Written for the Friday Free-for-All feature on Twilighted, for May 7. Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll on my blog when I was trying to decide on a prompt for the story. This prompt was suggested by Trish/DefinitelyStaying and was the clear poll winner. :)

-o-

The Morning After

When Edward awoke, he was cotton-mouthed and his head felt like someone had used it to play a timpani solo. He groaned at the audacity of the sunlight that streamed through his bedroom window. Even through his closed eyelids, it was obscenely bright.

He had to piss, or he might have simply gone back to sleep. Once he was up and had used the bathroom, he decided to go to the kitchen for some water and ibuprofen. The water, so cool and refreshing to his parched throat, very nearly came right back up the instant it reached his stomach. He bent at the waist, resting his forearms on the cool counter, and lay his head on them; careful to keep his face just a couple of inches from the lip of the sink, in case his stomach did refund the water. He breathed slowly...in through the nose...out through the mouth...relaxing his stomach and willing it to settle. After a few minutes he felt stable enough to walk to his couch. Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself to the soft, welcoming surface.

For the next several hours he drifted, his odd, disjointed dreams reflecting the severity of his hangover. He got up again for more water, and this time he didn't have trouble keeping it down, drinking one full glass. After refilling it, he decided he should try to eat something. He rifled through his fridge, looking for the pizza he knew was there. Finding it, he decided to stick it in the oven to warm it up, rather than just eating it cold. Fifteen minutes later he was on his couch, the plate of reheated pizza on his lap and the glass of water beside him; and he turned on the TV, finding a decade-old movie on one of the specialty channels. He settled in to watch...though he kept the volume low.

Within an hour or two he was feeling quite a bit better, hydration and sustenance having made a world of difference for his condition. He retrieved his iPhone from the coffee table and switched it on, checking his texts. He had only one, sent to him a few hours earlier by his best friend Em. Hey, I'm sober now and it still looks good. Edward's face twisted slightly as he searched his memory for something that would tell him what Em was talking about. Did Em get a tattoo last night? Fuck – DID I?? He rose from the couch, twisting one way and the other in front of the tall mirror that hung beside his apartment door. He found nothing – at least nothing visible, and his body, abused though it was, didn't feel like he'd subjected it to ink last night. So that left Em; but Edward didn't remember having left the apartment last night. Em had come over, they'd gotten shitfaced and watched porn, jerked off together – Edward grimaced slightly at that; Em was always trying to get him to do it and he'd finally been drunk enough to say yes – and then Em had called a cab. That was it...wasn't it?

Edward sincerely hoped so.

He fired a quick text back to Em. No idea what you're talking about, fucker. While he waited for Em to text him back, he opened Tweetie to check out what was new on his Twitter feed. The messages populated in the window and he touched the Replies icon, looking first to see if anyone had tweeted him directly. There were two, both from Em. One was a retweet of one of their favorite feeds, Guys With iPhones. Em stalked the GWiP page obsessively and had a substantial cache of images he'd saved from the site. Edward was more discriminating, but he, too, had a folder of images.

Grinning, Edward clicked the link in the tweet, wondering what gift to men Em had found this time. The tweets from GWiP were almost always identical – no commentary, no description. Just a dry post: Posted a new Guys with iPhones, followed by the link. No amount of description in the world, though, could have prepared Edward for the image that found its way to his screen. He saw it, dropped the iPhone on the couch like it was a white-hot coal, and ran to the bathroom, losing the battle with his stomach.

By the time he returned from the bathroom, sweaty and weak, his phone was ringing. EMMETT, he thought murderously, and picked up the phone from where he'd hurled it on the couch. Peering at the screen, he saw what he already knew.

"Emmett. Motherfucking. Honeycutt," Edward spat into the receiver through gritted teeth.

"Ah, so you figured it out, then?" came the airy response from the other end of the line. In his mind's eye, Edward saw the unconcerned expression on Em's freckled face, looking down his upturned nose at his latest fingernail color...

...while Edward writhed in mortification. For the image that had appeared when Edward clicked the link was a familiar body – very familiar indeed.

"When did we take pictures of ourselves?" Edward demanded, ignoring the throbbing in his head that was worse when he raised his voice.

"Uh, not 'we'," Em corrected. "That was you, sweetie, and you alone."

Edward snorted. "Don't give me the gears. This has your name written all over it! You've already posted your picture on there, what, three times? Four?"

"Try six," Em stated matter-of-factly, and his aloof tone infuriated Edward further. "Last night you said it was your night to shine...and you shone!"

Edward sank onto the couch and put his head between his knees. Glimpses of blurry, gin-soaked memories told him Emmett was telling the truth. His heart was pounding and he was having trouble breathing. "Em," he groaned, "why didn't you talk me out of it?"

Emmett laughed out loud. "Talk you out of something I've been trying for months to talk you into? Oh, honey, no." Edward groaned again and Em continued, "Besides, didn't you see the replies? You're a star, sweetie! This is every queer's dream!"

"Em," Edward replied, keeping his voice even, "this. Is not. A dream. This is a nightmare."

"Please fuck me," said Emmett.

Edward sat bolt upright. That was crossing the line, even considering Emmett's merely-casual acquaintance with the concept of boundaries. "Em!" he said, shock coloring his tone.

"I could suck your cock all day," was Em's only reply. Edward was now speechless, and Em took advantage of his silence to add, "As long as you have a cock, I have a place to sit."

"EMMETT!" Edward finally yelled. "For the love of--would you just--god, stop saying shit like that to me!"

"Oh, take it down a notch, Liza," Em replied disdainfully. "I'm reading the comments, moron. This is no big revelation to me – we've been going to the gym together for three years. But these people are basking in the sight of your perfect body for the first time, and they are responding accordingly."

"Hmph," grunted Edward.

Emmett sounded frustrated with Edward. "Would you just go to the site yourself and look? You've got nineteen comments! 'Hot slim body and gorgeous cock.' "I want you in my ass.' 'I'd get on my knees for you anytime.'"

"Agh!" It was creeping Edward out to hear those words coming from Em – his best friend in the world, and absolutely the last person he wanted to fuck. "If I go to the fucking site, will you stop reading them out loud?"

"You're such a baby," Em muttered. "How you've ever managed to relax enough to fuck, is beyond me."

"Thank you for your unsolicited opinion on my sex life," Edward mumbled. "I'm hanging up now. I'd rather suffer this humiliation privately."

"Wait, make sure you check out the one--"

Whatever Em was going to say, it was lost when Edward hung up. He sighed and opened his laptop, meting out an odd sort of punishment to himself in looking at it full-sized, rather than on the screen of his iPhone. He went to the site he knew so well; and he didn't have to scroll down very far to find the photo. Sighing, he clicked it and watched the photo load.

The picture itself was fine, he decided after staring at it for some minutes. In it, he was completely naked, standing in front of the same mirror in which he'd examined himself for tattoos earlier. At least I didn't take it in the bathroom, Edward reflected. He was standing at a 45-degree angle to the mirror, looking down at his hand in which his cock rested. It was erect, the foreskin nestled at the base of the head, so he'd have taken it during the jerkoff session. The photo captured his body from the mid-thigh up, and his face was plainly visible. "Fucking Emmett," Edward muttered again. He was becoming less convinced that Em actually was to blame, but was still clinging to anything that would let him curse about Em's involvement. He should have told me I'd regret it.

Steeling himself again, he began to scroll down to read the comments below the picture. The ones Em had already read to him were only the first six. Thirteen more followed, as complimentary as the first ones. Reading things like Your chest is so perfect and smooth, I wanna play with your nipples while I ride your cock; and OMG, do u live near NYC? Email me... Edward found a faint flush of pleasure creeping over him, in spite of himself.

By the time he got to the final comment, he was feeling pretty fucking good about himself, but he was unprepared for what awaited him in that final reply. The commenter, identified as jazzlovesjizz atgmail, stated, I came twice last night thinking about fucking your sweet ass. If you're in Seattle, I'm in heat. Not only did the Seattle reference make him catch his breath, but it was the only one that acknowledged Edward might be something other than a top. It also contained a link to another GWiP post. The link was in yellow, contrasting with the white of the regular comments.

"Well, well," Edward said aloud, and casually he let his finger wander across the touchpad. He had topped once or twice, and of course it felt good; but he far preferred being a bottom. Loved it, in fact, despite Em's implication that he was wound too tight to fuck. His finger, having moved the cursor over the link, hovered in mid-air for just a moment before he lightly tapped the touchpad. The webpage responded immediately, beginning to load the picture ostensibly posted by jazzlovesjizz.

For the second time in as many minutes, he sucked in a sharp breath. The photo that loaded was stunning, both its subject and the composition. A man with a mass of chin-length blond curls stood looking into the camera, his iPhone peeking out of his shirt pocket, rather than being used to take the photo. Either he'd had someone take it for him or he'd used a tripod, Edward reflected. The man had a beautiful mouth; and his full lips were parted softly, the tip of his tongue delicately touching his top lip near the corner of his mouth. He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, but it was entirely unbuttoned, leaving it open, one side of it blown away from his body by a soft breeze. The man's palms rested on his groin, on either side of the open fly of his jeans, framing a beautiful, semi-hard cock. He didn't look terribly long in the state he was in, but he sure was thick. Whether he was a grower or a shower, Edward thought, he had his bases covered either way.

As for the background of the shot, the photograph had been composed in front of the rather suggestive outline of the Smith Building. Every time Edward saw it he immediately thought of a huge, hard, thick cock pointing straight up into the sky. Vaguely he wondered how the boy had managed to pose in front of it, baring himself to the camera without being seen by others, but it really was not among the prime concerns on his mind.

"Jazz loves jizz," he whispered, repeating it several times, committing the email address to memory. "Jazz loves jizz." He stared at the photo for a long time, committing every detail to memory. His attention was only diverted when his phone beeped with a new text message. He picked it up to find that it was from Em. The last one...if you don't, I will.

Normally Edward would have rolled his eyes at Em's blatant suggestion. Today he didn't...because he was already seriously considering it. He set his iPhone back on the couch, pushed his laptop away, and got up. He decided to go shower, and for long moments he simply stood below the hot spray, asking himself what he was doing. Was he truly going to email this guy, knowing nothing about him?

Edward realized his hand was on his cock, softly caressing down the now-hardening length. He thought of the hands that had lain flat against the front of Jazz's groin...he thought of them on his own cock. He thought of those hands gliding over his ass, squeezing, spreading him open. He thought of long fingers delving, exploring him, sliding in and out...Edward propped one foot on the side of the tub and, keeping one hand on his cock, let the other glide over his perineum to his ass. He hummed when his own fingers entered him, and squeezed his cock gently. He imagined a sweaty, damp forehead pressing against the back of his shoulder; soft honey curls brushing his bare skin; swore he could feel teeth gently bite down on the back of his neck. Say my name, his phantom lover intoned softly. "Jaaaazzzzz," Edward murmured aloud, and the fantasy took him over the edge. He came hard, cum spurting against the tile of the shower wall, until his knees were weak.

By the time Edward was dried off and dressed, his mind was made up. He would create a sock-puppet email account, and he would email Jazz. He'd agree to meet him someplace public, and if he had a good feeling about him...he was pretty sure he'd let Jazz fuck his brains out.

The Night Before

Jasper threw the textbook halfway across the room, cursing as he did. He'd already read the same paragraph four times and was not retaining a shred of the information it contained. There was no way he was going to keep up the pretense of studying, not when he was so obviously climbing the walls.

He knew what was wrong; he knew why his brain was short-circuiting on him. He was a week away from mid-terms, and he'd done nothing but study, attend class, and occasionally eat and sleep, for the last three weeks. He hadn't gone out, had barely seen his friends, and he sure as hell hadn't had any sex; he'd only jerked off three times in those weeks, and they were quick and efficient releases when he was too wired to sleep.

He was libidinous...concupiscent...prurient, said the English major in his brain. Fucking horny, said the 21-year-old perv, who resided somewhere south of his brain.

Still, it was too late to go out – the clubs would be closing within half an hour. It was times like these when he seriously wished he'd arranged with a friend to be fuck buddies. No, for tonight, he guessed he'd have to dip into his stash of porn, and maybe a toy; take his time, and then really let himself go.

He booted up his laptop, opening up a browser window. He subscribed to a particular gay porn site, and had never begrudged the money he paid to have access to it, especially since he'd found on it his own personal wet dream, in the form of a young man named Alec. Alec had dark hair, close-cropped in the back and sides, but moulded into a fauxhawk on top. He had dark eyes that made Jasper weak in the knees. He was muscular and his body was smooth and buff, and his ass...it had starred in many of Jasper's hottest fantasies.

The site had been promising that a new movie featuring Alec would be released this month, but the release date was still a week away. He had already jerked off to every Alec movie on the site many, many times. Tonight, he reflected, maybe he would search a few other places for something new to fantasize about. He hadn't taken the time to hit any eye candy sites since his self-imposed exile began. He decided to start with his favorite, Guys With iPhones. He usually had to scroll through quite a bit on the site to find one or two gems that really appealed to him, but it was always fun, anyways.

The page loaded quickly, and the first two pictures were of a weird, squinty-looking dude, wearing a baseball hat so big it looked like a batting helmet. He had a bizarre thing going on with his eyebrows, as though he'd shaved a notch out of each eyebrow to turn them into eight separate clumps of hair instead of two solid lines. The photo had been taken in his bathroom, and Jasper made a disgusted sound at the back of his throat. At least put the seat down before you take the picture, he thought before scrolling down.

The rest of the pictures on the home page weren't quite as bad, though nothing spectacular; aside from one, whose subject looked like Doctor Hunt on Grey's Anatomy. Jasper usually preferred dark hair and dark eyes like Alec, but he had to admit that if Owen Hunt wanted him to throw down, he'd be naked in two seconds flat. The man in the picture had simply massive arms, and still managed not to look like one of those freakish muscle-bound guys whose eyes might pop out of the sockets. Right-click, save.

He continued on through a couple days' worth of pictures, saving two more to his hard drive, but not finding anything truly moving. He sighed, moving his mouse up to click the banner at the top, taking him back to the first page, expecting to see the squinty guy again as the first pics on the page.

Squinty had been bumped.

In his place at the top of the page was a photo of a completely naked guy standing in front of a mirror in what looked to be a living room. Jasper clicked the photo to view it full-sized, and when the picture loaded, he sucked in a sharp breath. The boy was probably around the same age as him, but with light reddish-brown hair, he was completely not what Jasper would normally define as his "type". Jasper couldn't see his eyes because he was looking down at his cock instead of at the camera; but his face was beautiful. He looked serious, but Jasper imagined there was passion simmering within. He was quite slim, more so than Jasper typically found attractive, his abs were beautifully-defined and his cock...the way it stood out from his body at a perfect ninety-degree angle made Jasper's mouth water with the desire to suck it.

And – the best part – the boy was angled toward the mirror enough to show his cock, but the angle also showed that behind those narrow hips was the most perfect ass in history. It was full and round; it looked soft. Jasper wanted to sink his teeth into it. He wanted to feel the pliant flesh under his fingertips. He wanted to slap it gently and watch it bounce slightly before returning to its place.

It was mesmerizing.

Jasper was powerless to stop the movement of his own hands toward his cock; couldn't help the moan that escaped him when he thought of the boy's lips wrapped around him. He wished he knew the boy's name; he would whisper it to him between little sucking kisses on his neck. He would feel the hard press of an erect cock against the top of his thigh; would contain the boy's writhing within his arms. He would feel the boy go to pieces as he tongued the crack of that gorgeous ass and pressed into the little divot, feeling it yielding for him. He would slide two lube-slick fingers inside, feel the boy stretch around him; seek that gland inside that would make him—

Jasper was shocked to find himself so quickly on the edge of no-going-back. He stopped stroking...pinched his shaft just under the head...but he could not completely stem what was already right there. He came – not a huge, earth-shattering orgasm, but pleasurable nonetheless, releasing some of the pressure that roiled within him. Beads of jizz landed on his hand and the gentle spasms had him moaning.

When the peak was past, he realized he hadn't even undressed – was pressed back into the cushions of his couch, but hadn't bothered to remove the shirt or sleep pants he'd put on when he got out of the shower earlier in the evening. He pulled his shirt off, using it to clean his hand, and tossed it on the floor; his pants followed. He lay back, his shoulders and head against the thick, cushioned arm of his couch. The soft, sueded microfiber caressed his bare skin and the deep softness of the couch cradled his body...and he started to stroke again.

He took his time this time, walking one step at a time back into the hottest fantasy he'd ever had. He started with the head of his cock at the boy's ass, and felt the lithe body beneath him as he pressed slowly, steadily inside. He reveled in the fullness of each round cheek caressing his groin; heard low moans and softly-gasped obscenities from each of them when their bodies moved together. The fire in the root of his body was growing, glowing hot up into his stomach and chest; a flush spreading over him.

When he came, the fire blazed up instantly, consuming him. His hips lifted off the couch, his heels digging in to the cushion, his body twisting. He groaned loudly, feeling his hot release splash across his stomach and chest, imagining it was his lover's semen on him...wishing it was. Repeated paroxysms rocked his body, his orgasm seemingly lasting forever before subsiding, leaving him weak, quiescent exhausted. He managed to reach to the floor beside the couch and retrieve his shirt, again using it to wipe his skin clean. He reached up to the afghan on the back of his couch and tugged it down to cover his naked body, and almost instantly, he fell asleep.

He woke after only five or six hours, his laptop still humming on the coffee table beside him. He decided to get up and go to his own bed; before he did, he saved the picture of the fantasy boy to his laptop. He was about to close out of the site...but he just couldn't. He sat there, bleary-eyed, staring at the picture for several moments longer as he debated...

...and then he pulled down his Favorites list and clicked the link to another GWiP post, one from six months earlier – a photo he'd had his best friend take of him and then posted on the site. He copied the URL, clicked back to the previous page, and quickly wrote a comment to the boy, including the link and his contact information; and before he could change his mind, Click, submit.

He shut down his computer, and with it, his optimism. He had no illusions; it was an extremely long shot that the boy from the picture was in or near Seattle. Even if he was, why he would respond to a random proposition from a stranger on the internet? He knew he would almost certainly not hear from him, and he felt more regret for that than he could explain.

The Evening to Follow

It was noon before Jasper woke again. He'd slept the sleep of the dead, the best he'd had in weeks, and felt like a new person. He got up and had lunch and decided to take advantage of his newly-restored energy to head to the gym. He ran into some friends, and ended up not returning home until after six, ready to once again tackle the studying he'd thrown aside the night before.

He opened his laptop and pushed the power button, retrieving his textbook while it booted up. By the time he found his place in the book, his computer was loaded. He absentmindedly clicked the email icon, always his first action after he booted up, and then click the Word document for the assignment he'd been working on last. He read through the final couple of paragraphs he'd written, vaguely noting the soft chime his laptop made when it had finished loading his new emails. Finally, after adding a couple of point-form notes to the document, he clicked on his email window.

He had – he counted – sixteen new emails just to the jazzlovesjizz account, one he'd set up solely for the purpose of submitting his picture to GWiP six months before. He'd gotten nine emails then, notification of comments on his picture, and it hadn't seen a day of action since then. He began to click through the new emails now, more amused than anything else. Three were simply text emails, inviting him to meet the sender online for video chat and mutual jerkoff sessions. Click, delete. Several were from nice vanilla men who simply responded in kind, with their own iPhone pics. He thanked the iPhone gods that Squinty wasn't among them. Click, delete. Four were from women...and they included pictures. My eyes! Click, delete! One of the emails was from a man who identified himself as Master Aro. The email informed Jasper he'd been very naughty and that Master Aro would have to make a special trip from Tallahassee to punish him. The picture the guy attached made Jasper cringe and automatically reach to protect his balls. Click, delete...AND BLOCK.

That one genuinely creeped him out, and it was with trepidation that he clicked to the next email. The sender's email was listed as edwardlikesjizz2 atgmail; and the email subject was Smith Tower – the biggest hard-on in Seattle. Jasper scrolled down, finding no text, only an attached photograph...and it made his heart jump into his throat.

It was the boy – the one. The one. The photo wasn't taken in the same place, and he was fully clothed this time, but it was unmistakable. edwardlikesjizz2. "Edward," Jasper breathed aloud, reveling in the knowledge and enjoying the way the name felt on his tongue.

The boy...Edward...was standing on Yesler Way, across the street from the bottom of the Butler Garage – the sinking ship garage, Jasper had always called it – Smith Tower rising sharply behind him. The photo was obviously taken with a camera that had a much higher resolution than the iPhone that had taken the first one, and he could see that Edward was even more beautiful than the first picture had done justice to. The sun overhead glinted off his reddish-brown hair; his eyes, not visible in the first picture, were green – clear, vivid green. He was smiling shyly, and in his hands he held a sign, no bigger than a letter-sized sheet of paper, written by hand:

What is Jazz short for?

The final thing Jasper noticed about the photo was the date and time stamp. It had been taken two hours earlier.

The boy was Edward, he was in Seattle, and he was interested.

There was no hesitation on Jasper's part; not a moment, not a second. He knew immediately what he what he would do.

Click, reply.

-o-

The Emmett in this story was actually not Emmett McCarty. Instead, I decided to use Emmett Honeycutt, a character from Queer as Folk; so a wee bit of crossover there. I've never written QAF Em before – that was sort of fun for me. :)

As always, a thousand kisses to my lobster, Bethie/EJSantry, for previewing. Incidentally, Bethie tells me this story isn't finished, so maybe I'll add Chapter Two at some point. ;) I've added some images to my blog, including the Smith Tower (tell me it *doesn't* look like a giant hard-on), the "sinking ship garage", and the boys. Ohhh, the boys. :) Link to my blog is on my profile.