But I could see for miles, miles, miles
In the end the anger is directed--finally and completely and as it always should have been—inward.
He knows what he’s hearing before he’s even really conscious of it. He lies in his bed in the dark, that fucking wall so near his head, and it’s very faint but he can hear it and he knows its source. He knows those sounds.
It’s a distant memory now, but he knows what Neil sounds like when he comes.
He lies there in the dark and he feels fury roiling through him and transmuting into misery so deep it literally shakes him, wrenches at his muscles, and through it all he’s achingly, shamefully hard. He fists his hands in the sheets. Doesn’t drop them below his waist, where he wants them, because it would mean a few seconds of relief and he can’t allow himself that. This is torture, and it’s his torture, and he thinks that it’s exactly what he fucking deserves.
But all at once he thinks of Sam, all that weight on his shoulders, the way he doesn’t seem to want to let it go, and Neil’s hollow eyes. I don’t even know where to fuckin’ start.
And somewhere in that darkness something breaks open.
The next couple of days are a blur.
He isn’t drinking—at least, not much. But he also isn’t really home. Somewhere in there, he remembers staggering back and sleeping for a few fractured hours before he leaves again. He doesn’t want to see Neil. He’s not ready. Later he remembers the park at sunset, approaching the burn scar of the World Tree at last, making a long, slow circuit around still-charred ground. The ashes have been blown and washed away. He can still see that spike of green in the midst of all the death, small and defiant. He goes no closer. It’s enough to know that it’s still there, but it’s not his. It doesn’t need him.
This is about need. This is about needing.
It feels like time is twisting in on itself. It feels like some giant hand has hit rewind and he’s being swept along with the blur as everything loops backward. And at the same time he knows he has a choice. That he chose this. That there was never an excuse, that all of this has been his choice: Death and pain and evil, and once he chose something else, and now he can make that choice again.
So he stands at Neil’s door and knocks, and it’s firm but it’s not pounding. The terror feels burned out of him. So does the rage. What’s left is desire so intense it makes his hands shake. The desire is what’s done the burning.
When fighting and running are off the table, you give up. You surrender. You lay down your arms.
He knows what he’s hearing before he’s even really conscious of it. He lies in his bed in the dark, that fucking wall so near his head, and it’s very faint but he can hear it and he knows its source. He knows those sounds.
It’s a distant memory now, but he knows what Neil sounds like when he comes.
He lies there in the dark and he feels fury roiling through him and transmuting into misery so deep it literally shakes him, wrenches at his muscles, and through it all he’s achingly, shamefully hard. He fists his hands in the sheets. Doesn’t drop them below his waist, where he wants them, because it would mean a few seconds of relief and he can’t allow himself that. This is torture, and it’s his torture, and he thinks that it’s exactly what he fucking deserves.
But all at once he thinks of Sam, all that weight on his shoulders, the way he doesn’t seem to want to let it go, and Neil’s hollow eyes. I don’t even know where to fuckin’ start.
And somewhere in that darkness something breaks open.
The next couple of days are a blur.
He isn’t drinking—at least, not much. But he also isn’t really home. Somewhere in there, he remembers staggering back and sleeping for a few fractured hours before he leaves again. He doesn’t want to see Neil. He’s not ready. Later he remembers the park at sunset, approaching the burn scar of the World Tree at last, making a long, slow circuit around still-charred ground. The ashes have been blown and washed away. He can still see that spike of green in the midst of all the death, small and defiant. He goes no closer. It’s enough to know that it’s still there, but it’s not his. It doesn’t need him.
This is about need. This is about needing.
It feels like time is twisting in on itself. It feels like some giant hand has hit rewind and he’s being swept along with the blur as everything loops backward. And at the same time he knows he has a choice. That he chose this. That there was never an excuse, that all of this has been his choice: Death and pain and evil, and once he chose something else, and now he can make that choice again.
So he stands at Neil’s door and knocks, and it’s firm but it’s not pounding. The terror feels burned out of him. So does the rage. What’s left is desire so intense it makes his hands shake. The desire is what’s done the burning.
When fighting and running are off the table, you give up. You surrender. You lay down your arms.
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I haven't seen Mike in days. There's this nagging thought in the back of my head, that maybe he's avoiding me, and I've got a few suspicions when it comes to why. It try not to feel guilty about the first fun I've had in months, but I can't help it.
Then there's a heavy knock on the door, I get to my feet, looking through the peephole and feeling my heart leap into the back of my throat. Turning the lock, I think ... here we go... and I open the door.
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Or.
He doesn't wait to be asked in--it's another rule broken but he doesn't care. He pushes Neil into the apartment with his body, not fast but hard, fucking undeniable. Somewhere behind him he feels the door closing.
And then they're there, right where they were before, and it's not dark this time, so he can really see what's in front of him: The shaggy fall of dark hair, the way it always looks like it'll be silky to the touch no matter how unkempt it is. The unbroken artist's line that runs from Neil's cheekbone to his jaw and down his throat, the invisible line that he knows, in some other world, he's traced with bites and kisses and the things that sit somewhere between the two. Neil's mouth. His fucking eyes and the way they always looked far too old for his face.
He can't exactly breathe.
He sees how this might go.
No more walls, he thinks, and all at once he's sliding down to his knees and pressing forward as he does, hands on Neil's chest, belly, closing over his hips, pushing up Neil's shirt as his mouth opens against bare skin, and it's nothing but total fucking submission, and it's easier than he ever dared to dream it would be. It's relief as the fire finally takes him.
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"Mike," I sob, my knees threatening to buckle, and all at once it's like the dam's broken and there's no stopping it now. Tugging at his shirt, I say, "Fuck, Mike. Get up." But for all I care, we can do this on the floor. Wherever. We need each other. The how and the where of it are unimportant details.
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And what comes out instead is, "I belong to you."
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I let out another sob, my hands on his face, and it's really like seeing him for the first time in over a year. It's all charging forward so fast, I'm half afraid I'll miss it. Too perfect to be anything but a really cruel dream.
"That's what I been sayin'," I whisper, flashing him a crooked, watery sort of grin.
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He turns his head slightly, sucks two of Neil's fingers into his mouth. This is not a second chance. He doesn't even know how many chances this is.
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He feels exactly the way he always did, and it's more than I can really bear.
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And. His breath catches.
"Tell me something," he says, and he sounds almost conversational as he scratches his nails low across Neil's belly, tongue flicking in their wake. "Can this be the first time? Can last time not count?"
And on the last words the pleading bleeds through.
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I can't seem to catch my breath. It stutters in my chest, dragging in huge lungfuls of it that never seem like enough, and wouldn't that just be fuckin' great, if I passed out before we even got going.
I nod stupidly, before my brain even catches up to what he's saying, heart wrenching so violently in my chest that I let out a sharp gasp before I can collect myself enough to answer.
"It doesn't. Mike, it's... this isn't even close to bein' the same thing."
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For a moment he doesn't even move. He's just staring, entranced, lips parted and already wet. Neil says he hasn't missed the sex the most, and Mike guesses he probably hasn't either if it comes to that, but that isn't to say he hasn't missed it and it isn't to say that now the sight of Neil's dick hardening and glistening and barely inches from his mouth isn't sending sparks up and down his spine like chain lightning.
He leans forward--slower than he could have believed himself capable of now--and sweeps his tongue against the head, fingers framing the base, and he'd swear their pulses are beating like the same goddamn thing. Harlequin romance novel bullshit, except for Neil's precome sweet-salty in his mouth.
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It's Mike. Mike's hand and Mike's mouth, and every fucking cell in my body's missed him so fucking much, most days I still don't understand how I survived the loss. How I didn't just split apart at the seams.
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He's still shaking. He palms himself with his other hand and he's fucking diamond hard, but somehow that's outside his focus. His entire world is Neil's cock sliding past his lips, heavy on his tongue, and Jesus Christ the fucking taste.
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He needs to relearn all of this. He needs to relearn me, and I guess I could use with a refresher, too.
"Mike... Mike, please."
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He feels Neil's cock hit the back of his throat and then he's pulling back again, nuzzling at it and letting it leave a wet line of precome and spit down his cheek to his jaw. He doesn't want this to be tidy. He'd fucking bathe in it all if he could.
"What?"
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I grin down at him, my thumb smearing away the sheen of spit and come on his cheek. I want too many fucking things at once. His mouth on me. His dick in me. The weight of him pressing me down onto whatever flat surface we can find.
"At least lemme find a fuckin' wall to lean against."
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But of course it's all still there.
He shoves Neil backward with both hands on his hips, following after on his knees, and it's awkward as hell and he couldn't possibly care any less. "Whatever. You're gonna come down my fucking throat." He arches an eyebrow. "Unless you wanna fight about it."
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"I don't wanna fight," I murmur, my thumb tracing his bottom lip. "Long as you're gonna fuck me later."
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Fuck slow. Just fuck it.
"I'll do anything you fucking want," he says, and everything in him clenches and releases in a way that makes him want to sob. He doesn't. Neil's cock sliding back into his mouth like it's fucking meant to be there is enough distraction from how his heart is cracking open.
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Almost.
But in reality, it's a rush of too many emotions at once. A rush of moments, memories, and maybe it's not right without Tom here with us, but for now, it's got to be enough.
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"Jesus," he hisses, in between swipes of his tongue around the head. "I fucking missed how you taste." And in again, like he's ravenous. Starving.
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"You can relax, you know. I'm not goin' anywhere," I whisper, but as soon as the words leave my mouth, they feel like a lie. We can't make promises like that to each other, and I feel a sudden, sharp wrench of panic in my gut, enough to punch the air right out of my lungs.
It doesn't matter how tight I hold on to him. How happy we are or how fucking fated we are to be together. This, right now, is the only time we're guaranteed to get.
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Neil in bed early in the morning, stirring, not yet awake, and he and Tom had already been awake for almost half an hour and together they slid down Neil's body and made out like horny teenagers over and around and on Neil's cock until he was very awake and very hard and trying to muffle the sounds he was making against his own palm.
Oh, God.
And now. The flutter of a pulse under his tongue. The textures of it all, the intoxicating mix of slick and silky. The way it feels to slide slowly, slowly down and then hard and fast back up again, humming as he goes.
He's honestly not sure time even means much of anything anymore.
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It feels so fucking good, fucking perfect, but that's almost an afterthought. When I come, minutes or fucking hours later, for all I know, it's a jaggedly painful sort of thing, after over a year without.
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It's not an orgasm of his own, though he's had a hand between his legs, grinding against the heel of his palm, for the last however long. But the world gets indistinct for a while, and then he's licking Neil clean with a kind of care that's almost delicate--with that edge of desperation still beneath it.
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Groping at his shirt, I drag it up and off of him, and I'm pretty sure I hear something tear, but who the fuck even cares?
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