Kinks #2: Nappy-philia
Written by De Orakle

The fluorescent light directly above him was humming a deranged, broken, song. Its grating melody felt like Drano in his ear, and it was driving Brian Cassidy completely and utterly insane.

He blinked.

He twitched.

He blinked again.

His hands rested on his thighs as he stared out into space, oblivious to the bustling crowd of working police officers in the squadroom. His mind was deliberately ignoring his eyesight, and was instead intensifying his other four senses to unbearable overload, immobilizing him.

His partner, John Munch, was sitting beside him at the desk, so close that the right side of Brian's body was warmed from shoulder to waist from the body heat radiating from the other man. He didn't want to attract attention by moving away.He wouldn't give in and lean closer.

Munch's steady breathing rivalled the fluorescent light for dominance of Brian's aural sense. It was an even, rhythmic, inhalation, exhalation, but the slight nasal whistle of an oncoming cold was thrashing Brian's frayed nerves.He wouldn't give in and shake his head to clear the sound.

With every breath Brian took, John's scent further pervaded his nostrils. Cologne, or a strong aftershave, like antifreeze and rubbing alcohol, and a sharp tang of musky sweat.

He wouldn't give in and breathe in deeper, to take that scent deeper inside himself.

He tasted blood in his mouth. He had been biting his lip so long that the soft pink tissued had given way. The coppery taste, salty as tears at first, was now rotting at the back of his tongue.

He wouldn't give in and open his mouth to say something stupid.

If he just had something to DO... He and Munch had just wrapped up two easy cases, "dunkers" as Munch called them. Brian had dutifully typed up the reports, which Munch had immediately commandeered to proofread, since Brain's typing was pretty much literally all thumbs. Why Munch didn't just type the damn reports himself...

So Brian had stupidly sat down right next to his partner, and now he was stuck. Ever since Munch's last "vocabulary lesson," Brian had followed him closer, watching for any re-emergence of whatever had possessed John, and him, that night. The demon appeared to have been exorcised, if it wasn't all in Brian's imagination to start with, and he had no clue whether to be relieved, or disappointed.

"According to your report, the victim in the Rigori case 'had her hands bound with orpe, before being anually taped.'"

Brian blinked.

He twitched.

He blinked again.

His teeth lifted from being embedded in his lip, unsticking with a tiny rush of cold blood."Kiss...my...ass..." Brian ground out.

Completely unfazed, Munch turned to look at his partner, whose gaze was still fixed at a poster of "McGruff the Crime Dog."

"Actually, that would be Anophilemia, and no thank you."

Brian shut his eyes tightly for a second, then slowly turned his head to face his partner. "Excuse me?"

"Anophilemia, the act of kissing someone's ass."

Brian didn't even know how to respond to that. It was an opening to a conversation that he'd hoped for, dreaded. Lightning-quick, his mind searched through possible answers, some disdainful, some flirtatious, until finally, something snapped. "What...the hell...is the matter with you?"

"I'm not the one who's staring at that cartoon puppy like he's the Miss October centerfold." Munch posted out rather calmly.

"I just mean, why does everything have to be so sick? Doesn't anyone have normal sex any more?." It wasn't what Brian wanted to say, it it was distraction enough for now.

John sighed. "Sorry to spoil your illusions, but 'normal' is relative. Besides, even what you consider normal has a name or fetish attached. Naphephilia for example."

Brian debated whether or not to rise to this, but finally, curiosity won out. "Okay, I give, what's naphephilia?"

"Naphephilia, arousal from touch, or touching another."

"That's stupid, that's what sex is. That's the whole point, that's not a kink," Brian scoffed.

"Well, it is when you start focussing on touch in non-erogenous zones; not a whole lot of people realize that," Munch explained, putting down the report in his hands.

"Huh?" Brian replied, none too eloquently.

"Give me your hand."

"Huh?"

"Don't worry, I'm not proposing, just give me your hand."

Brian lifted his right hand from his thigh, and held it out, palm-up. John brought his hands forward, grasping his partner's wrist with his left, and letting his right hover over Brian's palm. Brian's arm tensed to the shoulder, and he fought the urge to pull back.

"What...?"

"Shhh...I'm trying to prove a point," Munch said, and readjusted his grip on Brian's wrist so that the younger man's right arm was pressed between John's left arm and body.

Brian's throat felt like sandpaper, and he glanced furtively around the squadroom to see if anyone had noticed them. Everyone buzzed on as usual, as Brian's body was blocking their view, or they simply didn't care.
A whisper of a touch jerked his attention back to John. A single, long finger traced its way up the centre of Brian's palm, up to his middle knuckle, then gently back down again. Up and down, first with the finger tip, then with an edge of nail. His nerve endings stood up and started to pay attention.

"Heh, that tickles a little," Brian muttered.

A ghost of a smile lifted the corners of John's mouth, and he paused for a moment to push up his glasses, then returned to his task. The index finger resumed its path, then traced the contour of the hand, up each finger, swirling around the knuckle, back down. First softly, a touch that had to be strained to feel, then a solid, gently contact that eased his tension. Finally, a sharper edge of nail, sharp, that left a small trail of fire. Brain stared unblinkingly at the elegant hand. All the feeling in his body seemed to be completely centred in the palm of his hand, completely open to whatever stimuli he was being granted. He lost all sense of his surroundings, and a tiny part of the back of his mind was amazed, and disturbed, at how incredible this felt. His fingertips began to tremble slightly.

Up and down, the rhythm continued, then suddenly, a tight pinch between his index and middle fingers caused him to jump slightly. A jolt of pain, an accompanying endorphin rush, and Brian's mouth was flooded with saliva. He swallowed hard.

Another pinch, and he let out a tiny sigh, and with his eyes shut tightly, he missed Munch's one-sided smile at the small sound.

The light touch moved to his wrist, tickling in zig-zag patterns as his hand was lifted, lifted. Brian stared as his hand was lifted closer and closer to John's smirking lips. For a hysterical instant, Brian thought that Munch was going to kiss his hand, here in the middle of the squadroom. Flashes of Medieval lords and ladies flickered in his mind, but his hand was stopped scant millimeters away from his partner's mouth.
While his wrist was still caught in Munch's tight grasp, Brian's hand shook, as the light touch on his hand ceased. He stared as his partner breathed in, then followed through with a steamy hot exhalation, that sent a jolt of arousal straight to his groin. An inhalation, chilly, that raised every follicle of hair from the back of his neck to a tingling on his scalp. His breath stopped when John's did.

Brian blinked.

He twitched.

He blinked again.

He raised his gaze to Munch's, opened his mouth and -

"Ahem."

Both men's gaze snapped up to see their Lieutenant standing above them, arms crossed. "Any reason why two of my detectives are holding hands rather than, I don't know, working?"

Munch held tight to Brian's wrist, even as the younger man tugged to break free. "Just a little fortune-telling to clear up the McGrath case," followed by a smirk.

"Well, try to stick to more conventional methods in the future, detectives," and with a not so amused glance at the pair, he thankfully moved past towards his office.

"So have I proven my point?" Munch asked, still not relinquishing his grip on Brian's wrist.

"That the Lieutenant thinks we're a couple of nuts, and no one can blame him?"

An exasperated sigh. "No, that the world isn't as vanilla as you think. That when it comes to sex, there is no normal, just what feels right."

"...Yeah John. You're definitely waking me up to a couple of things..." John smiled a smile that would have been a smirk on anyone else. He let go of Brian's wrist, and it dropped limply onto the younger man's leg. "Good, now go re-type this, it's a mess," and he held out the report on the Rigori case.

Brian took a breath as his the heat in his face, and elsewhere, subsided.

When he took the report, his hand was thankfully steady, and as he grasped the paper, he deliberately let his fingers trail down the side of John's hand. "Sure thing, partner," he said softly, with what he prayed would be construed as a smouldering gaze, and not a deranged leer.

John Munch blinked.

He twitched.

He blinked again.

He wouldn't give in and kiss the kid.