so i said i was gonna ramble about my dan/jones d/s headcanons…

For @messiah-for-the-animals and everyone else who expressed interest <3

The thing, really, about having Jones as his dom is that it gives Dan the freedom of being told what to do. Which sounds bizarre, because Dan’s entire world is full of people telling him what to do, and Dan bridles against it and grudgingly goes along because he has no choice. Except that that’s not entirely true. When Jonatton Yeah? tells him what to do, Dan– does have a choice really, technically. He could very easily choose to refuse, not to abase himself for a job he hates, to find something better to do with his life; Sasha and Claire and any number of people are telling him consistently that he could. Except that he’s too much of a coward. With Jones, he has the freedom of… entirely giving up his right to have a choice. Because unlike everyone else who tells Dan what to do, Jones actually cares about his welfare, and it feels like being out of control in a safe way, like he’s taken care of, not like he’s falling and there’s not going to be anyone even to bother to clean him up when he hits the ground.

Because somehow, despite subsisting chiefly on amphetamines, sugar, and Indian takeaway, and having nothing even remotely resembling a regular human sleep schedule, Jones is very good at knowing what Dan needs. If Dan points out the hypocrisy, Jones just shrugs. ‘Works for me, dunnit? When it stops workin’, I’ll figure out something else. I’m better at tellin’ meself to do things than you are, mate.’

It’s not full 24/7 stuff, and Dan would wrinkle his nose if anyone called him a service sub, but it’s very often less about sexy stuff than it is Jones ordering him to finish his writing, to wash his hair, to cook an actual meal with actual nutritional value. He’s got this tone– it’s not a cruel tone, not harsh or demanding, just… steady and firm and fond, and Dan is able (ideally, anyway) to let his brain shut off and just do what he’s told, and know it’s for his own good, his own care.

Ideally, of course, is never quite the same as reality, and in reality, Dan sometimes bitches and moans about his orders, because, well, he is Dan, and ugh, Yeah? assigned him this article because he knows it’ll make him nuts, he can’t do this sober, or he’s still got like two clean shirts, and the one he’s wearing doesn’t even smell yet– And that’s fine. He can bitch and moan, but in the end, he’ll still do what he’s told; Jones is well accustomed to Dan’s whingeing, and knows how little it usually means.

Sometimes, on occasional days when they both agree Dan needs it, Jones will make him a List. This is what Dan is doing today. He’s staying at home all day and working. This is what he’s allowed. These are the rules. And on those days, Dan does a month’s worth of both of their laundry, or cleans the flat, or paints the spare room, or works on the novel he occasionally drunkenly moans that he’ll never finish and it’s crap anyway, and in between each task, he reports back to Jones, with a strangely awkward and sullen sort of pride.

'Bathroom’s done, Mr. Jones.’

('Should I, uh, call you something?’ Dan hazarded awkwardly when they first started this, and Jones had laughed.

'What, 'sides 'you DJ cunt’?’

'You know what I mean’, Dan glowered. ’… Master, or whatever.’

“d you like that?’ Jones asked mildly, tilting his head at Dan in thoughtful consideration.

Master, they’d decided, felt too much like cheesy B-grade fantasy, like Dan should develop a hunch and a dubious accent, or Jones grow some Ming the Merciless style facial hair and sweep around in a cloak. Sir felt too public school. From there, the options only seemed to get weirder, and harder to take seriously, and involved alarming amounts of either daddy-kink or zoophilia, neither of which either of them were into. Eventually, they’d agreed upon 'Mr. Jones’. Jones was still Jones, still what he always was, just a little more. So when Dan was serving, on days like that, Jones was Mr. Jones.)

Jones grins up from his laptop or his decks or the mysteriously salvaged 80’s harddrive he’s taking apart. 'You gonna thank me for makin’ you get that done so you don’t have to wash in your own filth?’

And Dan does. He tells Jones to fuck off first, but he does. And Jones nods and smiles, apparently genuinely chuffed by Dan’s gratitude. 'Good job. What’s next?’

Learning to serve and submit voluntarily, willingly, is something of an epiphany for Dan. Because– and this is the weirdest thing– he finds that he is thankful, and that Jones’ praise after he’s done whatever menial task has been assigned, means something to him. It’s kind of embarrassing, he thinks, that he should light up under Jones’ approval that way, like he’s a pathetic beaten dog begging for any scrap it can get. But it… feels good. It’s an inexplicable comfort to be given tasks and rules and boundaries, and know that he’ll do them– Jones doesn’t have to compel him with the threat of discipline (though there are always contingency plans, should he have to). It feels like order and care and accomplishment. It feels a little bit like not being afraid, for once in his life. It’s learning to let go of his eternal awkwardness and self-awareness and ego.

And at the end of those days, Jones cuddles him and tells him he was genius, he was so good all day, Jones is proud of him, and Dan bizarrely feels as exhausted as if he’d been at the gym all day instead of doing menial household and work-related shit.

(Later, sometimes, Dan will wear a collar during those days– handmade by Jones, stitched together out of wires and old bits of clothing, a scrap of burgundy leather salvaged from an ancient car seat– and sometimes Jones will run a finger under it and give Dan one of his dizzy, guileless smiles, and Dan will feel the urge to fall on Jones in a desperate hug and cling, embarrassingly needy and glad.)

It extends to sex too, of course– I did promise. Jones helps Dan channel his compulsive masochism into sexual play and submission, in a way that is so helpful for Dan, learning to handle those tendencies and having someone else who can help him both act them out and check them.

Sometimes, Jones comes all over Dan’s face, and it’s hot and viscous and disgusting and stings like a motherbitch if Dan blinks and it gets in his eyes, clinging to his eyelashes, his nose full of the scent of Jones. And then Jones laughs– gentle, not mocking– and gets on his knees across from Dan and tells him firmly to hold still, don’t open his eyes (there’s such adamant, practical kindness in that tone, it would take work to disobey), and cleans off his face with a damp warm flannel, and Dan is still, completely, until Jones tells him it’s alright to open his eyes. He’ll be hard, and never quite sure if it’s the degradation or the tender care afterwards that’s the cause.

When it comes to impact play, different things suit different moods. Dan likes thuddy sensation– punching is both satisfying and strangely invigorating, a glowing, muscle-deep ache. As a belligerent drunk, and someone with a talent for saying the wrong thing even when he’s sober, Dan has been punched a fair amount on his life. Sloppy, sharp fists thrown at him in anger are nothing at all like the firm, flat-knuckled no-nonsense blows Jones delivers to the thick pectoral muscles just beneath Dan’s shoulders, or his buttocks, or the meat of his thighs. Those make Dan groan, low and rough in his throat, and grin to show teeth. Getting punched by Jones makes him feel tough, in a way little else does.

When he wants to get lost, it’s whippy, stingy sensation. Switches, floggers, the flat of Jones’ hand, the slap of a crop on his tender inner thighs. Stripes across back and arse and thighs, welts that linger, brutal and white-hot. Dan doesn’t really do hard drugs unless he’s already drunk (at which point he’ll accept basically anything), so he doesn’t really know the ecstatic clarity of certain uppers on their own, but he imagines it’s something like that. The stripes of pain all coalesced into a haze of burning, but floating inside the haze, his mind feels as sharp and clear as it ever has, like those macro photographs of birds’ feathers of the whorls of a fingertip turned into ragged mountains and canyons. It’s not that the pain ~turns into pleasure~ halfway through or anything like that, like bad S&M porn would have you believe; it’s still pain, it’s just… good pain. It sends him flying. And Dan begs for more of it, out of his mind and shameless, and Jones gives it to him– until he doesn’t, because Jones knows Dan’s limits better than Dan does. Dan, compulsively masochistic and self-sabotaging, will do himself infinite harm; Jones knows when to stop. It’s why Dan feels bizarrely safer tied up and being beaten senseless by Jones than he does at… any SugarApe party, really.

In the moment, once it sinks in that Jones has stopped, Dan writhes and pleads and pulls against his cuffs and incoherently swears at Jones for more, you bastard fuckstick twatface, keep going, keep going, please, fuck you, fuck, please. Jones doesn’t, but he does fuck Dan so hard that Dan can’t even manage words anymore, and afterwards, once they’ve both come and got their breath back, Jones uncuffs Dan and puts on one of his special aftercare mixes and wipes Dan down with a cool flannel and gets him a cup of tapwater ('No beer yet; there’s a reason I ain’t rolling, isn’t there? Not 'til we both come down off it.’) and plays with his beard and his hair until Dan’s breathing evens out and his eyes focus.

Sometimes they talk about the scene, sometimes they don’t. In the days afterwards, Jones makes sure Dan drinks plenty of coffee and water, so the subdrop doesn’t hit him so hard. When it does, it’s a bitch; Jones coulda told you that even before he had any experience with Dan and kink.

But most of the time, when they have sex, it’s just… sex, without all the trimmings. Sometimes Jones is the one on the bottom. Sometimes it’s just blowies or frotting or mutual handjobs in the shower, or any of the myriad ways vanilla people have sex. Because a scene like that– bondage and whipping and all the rest of it– it’s intense and takes preparation and a certain mindset and you’re not always in the mood for it, and that’s fine too.

Jones, generally speaking, is a very earnest, pragmatic dom, who occasionally gets REALLY ENTHUSIASTIC when it comes to the sex, all sunshiney and giggly at getting to beat the shit out of Dan. He’s careful, 'cos of course he is, he doesn’t want to actually hurt Dan, in a not-fun way, but the whole thing feels like– well, it feels like working the room at a really good gig. Playing Dan the way he plays his decks, hitting him in just the right way, knowing how, to draw out certain reactions, the satisfaction of doing something well. Jones likes doing things well. The ache in his muscles, the smell of sweat and sex and leather, harsh breathing, the noises they both make, the rhythm of his blows, the impact up his own arms. He’ll take carefully timed pauses to just bounce on the spot, full of such giddy energy that he has to rock out, headbanging and pumping his fists, just like he does when he’s making music. 'Awright, Dan!’

Jones makes special mixes for what he likes to call their playtime (Dan thinks that sounds stupid, like they’re a pair of toddlers whose mums have arranged for a playdate for them; Jones just laughs. 'Aw, c'mon, Danny, don’t you like playing with that nice Jones boy?’). There are heavy, overwhelming ones with grinding, grungy basslines for really intense scenes, music that feels like it’s physically bludgeoning Dan as much as Jones is, and Jones’ll beat Dan in time to the rhythm, the sharp whistle-crack of the switch or the duller smack of the flogger, making the music part of the scene and the scene part of the music. There’s something magical about that, he thinks, like he’s turning them into some kind of dirty sexy performance art.

He’s got specific aftercare mixes too, to help bring Dan back to himself and chill Jones out after all the wild exertion and energy. Some of them are modified from chill-out mixes he’d made for the comedown from weekend-long rolls on E and poppers and acid, some of them are specially put-together, just for him and Dan. Syncopated bouncy beeping synths over an inexorable, slow, pounding rush like the tide, sampled from any number of machines (refrigerator fans, stuttering car motors, the great engines that lift Tower Bridge) and slowed down until it’s almost too low to be registered by human ears. Just the thing to get your breathing all evened out and your body all synced up, your brain calmed down into the rhythm of your lungs and heart. As much as Jones loves getting to whale on Dan, the aftercare is almost better. Jones isn’t very good at being still or quiet, but those times when they’re both coming down from it, he can be; just curled up around Dan, stroking and petting and taking quiet care of him. It’s nice.

Jones likes their arrangement; Dan’s a miserable fuck most of the time, but Jones knew him before he was that way all the time, he knows there’s something under there. Dan wouldn’t hurt so much, after all, if he’d started off a complete dick. It makes him happy to help Dan be happier– Jones likes to make people happy generally, but Dan especially– and if that means a bit of kink, all the better; it’s fun. Jones couldn’t do it all the time– he’s got a mate who does the whole leather house thing, full-on; he has no idea how she manages to do anything else with her time, all the work she puts into keeping charge of her little house boys and girls– but they way they do it, gentle bossing from Jones most of the time, and occasional days or hardcore scenes every once in a while– suits him fine. It gives Jones a rush, and it makes Dan smile, the House of Jones is cleaner than it’s ever been, and they both get a good cuddle in every once in a while. It’s pretty good.