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Pope calls them 'stretches' - the hours and minutes of sleep he gets in between upright jolts and rib-burning gasps that wake him up at night.
Two stretches are good. Statistically, it's closer to four per night. Inching towards five, if he's being honest. Punctuated by taking a leak, then having a glass of water, then sucking Will off if he's up too. In more ways than one, that is.
He comes back to it again, blinking rapidly against dense, thick darkness. Slowly, the blur fades and he can make out the shape of Will sitting at the edge of the bed. Tense in its outlines, completely motionless, until the man hisses and tilts his head slowly to the left shoulder, then to the right.
There is a headache brewing in that iron skull of his, traveling from temple to temple as he carefully tries to lull it back to sleep.
Still drowsy, Pope rolls away to the bedside table to get his always half-empty glass of water and gently pushes it into Will's peripheral.
Will takes it steadily, throws a painkiller or two on the problem, and washes it all away with the water. Then kisses Pope back to sleep, thankful as ever.
It's much lighter outside when he is awake again. Still, not enough light for another endless night to be over. The pale light is seeping into the room, but it's so quiet outside that he can hear Will's breathing. Quickened, conscious.
He moves blindly and presses his face against the side of the other's neck.
"How long you've been up?"
"Enough to think over the entirety of my fucking life twice over," Will confesses gruffly. "You?"
Pope just hums, noncommital.
"You smell good," he says. If they are to dwell on the obvious, it's better to be something positive.
"I mostly smell of you these days," Will's tone is just a smidge lower for it to be purely informative.
Pope leans back to take a look and his eyelashes are also a smidge lower for it to be completely innocent. Those translucent eyelashes that he can't even see when the sun hits them right but feel so good when they flutter against his skin.
"Not entirely a bad thing, huh?" he whispers as he works through the mess of Will's hair. Slightly damp - a frustrated insomnia sweat, not the feverish, soaking wet nightmare sweat - blond strands stick in every direction. He combs through them with his fingers, separating, smoothing over as Will stares up at him, and takes him in.
The pale blue of his eyes gets deluded by the bedside lamp's yellow. That water to Pope's fire turns green at the edges, cat-like in color, in the soft squint at the corners.
He leans in and without further preambles works his tongue against the other's mouth like he would if he were to lick Will open. Tiny jabs to relax, then pushing in as far as he can go, slick and instant.
Will can read that analogy well. It's in the echoing rhythm between the tongue against his own and the digits that get inside him. He throws his arms wide and lazy, the back of his head sinking into the pillows as Pope follows him there, tongue down his throat.
It's been twenty-odd years of strategical, measured, well-placed secret kisses until Pope has arrived at the daily opportunity to tongue-fuck Will's face bloody red. But once he arrived, he never stopped. His beard gets in the way, and his own pathetic greedy whines get in the way but he keeps at it.
He has to retreat and press his swollen mouth against the sharp bone of Will's cheek to listen to his groans as his fingers press against the other man's prostate. It's too sloppy to be calculated and if anything, it gets in the way of the rhythm too.
But Will's very quiet, very secretive about what he feels and how and Pope lives for the sounds of it. Chest-wide, rustling hisses like the waves crashing against the shore. Low rumbling groans like a distant thunder. Those are for him to hear, he knows. For him alone.
Pope has been tirelessly at work at expanding that library but he's really in this for the true classics.
Then Will drawls out his full name and it's a shot to the heart.
It's a dance after that, no fumbling, rummaging, or tripping over each other. Will hooks his hands under the knees and pushes them up and apart, wide. So, so wide.
His ribs arch up, his head sinks further back. Just like that, he is exposed so completely - there is nothing the other man can't have, can't take if he chooses to.
Pope doesn't realize right away that he is drooling. Not until the long string of saliva hits Will's hard cock below.
"Right," he thinks. "Right, right, right..." Stuck on the word and so helpless, so hypnotized by whatever mating dance this is. Purely animalistic in its expression, entirely human with its emotion.
He smears the mess up Will's length and keeps his hand there, on top, index finger fitted perfectly along the thick vein. It's too much for him to see all of this at once. Yet feeling the searing burn of the man's arousal against his palm is even more overwhelming.
He slides inside in one smooth thrust while he still has a hint of control over himself.
Will's body, so pliant seconds ago, clamps on him as the man twists and roars into the pillow. Twenty years ago Pope would probably come on the spot there in an embarrassing display so unlike all the porn he has watched. Then Will would laugh in a way that'd be more bashful than mocking, suck him off right to this same point he just finished at, and they'd go again.
But hey, unlike the early hints of arthritis, there are some signs of aging that Pope can appreciate.
He can take a pause. He can admire the view.
Pope thrusts long and hard, hands running up and down the other's chest, to his contracting throat, to his tense jaw, until the body underneath him accepts him fully. Then he unhooks Will's hands, now claw-like, leaving red welts in the pale flesh of his thighs, wraps them around himself, and goes down.
The other body surges up to meet him, connecting forehead to forehead, and they push against each other like two rams locking horns. Will laughs against his face, lips crimson red, teeth blinding white and it becomes clear that neither is winning. Then he braces himself on his elbows, gets his legs moving, and starts pushing down when Pope is pushing up.
They kiss more - this time proper kissing; the mouth fucking would be an overkill. Savoring the sting, the swelling, the hotness of the skin, and all the slobbery mess of it.
They sink further down when they run out of breath and Will cradles Pope's body against his own as it's doing the work. Fucking him deeply, belly grinding down against his dick to keep the hands free.
The hands are around Will's shoulders. Keeping him close, holding him tight. So tight that for this short moment when they can be one, they truly are.
There's no telling who comes first. It's just at some point, in the tight heat between them the dance becomes wetter, sloppier. The shudders get in the way of the rhythm. Gasping iloveyous get exchanged, not a formality but an instinct.
When he comes to, Pope is licking Will's lower belly clean. Long broad strokes along the softening shape of his cock, wiping the drops and the streaks. He then drops his head further down but Will grunts and pulls him up by the grip at the back of his head.
"Don't overdo it," he rasps before immediately sucking Pope's tongue in, come and years of unspoken love confessions hanging off it.
Pope falls into his next stretch of sleep with Will's mouth still on his and it's the best way to go.