forthedog | (no subject)

Entry tags:

darrow,
neil

(no subject)

It's not uncommon for him to come home covered in blood. But this is a lot of blood.

It's not as bad as it might have been. He's cleaned off what he can, washed his hands, and the rain has taken care of some of the rest. He could have gone to the asylum, where he keeps a change of clothing for exactly this reason, but now that the adrenaline has left him completely he's tired and a little drained.

In ways that have nothing to do with the wound on his throat.

Now that sanity has reasserted itself, he's sort of wondering how that's going to be taken.

But there's nothing to do about it. He pulls the bike into the garage and heads in through the kitchen, shrugging off his jacket. The wet clothes are something else he wants to shed.

He's still not sure what tonight even means. He supposes he'll figure it out eventually.

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"All right." He takes Neil's hand without hesitating, still feeling almost docile. Yes, he wants to get the blood off him. Suddenly he wants that almost a startling amount.

He'll be covered with it again soon enough.

He manages a faint smile. "That sounds amazing."

Leading him upstairs to our bedroom, careful not to walk too loudly down the hall, I click the door shut behind us, and then lead him into the bathroom.

The master bathroom, which still seems funny to me for some reason, which is bigger than that first hut Logan and I lived in on the island. Which isn't saying much, since you could barely stand two people in there, but whatever.

"Sitdown," I say, pointing toward the closed toilet, and dropping into a crouch to get the first aid kit from under the sink.

He sits, lifting his blood-streaked hand again. That pale line. For some reason he keeps coming back to it, and not for the first time. Pulling out the glass shard, watching the water in the sink turn a swirling red.

"Tom would never be able to handle this. Would he?"

"No," I admit, without even having to think twice. "He'd never understand it, and honestly, I don't even think he'd try. He wouldn't want to, it'd hurt him too much."

Putting the kit down, I stand in front of him, curling my hands in the hem of his shirt and saying, "Lift your arms."

"I hate that." He obeys, raising his arms, pulling in a breath and really feeling - for the first time - how sore the rest of him is. Even if, at the time, it had felt like it took almost no effort at all.

"Who I am doesn't really bother me anymore, but that... He couldn't love me the way I am now. He might try, but he wouldn't be able to do it."

"He'd still love you," I point out, tossing his shirt carelessly into the corner, "That'd be part of the problem."

He's got some bruises already darkening on his skin, and I can tell from how stiffly he's moving that he's gonna be in a world of pain by tomorrow.

"Maybe I oughta put you in the bath," I murmur, pushing a hands back through his hair, my thumbs brushing over his temples.

"Whatever you want," he breathes, his eyes closing again.

It's as if a wall in him has cracked and something is trickling through, threatening to turn to a flood. He's been working so hard on drawing lines, on maintaining balances, and he's completely missed a singular and massive failure in all of those respects. And that should frighten him, and it doesn't.

"I just wanna stop thinking for a while."

"When do you ever think?" I tease, tapping my palm lightly against his cheek and then leaning over to turn on the taps.

"We got this big fuckin' tub, we might as well use it."

"Yeah, it's always too fucking much or nowhere near enough." He eyes the tub and the steam already rising from the water streaming into it, and thinking about sinking down into it makes him ache even more.

"So, what, you gonna wash my back?"

"Why, you don't want me to?" I tease, giving him a look, "Maybe I wanna wash all that shit off of you, so fuckin' sue me."

"I didn't say I don't want you to. I want you to."

He watches the water for a moment, oddly entranced. Maybe it's just that he's tired. Maybe it's the fun neurochemical cocktail he's got going on. "We should get some bubble bath."

Snorting out a laugh, I say, "We can steal some from the girls, if you wanna smell like bubble gum."

"Maybe I do. What're you, judging me about that, now?" He leans his head against Neil's shoulder, half butting at him and half nuzzling.

"We should get our own. Something floral."

Reaching over the edge of the tub, I grab a bottle of shampoo and pop the cap, squeezing some of it into the stream of water pouring into the tub. It doesn't work as well as bubble bath would, but it's fine in a pinch.

"There, bubbles," I say, tossing the bottle back into the basket and taking a step back. "Stand up."

"You're so good to me," he says - a little dryly - and stands, stretching just a bit, spine cracking. He thinks about making the next moves himself but instead just stands, waiting to be instructed. It might be a game, and at any other time it probably would be, but something about it now feels serious in a way it never had.

"Yeah, I am," I say, dead serious as I curl a hand in front of his waistband, using the grip to yank him toward me.

Popping the button and tugging down the zipper, my hand slipping inside and curving possessively over the line of his dick through his underwear. Then, just as abruptly, I pull my hand away and drop into a crouch so I can unlace his boots.

Getting him to step out of them, I push them against the wall by the toilet, out of the way, and then stand up to finish with his pants.

He lets himself be stripped, keeping still except for when he has to move, and drawing in only a slight breath when Neil cups him. This is barely sexual, at least at the moment, but sex is in all of it, a thread that runs through everything, and while he doesn't harden and his pulse doesn't race, he feels himself sinking a little deeper.

Deep, and warm, and peaceful in a way nothing else ever is.

Getting him out of his clothes, finally, I step back again, openly looking at him. The bruises, the blood on his neck, the old scars and the ink. Beautiful might seem like a strange word to describe somebody like him, but it drifts up in my head now and then.

Turning off the taps, I dip my hand into the water. It's just a little too hot, but maybe that was the point.

"Alright. Get in."

Moving slowly, he steps into the tub, and hisses a little sharply as the heat sends prickled skin racing up his legs and all down his arms. It's right on the edge of being painful, so of course it feels amazing, and it just toes that line even harder as he lowers himself down.

"You did that on purpose," he says, under his breath and barely audible.

"No shit," I grin, grabbing soap and a clean washcloth and sitting down on the edge of the tub.

As soon as he gets settled, I start washing his shoulders, the hollow of his throat, his neck, softening the new scab on his throat, again. The blood runs pink rivulets down his neck, pooling in the hollow of his collarbone. Leaning forward, a little precarious on the edge of the tub, I bend over him and catch the flow of blood with my tongue.

He's just starting to subside into the low hum in his head, lulled by the heat and the gentle touch, when he feels Neil's tongue, just there, and he stiffens, letting out a sound that's more of a sigh than a moan.

The fact that this still completely undoes him, in a way what happened in the alley never could... The day that's no longer true might be the day he actually starts to feel fear again.

Opening my mouth over the bite, I fit my teeth over where someone else's were, sucking just enough to briefly increase the flow, dark and metallic on my tongue.

Sitting back, I squeeze the washcloth out over the wound, rinsing until it runs clear, then I leave it alone to clot again. Once he gets out, I'll deal with disinfecting it for real, but right now, that's not really what this is about.

I'm almost methodical with the rest of it, scrubbing down his shoulders and chest, letting the washcloth dip below the surface of the water but touching him without any real intent other than getting him clean.

"Lean forward," I say, so I can get his back, as promised.

This time he does moan, quiet and loose, his head tilting slightly to the side. It's nowhere near as powerful as it can get, not tipping him down into the deepest part of that warm, dark, safe place in him, but it's a taste of it, and it's one he now understands he needs. It's been a while, in fact. Maybe that's part of why.

He always goes back to that first time just inside Neil's apartment, because in so many ways that was the start of it all. "I belong to you," he breathes as he leans forward, the words a bit slurred, almost as if he's talking in his sleep. Echoing a memory that he's dreaming.

"That's what I been tellin' you," I murmur, using a little more pressure to work some of the kinks out of his back, the water sloshing against the side of the tub, splashing the knee of my sweats.

"I keep lettin' you forget," I say, almost apologetically, the washcloth dropped carelessly across the edge of the tub and my hand working up into his hair.

Standing abruptly, I strip out of my shirt, my sweats, kicking them aside and murmuring, "Scoot up," so I can slip into the tub behind him. We got a big tub just for this, but it's still a snug fit, my knees on either side of him and his back pressed up against my chest.

He's not surprised when it happens, and he slides up in the tub without hesitation, sighing again as he feels Neil pressed against him. He leans back, eyes closed, one hand curled against Neil's shin. But just curled, unable to do much grasping. His hands are always the last to go, folding loosely in on themselves, difficult to use unless he really makes an effort.

Sometimes it amazes him, how Neil can coax him into this state without doing much at all. But it shouldn't. It's a logical progression of conditioning, and he was already primed for it anyway. So he has no room for amazement now. Just the rise and fall of Neil's breathing against his back.