed a sink before. But I wanted to be sure. So I shut off everything.”
“Well, something did happen,”
John corrected calmly. “You made me late for work. Margery won’t be expecting me for at least another hour. Whatever will I do with all that time?”
Rennet peeked up, then gave him a coy glance. “Take your fiancé to bed and fuck his brains out?”
he suggested.
“Water back on first,”
John reminded him, sensibly, then held out a hand to help pull Rennet to his feet.
“Are we sure this isn’t the sexy plumber fantasy?”
Rennet wondered, and got a smack on the ass for it as he walked away.
The End