Keep Calm and Ship TenSimms

halorvic:

Presented without comment.

“John…” Called man closed his eyes. Oh, how he loved it when the first word out of his lover’s mouth in the morning was his name. Calmly he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, turned away from the beautiful sight of London that he was watching from his balcony, and to the beautiful sight of the man who was resting in his bed. David had obviously just woken up, he opened his eyes and stretched out his arm to pull someone close to him who wasn’t there. David opened his mouth to ask for him again, but John was a bit faster.

“Here I am”, he said affectionately and David turned in his bed, now facing the opened balcony door and the man on it. With a slight chuckle, John noticed that David’s hair was all messed up, sticking up in the air and also to his forehead. David held himself up on his elbow and looked at John lovingly. Was it the sleepiness in his eyes or was his look a bit disappointed?

“Good morning, love.” David yawned and smiled at him.

“Mornin’, David” John nodded and put the cigarette into his mouth again, inhaling and letting out smoke.

“Come back to bed” David murmured and patted the empty space on the bed next to him.

“Wait a bit, I’m just going to finish this one.”

David sighed. “You know, I really don’t like when you smoke” he said after some time had passed.

John closed his eyes again but this time not in pleasure. He had known that non-smoker David disliked his habit, but this was the first time he had told him openly. It somehow seemed way more real now and way more dangerous, in a weird kind of way.

“It tastes disgusting, it smells disgusting and it just… is disgusting!” David started to ramble.

John knew it would be hard to talk his way out of this uncomfortable conversation. “David.”

“And I just… John, I don’t want you to get all sick and smelly because of those silly little things.”

John, knowing he shouldn’t provoke his lover more, pressed his cigarette out in the ashtray that was fixed to the railing and stepped inside again. “Listen”, he said and sat down on the edge of the bed. “This is a bad habit of mine, I admit that. But, David, it’s just me, the smoking is part of who I am.” It was a weak defense, John knew that, but maybe David would just accept it and move on.

And David did. A bit taken aback by John’s statement, he lay down again, pulled the blanket close to his face and shrugged. “If you say so” he mumbled.

John pressed his lips together. “Thank you” he said and let his hand glide through David’s hair. “I’m going to make us some breakfast.” Relieved, he left the bedroom.

But David’s words didn’t leave his ears, even days after this particular morning. His brown haired lover wouldn’t mention his bad habit anymore. He wouldn’t say a thing whenever he caught John smoking but there always was a glint of disappointment in his eyes, a hint of sadness.

John loved his smoking, it made him feel safe and protected. It brought a little regularity in his stressful life. But he also loved David. And he knew how David felt about the habit. Since the Scottish actor was, if anything, only a coffee addict, having been raised to be a good sinless boy, it was only natural for him to be against smoking. Of course, he had been naughty enough to have fallen in love with John in a bar, having drunk a wee bit too much alcohol – he had also been naughty enough to have landed in John’s bed pretty soon afterwards. But this was still different. For some inexplicable reason, David loved every single one of John’s bad habits and shared them to some extent. Except for the smoking. David hated it really much. And John knew it was egoism on David’s part, that David didn’t like his clothes to be stinky, his flat to be stinky and his boyfriend to be stinky. But a bit of worry was there as well. A worry that John might get sick, that he might die because of the cigarettes.

John thought that was rubbish.

But he really did love David and wanted to do something for him, something big, something the skinny geek wouldn’t even expect. A surprise.

And when David announced he wouldn’t be there over the next weekend, John saw his chance.

“You sure you don’t want to come with me? Mom and dad would love to see you again” David said while throwing his backpack carelessly onto the backseat of his car.

John smiled and shook his head. “No, no, I have lots to do, so better not.”

David nodded. “Okay then, but I’m going to miss you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. You have your father to fool around with the whole weekend” John said seriously and earned himself a cuddle from David. With a peck on the cheek, his brown-haired lover said goodbye and, grinning to himself inwardly, John waved him out of his parking spot and watched him disappear round the corner of the street. Then he ran into the house. Full of determination he collected his cigarettes out of every pack or jacket and threw them all away. Five minutes later he picked them out again, deciding to approach the hill slowly. He knew that he could do the detox alone, he had enough self-control. When the need for a cigarette got unbearable, he would just smoke one. Slowly, the intervals between two cigarettes would get longer and longer, and one day he could stop smoking completely. David would be satisfied and they could live happily ever after. The plan seemed perfect.

But two hours after David’s departure John realized that it was not perfect at all. His need for a cigarette was already there again and all he could do to distract himself was to watch boring documentaries on telly. The clock seemed to go slower and slower.

After three hours the need to eat added itself to John’s need to smoke and to forget the cigarettes he went to the kitchen and looked through the fridge. Four times. And every time he looked there was nothing there but a pack of butter, milk and beer. Shit. He’d have to go shopping then.

The hours went by. At two o’clock he smoked his first cigarette of the day – the ravioli he had eaten for lunch hadn’t helped much. But the little cigarette did. Satisfied and with new determination, John made the bed, did the washing up and even practiced a bit the guitar. At seven, he came from the shower and smoked his next cigarette, which disappointed him a bit. He went to sleep early, having got more and more nervous over the time.

At the end of Sunday, John was a wreck. He hadn’t known that he was as addicted as he was. In a dash of nervousness, he had rearranged all his DVDs in a different order, just to arrange them back again when he didn’t like the color scheme. That had made him even more nervous, because he had wanted to surprise David with his detox when he came back, not with his sudden insanity. At about 4 o’clock John had taken his cigarettes out on the balcony, smoking two of them in a row. Now he knew he had imagined the whole detoxing-stuff way too easy. Sighing, he sat down on the bed.

Shifting in the covers, he woke up. A quick look at the alarm clock told him it was 9:16 pm. But… Swiftly, he got out of bed. He would never cover himself in a blanket when he was sleeping. So that would mean – David was at home. And really, when he went into the living room, a well-known face smiled up at him from the couch. “Good morning, sunshine” David said and turned off the TV.

“David! It’s so good to see you… I look awful, don’t I?” John asked.

“A bit” David replied and eyed John sympathetically. “You never sleep during the day, what happened?”

John pressed his lips together. “I tried detoxing but it didn’t work out. I smoked less, just 4 the whole weekend, and it was horrible. I thought I could make it alone but I can’t. Would you… help me?” he finished, quite lamely in his opinion.

There was a pause, in which David’s eyes got bigger and his smile did the same, until finally he jumped up from the couch, hugging John tightly. “For me!? You honestly—- for me!?”

John nodded and kissed David affectionately.

“I’ll help you”, David said after the kiss, tugging John down onto the couch and kissing him more and more. “Thank you so much!”

John couldn’t help but grinning. What he couldn’t do alone, he surely could with lovely David at his side.

———

please forgive me for mistakes or other weirdos that snuck into this fic :)