Jasper woke up, looked at his wand on the nightstand and reached his hand out for it habitually, then drew it back, sighing. He turned on his pillow and watched Cal, still asleep despite the early morning filter of sunlight coming through the cracks in the blinds. This was going to be, quite possibly, the longest day of his life.

It had all started at Groucho Club, which he was swearing off of after this bloody debacle. Cal should have been at his lab all night, finishing up whatever secretive things he did for that Veela woman, so Jasper assumed it was safe to have some alternative company, specifically the new face of Givenchy for spring. Which had gone remarkably well until--

"Jas, hey--oh, f--k, God--" Door slam. Cal did have a knack for timing, it seemed. He'd told the girl that he was an eccentric business associate. Thankfully she hadn't been so terribly bright, or possessed of an especially low threshold for embarrassment. Cal, on the other hand, had been mortified and enraged when Jasper had gone round to apologize. He wasn't sure why; it wasn't as though Cal was unaware of the models. Maybe it was just the direct exposure. At any rate he'd felt rather awful, and had gone to Dalston bearing a bottle of very expensive gin and his best apologetic face. Cal had let him off, not before a good bit of gin, some serious guilt, a ruined tie, and a more than a few suggestive bruises. (He'd learned that Cal was even more bitey when angry-- not exactly making a strong case for himself as not abusive.)

He'd also had to make a rather unusual promise, which explained his reluctance to wake up this morning. Cal had asked once if Jasper would live a day as a Muggle. The request had been violently rejected, of course, but had come up jokingly a few times since. He'd made the offer to go through with it in an equally joking way, lazing around at Cal's after they'd made up, but Cal had taken him up on it, and he couldn't exactly say no after the model. They'd chosen a Sunday, so Jasper didn't have the magical obligations of the shop.

He rolled his shoulders and bunched up his pillow into a more comfortable shape, preparing for an hour or two more of sleep, but the motion woke Cal and Jasper found a pair of disconcertingly bright eyes trained on his face.

"Morning." Jasper cleared his throat and blinked once or twice, resigning himself to wakefulness. He shuffled forward under the covers and draped an arm over Cal's back, pulling him close and leaning his head in the angle of his neck. "I know you made plans, but what if we stay here all day?" He pulled back and half-smiled, eyes twinkling with fake innocence. "I promise to do everything strictly the Muggle way."

Cal wasn't sure what he thought about it all. He woke up with his face buried in his Jasper-scented sheets, burrowed under a pillow, until it slid to one side. His back felt vulnerable and bare; he craned his neck up and blinked at his sleeping boyfriend. Boyfriend. He let himself think the word and found it came with an undertone of soap and dullness. It meant much less, even realized, than he'd thought it would. Jasper's eyes were half-shut, lashes in clumped, damp brushes against his creased lids.

The bed shifted, Jasper's weight resettled, and he flung an arm over his back. The warmth of his breath on Cal's neck and shoulder made him shift in turn and slide one leg between Jasper's, leaning forward to kiss him. The gesture sent him into an alarming spiral--he remembered--the frame of the moment jarred and he thought of--the night before--

He hadn't wanted to be so upset. He'd simply lost track of time, of how long he'd spent in his lab, and thought he could safely show up at Jasper's. Obviously his timing was off. Seeing him moving like that, there, the way he sounded; Cal had slammed the door shut and fled, not without the embarrassing knot of tears stuffed down his convulsing throat. When he'd gotten home his throat was as raw as if he'd been screaming, but of course he hadn't.

He hadn't wanted it to be a Thing. It was no good. But Jasper had come by all apologies and gin and they had gotten drunk and he'd said things he didn't remember and then they'd had sex, rougher than usual. Which he regretted; but he'd needed it, he'd needed to differentiate himself from her and he had needed to mark Jasper and to scrape away the residue of it all. Sighing, leaning back, he ran a fingertip over the archipelago of livid bites spanning Jasper's throat and trapezius.

"Morning." He kissed him, gently. "That sounds..." Again. "... appealing, but..." but he didn't want a reminder, strictly, not now, not--and he wanted to go out with Jasper; with Jasper. Seeing him as a Muggle would be so funny anyway, it'd take the bad taste away. "... well..."

Shamefully, he found he--couldn't, and slid away, sitting up, palms hard against his cheeks and over his eyes. "--let's get up, then. Ouch." Jasper hadn't been gentle with him, either, last night. His wrist hurt. "Step one, dressing. I want to watch." He leaned back against his pillow once more, pulling the sheet up and crossing his arms. "Go on, then, eh?"

Jasper sat up, awkwardly, unable to look at Cal. It was his fault, that wasn't a difficult deduction. Excellent. I've--broken him. Or I'm not good at this anymore. Oh God. He stared down guiltily at the crushed sheets tangled up around his legs, then shook his feet free and dropped them over the edge of the bed, back toward Cal and hunched over, chin on his hands. He rolled his shoulders slowly.

"--let's get up, then. Ouch." Cal's voice, still morning--and perhaps excess of gin--rough, came softly from behind him. Jasper turned back to find him looking down at his wrist, flexing it slowly. He leaned across the bed and picked it up, frowning at the faint, purplish mark of his thumb in the pale skin underneath, bleeding into the color of veins near the surface. Any other day he would have reached for his wand; the spell for bruises was easy. But--

"Sorry." Not just for the wrist.

Cal had already leaned back, arms crossed imperiously. For once he seemed like the one who was a little less embarrassed. "Step one, dressing. I want to watch. Go on, then, eh?"

Jasper rolled his eyes. "I thought this was Muggle day, not Cal is king for a day."

As he stood, he realized that he had nothing to wear. Usually he just Summoned something from home on the rare nights they stayed over at Cal's, but that was, unfortunately, out of the question. He stooped down and picked up the crumpled remains of last night's suit from the carpet. One of the buttons was missing. He let it fall again and turned to Cal.

"Mind if I borrow something?"

Not waiting for an answer, he wandered over to the closet and rifled through. Thankfully they were close enough in size that he could sort something out, and he'd been personally responsible for about eighty percent of Cal's wardrobe by now. Short break trousers were in this season anyway. He was slightly disappointed by the marked lack of ascots available; hadn't really been able to sway Cal toward those yet. He tended to use them as rags in the lab. Once he'd found something (relatively) acceptable, he made his way to the bathroom, the weight of Cal's eyes on his back as though he was anticipating a mistake. He'd seen Jasper get dressed enough times to know there wasn't any magic involved.

In the bathroom he opened the medicine cabinet, and found, as he knew he would, the straight razor he'd given Cal ages ago. When he did go Muggle, Jasper went all the way. Old fashioned razors, silver lighters. The razor was completely untouched, still gleamingly sharp. He knew that would be the case as well, since he generally charmed Cal a perfect shave in the morning. Jittery hands and razors-- he'd watched Cal shaving once and nearly had a heart attack, insisting on the charm ever since. Consider it a return for the perfect Windsor knots.

He hazarded a glance at himself in the mirror. Rough. Hair wildly askew, eyes a little puffy, violently red welts trailing down the side of his neck and across one shoulder. Those had hurt, some of them quite sharply, but he'd let Cal do it because he could tell how badly Cal wanted to. Penance, maybe, until he'd started giving it back. Then it was just something else muddled in with whatever this mess was. He put the razor on the edge of the sink and turned to the shower. Normally this would have been the moment where he beckoned Cal in, but given the circumstances--

It had--handles. Fixtures. Jasper had never considered this possibility. He just tapped the wall of his shower with his wand and it came on at the ideal temperature. Had done since he was a child. When away from home he generally just used the same spell and it worked. Jasper had never had to deal with handles. There were several. It was too early for this and he'd had entirely too much gin for a morning without the possibility of a hangover spell.

"Cal?" He poked his head through the doorway. "C'mere yeah?"

He waited until Cal was beside him, clearly puzzled by Jasper's creased brow, then gestured vaguely at the shower. "Sort it? You know how hot I like the water, yeah?"

Cal leaned back on his elbows, craning his neck to watch Jasper. It was still strange to see him naked. There was still that moment of jangling dissonance, when he tried to reconcile the image of a naked man and the image of a domestic sexual object, arrayed, with easy, unfrantic nudity, amongst the scenery of everyday life. Stepping over the pile of his jeans and shoes. It was strange to look at him and realize that he was--if not his--then partially or temporarily on loan. He was allowed to look, to covet, to have. Sometimes closeness was a kind of distance, touching lent blind speed to blindness, lent desperation to desperate love. At a remove he looked at Jasper, Just Jasper, naked, himself, and he thought

he didn't think anything

he only felt he was in him, with him, was him, wasn't him; had him, didn't have him; and felt, for the ponderously delicate moment, something like content.

"Cal?"

What

"C'mere yeah?"

He shook himself and rolled off the bed, landing--staggering--and leaning down to pick up his boxer shorts. He himself still didn't like to be naked. It was still shaming. He meandered into the bathroom, fingers running up and down his own bony biceps, and edged toward Jasper, who was looking at the shower in great puzzlement.

"Sort it? You know how hot I like the water, yeah?"

"Told you--it's a chore." By way of apology for the times he realized he hadn't showered in a few days without Jasper's company as reminder. It still happened, if very rarely--given how much he'd begun to care, and the weight of habit. He leaned his chin on Jasper's shoulder and set his hands over the jut of his hipbones, fingers sliding slowly in down the silk sink of skin.

It was strange the tone that had crept on him, while Jasper was naked and vulnerable and magicless; Cal spoke softly and with great Jasperian assurance.

"You're beautiful, you know."

Not a hint of rancor nor the least ulterior thread, and those strangled him at the best of times.

"Here." He turned on the shower , which came on too hot, drenching his face while he fiddled. His hair was swiftly plastered into his eyes. It was hot; too hot, the stinging heat of tears, hot on his tongue. "Phew." He fixed it and stepped back, wiping his eyes, a hand on Jasper's back again. "Go on. I do want to watch; just watch. Just because."