#and now to either go work on the allydia prompt Dev sent awhile back or my fic for this week's bfu writers discord challenge

[banshee-cheekbones]

could you write standrew joining the mile high club (unless you don’t write smut)

I really did intend on making this smutty, but it ended up being somewhere between a hard T and a really soft M rating. set in season 3, on the flight over to Japan. 

~2k, on ao3 here.

Wordsmith.

When Steven blinks his heavy eyes open, his mouth is dry, his head feels like a bruised fruit, and there’s nothing but pure and absolute darkness stretching out before him.

It takes him a few languid blinks to get his bearings and realize that he isn’t dreaming, that he hasn’t been sucked down into the La Brea Tar Pits through some kind of unfortunate accident. Rather, he’s on a flight to Tokyo, somewhere around thirty-five thousand feet in the air, and the darkness is just the vast expanse of the sky on the other side of the thick glass window, stretching off into what truly looks like infinity.

Blinking again, he groans and sits up a little straighter. The thin fleece blanket he bought just after takeoff slithers down his chest to pool in his lap as he idly glances around. The rest of the cabin is dimly lit, overhead lights lowered to accommodate the fact that most of the passengers seem to be sleeping, based on the quiet all around him.

He doesn’t blame them. He has no idea what day it is, let alone what time; his brain is already scrambled from the change in time zones, and they haven’t even landed in Japan yet.

He takes a moment to thank his past self for having the foresight to set aside the first day of their trip for the sole purpose of dealing with the jet lag.

“You drooled on me.”

Steven jumps and swivels his head to look at Andrew. It doesn’t look like he’s gotten a wink of sleep yet; there are bags under his eyes, and he’s read nearly two thirds of the paperback he purchased at the airport before they left.

“Did not,” Steven responds automatically. Andrew’s facial expression remains carefully neutral as he glances down at the shoulder of his sweater. Sure enough, there are a few dark spots dotting the fabric, and even though it’s not the first time it’s happened (and definitely won’t be the last), warm mortification floods Steven’s face as he mutters, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Andrew closes his book and stashes it in the small storage compartment on the back of the seat in front of them. “Did you get some actual sleep?”

“A little, I think.” Steven yawns and glances back out the window. If he squints, he thinks he can make out some clouds, smudges of darkest gray against the black sky, but he can’t be certain. “How much longer?”

“Three hours.” Steven groans and drops his head onto Andrew’s shoulder. Thankfully, the places where he drooled earlier are dry.

“I just want to be in our hotel. On an actual bed. With pillows.”

“Me too,” Andrew murmurs, pressing his mouth to the top of Steven’s head. The armrest between them is still pushed back into the upright position, and Steven slides over to the edge of his seat so that they’re touching from hip to knee. The air conditioning is a little too high, hum permeating the otherwise quiet cabin, but Andrew is unfairly warm, like always.

“How are the others doing?” he asks, closing his eyes again. Momentarily, Andrew shifts away, presumably so he can look over the seat at the row behind them, where Rie and Adam are sitting, but he returns quickly and presses his face right back into Steven’s hair.

“Fast asleep,” he replies. “Just like everyone else, I think.” One of his hands slides underneath Steven’s blanket and curls around his thigh, and Steven sighs happily. Andrew’s not big on public displays of affection, and while Steven absolutely respects that, knows that doing anything more than wrapping his arm around Andrew’s shoulders when they’re out and about is usually too much, it means that he lives for moments like this, when things are quiet, when it’s just the two of them in their own private sphere.

For a long time, they stay quiet and still, pressed against each other with nothing but the steady sound of Andrew’s breathing and the hum of the air circulation overhead to break the silence.

The next time Andrew speaks, Steven is on the verge of falling back asleep.

“Do you remember the last hotel we stayed at?” Andrew’s voice is a low rumble in his chest, barely above a whisper, and even before Steven fully comprehends what he said, a low flame of arousal starts flickering in his stomach.

Once the words fully sink in, that low flame kicks up a notch.

He remembers the hotel perfectly. It’d been in New York, a newer building on the edge of Chinatown with a shiny and gleaming exterior, an extremely finicky heating system, and spotty Wi-Fi. The water pressure had been less than optimal, and the room had been significantly smaller than he’d expected; once they’d loaded all their gear and suitcases in, there had barely been enough room for the two of them to move.

But what he remembers even more so than the actual physical features of the hotel is what happened there.

When they drew the blinds, the darkness in the room was so total that it felt like he was staring at the inside of his own eyelids. The too-soft mattress had dipped underneath his body when he’d fallen back against it, and the starchy sheets had dragged along his bare back once Andrew pulled his shirt off and threw it into the darkness, where it remained undiscovered until the morning. Andrew’s hands and mouth had dragged over every inch of Steven’s exposed skin, left behind burning trails that seemed to singe each of his nerves.

Even more so than all of that, he remembers the utterly overwhelming sensation of need and joy that had filled his very soul when Andrew took him into his warm, slick mouth for the first time.

“Yeah,” Steven answers belatedly, pressing his knee firmer against Andrew’s and swallowing heavily. “I remember.” Andrew sighs quietly, and his mouth slides down to rest at Steven’s temple.

“Do you want to do that again?” he asks, lips catching on Steven’s skin. “Once we’ve slept off some jet lag?”

For a moment, Steven forgets how to breathe. It’s not that he’s conflicted about how to answer (he definitely wants that, without a shadow of a doubt), but this is not a conversation he expected to have at thirty-five thousand feet in the air, at some totally incomprehensible time of night (or day). Even though there’s no one listening in (he can hear the people seated in front of them snoring softly, there’s no airline staff within sight, and the person across the aisle has an eye mask pulled down over the top half of their face), just having these kinds of thoughts around other people makes him feel like a kid caught with their arm wrist-deep in the cookie jar.

But, although he knows that all it would take to stop things in their tracks is a single word, he doesn’t want to stop. Not yet, at least.

He takes a deep breath to prepare himself before he says, turning his head so that their foreheads are nearly touching, “Maybe my memory isn’t as good as I thought. What exactly do you want to do again?”

For a brief moment, Andrew’s face stays still, but then the corner of his mouth ticks up in a slight smirk, and his hand tightens on Steven’s thigh. He remains quiet for a moment, and Steven bites his lip in anticipation, tries to hide his shudder when Andrew’s fingers gently skirt along the inseam of his jeans.

“Want to get you in bed,” he begins, a little raspy, unpracticed, which just makes more heat gather in Steven’s stomach, “and kiss your pretty neck from top to bottom.” He raises his free hand and traces one finger down the front of Steven’s throat, from just underneath his chin down to the slight hollow at the base, lingers there for a moment before he goes lower and outlines Steven’s collarbone through his shirt, taps it gently. “And I want to kiss these too. Maybe mark them up a bit, if that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah,” Steven whispers, nodding for emphasis. He knows exactly what Andrew’s blunt teeth feel like scraping against his skin, hitting the perfect spot between pain and pleasure, and he can’t help but lean into where Andrew’s fingertips are tracing along his collarbone. “What else?”

“Then I’m going to take my time with the rest of you,” Andrew continues. There’s a hint of pink high in his cheeks that Steven would press his mouth to, if he wasn’t too busy eagerly awaiting Andrew’s next words. “Gonna take my time with your ribs and your hips.” His fingers slowly trail down the center of Steven’s chest, and the touch burns through Steven’s shirt. Andrew’s fingers come to a stop at his waist, just above the line of the blanket, and Steven looks up from them and into Andrew’s eyes, just in time for Andrew to swallow and say, “I’m going to kiss you, over and over again, until you ask for more.”

“What if I don’t ask?” The words almost trip out of Steven’s mouth; he’s so utterly focused on the vivid mental picture Andrew is painting that the ability to speak is barely within his reach.

“Then I’ll just try harder,” Andrew answers solemnly, and Steven nearly dissolves.

“I believe you,” he says, licking his lips and not missing the way Andrew’s gaze drops down to his mouth. Doing his best not to stutter, he continues, “Are you gonna stop there?”

Andrew shakes his head and laughs once, the sound short and clipped.

“No, Steven.” His cheeks flush darker, and he leans in closer, until his mouth is resting on the shell of Steven’s ear. Goosebumps explode up the back of Steven’s neck, and anticipation flutters in his stomach, groans stronger and stronger with each silent second that passes between them. Finally, just when Steven thinks he can’t bear the silence any longer, Andrew clears his throat, scrapes his teeth along the tip of Steven’s ear and says, “I’m not going to stop until you come down my throat.”

Steven officially loses the ability to speak coherently.

“Andrew,” he groans softly, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He’s hard and aching behind his zipper, and Andrew’s hand has, deliberately or not, slipped further up his thigh, into territory that’s definitely not appropriate for a public pace.

He’s never been interested in the concept of the mile high club (or, to be fair, sex in any kind of public or semi-public space); he has too many inhibitions, is too vividly aware of the potential consequences that could arise. Even thinking about it makes phantom humiliation rise in his throat.

But, all the same, there’s a part of him that wants to simply say screw it and drag Andrew off to the bathroom.

Before he can begin to weigh the pros and cons of doing just that, the plane suddenly rocks heavily, and his head painfully bumps against Andrew’s as the pilot comes over the intercom to warn them about an upcoming patch of turbulence.

“Damn it,” Steven sighs, backing away a few inches so that he can buckle his seat belt.

“Yeah.” Andrew laughs shakily and gives Steven’s thigh one last squeeze before he slides his hand out from underneath the blanket. “But it’s probably good that we stop.”

“Probably.” They hit another patch of turbulent air, thankfully less rough than the last, and once it smooths out, Steven continues, not sure how much time he’ll have before things get bumpy again. “But I want to do all of that. Everything you said. But there’s one stipulation.”

Andrew raises one eyebrow and smiles a little as he threads his fingers through Steven’s. “Yeah? What’s that?”

Cheeks flushed with heat again, Steven grins as he leans in, not close enough for their heads to bonk together again if the air gets rough, but close enough so that only Andrew will be able to hear him.

“I want to do all of that to you too. Especially that last part.”

A flush creeps over Andrew’s face and down to his jaw, and he swallows heavily before he squeezes Steven’s hand tightly.

“Okay. You can definitely do that.”