Upside Down: A Skip and Richie Ficlet

Hi all! This is, as promised, a ficlet about Skip and Richie, my heroes from Winter Ball. If you haven't read the book yet, maybe bookmark this and come back to it later. If you have read the book--enjoy!

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The Christmas card arrived about a week and a half late, and Richie stared at it, wondering if it had gotten lost. Skipper got home about an hour later, and Riche looked up from the couch, where he was playing a game on the PS4, and smiled.

"Hey, Skipper!" His big, buff, blond boyfriend had the sweetest smile, and Skipper let one of those fly at Richie before hanging up his coat and coming in for the kiss.

Richie stopped and frowned at him. "You didn't wear your scarf," he muttered.

"Wasn't cold."

"Was freezing, Skipper. You just forgot-- did I tell you---Mmmffff..."

God he tasted good. He ate like, lettuce all the fuckin' time, and Richie figured he should start doing that too. He'd stopped smoking, cold turkey, but he liked a good burger at lunch time. He figured a breath mint might not cut that shit, so, yeah, a salad and some fruit, maybe, and he'd taste good like Skipper.

Richie's guy died int he game, and Richie just smiled stupid up into Skip's wide-cheekboned face. Skipper looked more like a football player than a soccer player--but he wasn't fat, just big boned and muscular. He could have looked like a sumo wrestler for all Richie cared-- Skipper took good care of him, just like he promised on Thanksgiving.

Richie tried to return the favor.

Skip broke off the kiss and moved away from the couch. "Stay there--I'm going to get some water and some tangerines. We can hydrate before we go running."

"Oh, God-- running?"  Richie had to love him, because his obsession with fitness would totally be a turnoff otherwise.

"Please, Richie," Skip said seriously. "I like going with you-- you're quick and you keep me on my toes."

How was a man supposed to say no to that?  "Yeah, sure. YOu're right. We skipped yesterday." Riche had blown him to get out of it. Sad, but true, and Richie would feel cheap if he did it twice in a week. Nope-- only one get out of running free card there!

"Hey, what's this?" Skip was sorting through the mail, and Richie stood to go get changed.

"I dunno. Probably the tire store, getting their Christmas cards out late. I'll go get our sweats, kay?"

When he got back, Skip was sitting on the kitchen chair, staring blankly into space, Hazel on his lap.

"Skipper?" Richie said, poking his shoulder. God-- muscled to hell!  "C'mon, man-- it's hella dark already-- we're going to have to wear lights."  He thrust the sweats and the reflective vest at Skip and waited for him to focus.

Skip looked at him slowly, a truly blank expression in his eyes.

"Skipper? You okay man? Somebody die?"

Skipper shook himself and took the sweats with one hand while putting Hazel down with the other. He stood and smiled faintly. "No. No, it's fine. Let me change in the laundry room-- my shoes are in there. We can go."

Cold and fucking dark. Skip ran like he was on autopilot, none of his usual breathless talking, or even any of his playful racing to make the time go faster. Richie ran a little behind him and to his right, because Skipper liked to stay on the outside, nearer the cars. It was a protective thing, and Richie let him do it, because that was just Skipper.

But the silence wasn't. Richie was the first to acknowledge that he and Skipper, they weren't brain trusts. They were average guys. Skipper said that seventy years ago, they'd be factory workers, but there weren't factories anymore. Skipper was smarter than that--Richie thought so anyway--but Richie was the first to admit that he worked better with his hands than his brain.

Being silent, keeping all the feelings inside--this wasn't a Skipper thing.

As they rounded the last corner for home, Richie stopped still in the middle of the road and shouted. "Hey! Skipper! Where the fuck you been?"

Skip stumbled and whirled around, looking at him like he'd lost his mind. "I'm right here," he said, puzzled.

"Yeah, your body, maybe, but Skip-- where in the hell has your head been?"

Skip stopped in the middle of the road and came back for Richie. "Sorry, Richie," he said humbly. "I... you know that Christmas card?"

"Yeah?"

"That was from my dad."

Richie gaped, and Skipper guided him back into the house, both of them silent as mimes. Skipper's dad had taken off when Skipper had been about twelve years old. Skip's mom had been an alcoholic, and Richie didn't know all the details, but he knew Skip's life hadn't been a picnic.

He wanted to say "So the fuck what!" because God, even Richie's dad had hung around. He wanted to go get the card, track down the return address and sock the bastard in the nose.

He wanted Skip to tell him what the hell was going on.

"So..." Richie said when they got into the living room.

Skipper looked at him and shrugged. "So what?"

"What're you going to do?"

Skip thought about it.  "I'm going to send him a letter from me and my boyfriend. And he'll probably never get back to me."

Richie didn't like that idea. "So... you just don't hear from him again?"

Skip's jaw hardened--but his eyes were shiny. "Can't control what he does, Richie. And you're my family now. I'm going to take a shower, okay?"

Richie watched him go, frowning.  Yeah-- the shower was where Skip did a lot of his thinking--right before he did a lot of his falling the fuck apart.

Richie went to the fridge and dumped some leftover soup into a pot, then set the pot on low. It would take about an hour for it to get warm that way, and Richie figured that was right.

Then he went into the bathroom and stripped in the steamy closeness of the white tile, leaving his clothes in a pile as he went. When he slid behind Skipper's big body and wrapped his arms around that rippled stomach, Skip clasped his hands, like he'd been expecting this.

Well, Richie and Skipper had sort of a history of making up in this tiny shower.

Richie took the soap and lathered them both up quickly but thoroughly, and then turned off the water. Yeah, he wanted to get romantic-- just not here.

Skip noticed when they were both out of the bathtub and shivering under towels though.

"Gee, Richie, get naked with a guy, he sort of expects some--"

Richie kissed him.

Skip was bigger than him--Richie usually let him take control, but not this time. Richie saw that lost look in his eyes, that need, maybe, for someone in his life to know up from down, and he suddenly had to do for Skip what Skip usually did for Richie.

Richie had to take charge.

Skip melted  into that kiss like butter on a hot pancake, and Richie just kept doing it, holding his face and kissing, tongue and lips, and kissing some more, and more, pushing Skip backwards, through their tiny hall and into the bedroom, both of them still damp from the shower and shivering in the air. Skip stopped abruptly and sat down on the bed, and Richie kissed him some more before pulling back and saying, "Pull back the sheets and get on your stomach, kay?"

Skip nodded, a sort of shy hope in his eyes.

Well, he'd never been hung up on being the big guy who had to top--that wasn't Skip. Richie had been the one who'd figured that as little guy he got it up the ass--partly because he liked getting it up the ass. It was being taken care of, and Richie only got that from Skip.

But Skip only got that from Richie, too, and Richie was up.

He ran and turned the thermostat up a couple of degrees, so they wouldn't have to do this under the covers, and then he came back to Skipper, laying on his stomach, pushed up on his elbows and looking over his shoulder. His knees were spread, and his thighs a little too, and all that boy mystery that Richie had gotten really attached to since they'd first had sex back in October was all shadowed in the delta between his asscheeks and his thighs.

He hoped Skip felt as open and exposed as he himself did when they were doing this--because it was sort of delicious, knowing you were laying there, spread out, and someone else was going to do to you.

Richie was going to do to Skip.  He looked next to Skipper and there was a bottle of lubricant by his hip. Richie grinned then and stood by the bed, leaning over to place a kiss in that dip between Skipper's bubble-butt and the small of his back.

"Hoping for something?" he asked, smoothing his lips down the part of Skipper's cheeks.

Skipper moaned and wiggled. "Well... you know... sympathy sex and all..."

Richie laughed softly, letting his breath play at Skipper's crease. "What if I don't want it to be sympathy sex?" He darted his tongue out, just enough to brush the sides of the canyon as it were. "What if I want it to be awesome Richie fucking me sex?"

Skipper let out a strangled laugh. "Well, Richie, I'm not particular."

Richie giggled a little and parted Skipper's cheeks for real, running his tongue solidly down the bright pink line in the middle, and letting it fall a little into Skipper's clean and shiny asshole.

Skipper's moan vibrated the whole entire bed.

"You like?" Richie asked, rubbing his tongue against his palate. Body wash and water-- good job on the cleaning, Richie!

"I like a good rim job," Skip breathed, but that drew Richie short.

"You ever get one from someone besides me?"

Skipper groaned into the mattress.  "There is nobody besides you," he said, begging, and Richie glared at him. He'd had girlfriends. But well, so had Richie, and who wanted to bring girls up when it was two guys in bed who liked each other better?

"Good," Richie said, and then stuck his tongue in there again.

Skipper went a little nuts, and Richie liked watching him do that so much, he forgot about the taste and kept licking.  Damn! Richie had no idea this was one of Skip's weaknesses--but then, Skip was so good at taking care of Richie that Richie forgot sometimes that he had absolute power over Skip.

"Richie!" Skip begged, drawing his knees up and exposing his ass--even going so far as to spread his cheeks from behind, which Richie thought was one of the sexiest things he'd ever seen.

"You want something?" Richie teased, wiping his mouth on his shoulder. Damn-- look at that! His rim was slack and loose and sort of open.  He ran his finger around the outside and watched as an earthquake shook his lover open even wider. Oooh... carefully, pushing slowly, he slid his finger in.

Skip's body went entirely still.

"You like that?" Richie asked, and Skip nodded and moaned. "You want more?"

"Please..."

Richie very carefully slid in two fingers, and Skip whimpered. "More than that?"

Skipper fumbled next to him on the bed, and Richie caught his hand--

And pulled away with the bottle of lubricant.

Oh. Oh wow. Oh hell yes!

Richie loved this! He loved getting fucked--it just sort of put him in this place, in his head, where Skipper could make all the bad shit go.

He got to do that to Skipper!

Richie kept his fingers inside Skip, stretching, sliding, fucking, because listening to Skip's deep throated groans was just turning him the fuck on. Richie's cock was hard and red and dripping, just from licking Skip's ass, and for a moment Richie was torn! Keep licking it, maybe suck his really huge cock into the back of Richie's throat and taste his cum? Or... oh man. Skip was wide and slack and ready, and the inside of his ass clamped down on Richie's fingers like a velvet vice.

He dumped some lube on his cock one handed and snicked the lid shut, then stroked his outside while he was stroking Skip's inside.

"Oh my God!" Skip cried. "Jesus, Richie, please!"

Richie shuddered and realized if he didn't do it now, he was going to make them both come without getting to the really rockin' stuff that came after foreplay!

He ripped his fingers away and positioned himself behind Skip, hoping the stretching had been enough. God, this had been scary the first time Skip had done this--Richie had been begging for it, needing it in a way he'd never thought he could need sex, but this, this was Richie's idea.

Oh shit! What if it was a bad idea!!!

But Skipper felt him, at the very edge of the entrance, and breathed a sigh of relief--

And then slid backwards, taking Richie inside him slowly, rocking forward, rocking back.

Richie had to close his eyes, because that sight-- Skipper's big, beautiful body, at his mercy, swallowing Richie's cock whole--that was going to send Richie over, right there. Richie wanted to be all the way inside him... oh... damn.. yes-- just like that. He closed his eyes and his cock, all those nerve endings, all of that aching vulnerability, was inside Skipper, which was safe and warm and close...

Richie put his hands on Skipper's back and groaned, thrusting himself forward into the root, and Skipper buried his face in the bed and screamed "Yessssssss!"

And Richie couldn't stop after that. Couldn't keep himself from rocking back and thrusting forward, couldn't keep his hands from clenching in the muscles of Skip's waist as he pounded. Couldn't keep himself from swearing, "Fuck, yeah, fucking you, love your fucking ass, God, Skipper, gotta get deeper, gotta go harder, Jesus, Skip, so fucking tight--"

Nonsense words, but Skipper was giving them back. "Fuck me... God, Richie, fuck me... so good. God, burns, fucking burns, so good... so good... harder, Richie... fucking harder!"

And Richie lost control, hips flying, sweat drenching him, falling into his eyes, plopping on the pink-flushed skin of Skipper's back, and God, he was trapped in a beautiful prison, but he needed... needed... something tighter... something harder--

"Jesus fucking Christ, Skipper, grab your dick and come!"

Ah! Yes! He loved seeing Skipper's hand on his own cock! It was magnificent like a magic wand, and even if he couldn't see it now, hearing it, fap fap fap fap was erotic and raw and...

"Auuuuuugghhh!!!"

Skip's asshole clenched Richie so hard Richie thought his dick would get ripped off, but the pain, the beautiful aching pain of being squeezed so tight-- that did it. Richie closed his eyes and saw fire pouring through a sword, burning come, bursting out his cock, filling Skipper's body, surrounding Richie in the scalding heat of sex and semen.

He came until his balls ached, came until he collapsed, sweating and cooling in the air, on Skip's back. Skip's knees went out, and Richie was just lying on top of him, his cock sliding out and cum slipping around and coating them both.

Richie's head was full of bells and panting breaths and the white blindness of orgasm for a really long time--but Skip didn't buck him off.

Eventually, Skip said, "Are you cooking soup?"

Richie half laughed and made him get up. They wiped down, not saying anything, and put on pajama pants and moved to the kitchen to eat soup. Hazel curled up around Skipper's feet, because he forgot his slippers and those mighty gunships got cold on the tile, and Richie just sat and smiled weakly at his soup.

Sex was awesome--but it did leave a heart and soul feeling cleansed and shiny for a while, and Skip got that too.

They finished up their soup and Skipper stopped Richie from getting up by just touching his hand.

Richie looked up expectantly. Skipper smiled.

"Richie?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you have any idea how much I love you?"

"Yeah, Skipper. You told me I was the family that mattered."

"But-- the... you know the thing--"

Richie grinned. "Skipper, I will fuck you stupid any time. But usually you're smart enough not to need it."

Skipper grinned back. "But definitely smart enough to want it-- that was pretty awesome."

Richie stood and kissed him on the mouth, tasting soup, just like him. "God, just like you are. You write your letter to your dad, Skip. He answers, he doesn't answer--I'll be right here."


Skipper smiled and Richie put his soup bowl down and stood between Skipper's spread thighs while Skipper buried his face into Richie's midriff.  Richie could hug him like this all night.

Skip would do the same for him.

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Winter Ball is available at Amazon, All Romance e-Books, and Dreamspinner Press