Let's not try to figure out everything at once...

[forthedog]

It's better. For the first time, it's better and he's sure it's not just wishful thinking, or adjusting to a situation that's just as shitty as it was before.

He's still not good. The morning he and Neil had spent in bed and curled around each other, he hadn't dreamed, but that night he had, and badly. And the night after. Neil touches him, and he still flinches instinctively away most of the time. The thought of going outside for anything--even the smallest task--feels like an exhausting ordeal. At times even getting up to bathe or eat is difficult.

But a few days later, and he's sure it's still better. As he makes his way up the stairs to he apartment, he's sure he feels less tired. Less battered inside.

Again, he's coming back from therapy, but he's feeling cautiously hopeful in addition to sore and tired. Donna had seemed entirely unsurprised when he had broached the subject--sidling around to it with an awkwardness that made him cringe and yet that he couldn't really stop--nodding and moving over to a desk and scribbling a name and a number down on a scrap of paper.

"There," she had said, tossing her long blond ponytail back over her shoulder and handing the paper to him. "Call that number. They'll take good care of you. Promise."

And he had thought that might actually be all she said about it, but as she pointed him back to the mat and his stretches, she had smiled, and it had been faint and warm. "I'm glad you said something," she said quietly. "'Cause I was about to."

Under the embarrassment, he was--and is--grateful. Because people care. They care without prying, without making themselves a nuisance.

Unless they have to. He thinks of Johnny and doesn't quite smile.

He turns the key in the lock, pushes the door open. Maybe it's better, but he's still tired and everything still hurts, and all he wants to do is curl up on the couch and doze.

Once it would have been with a drink. But now part of him--a louder part--is wondering if that might be the best idea.

Comments

[forthedog]

"I was afraid to say anything," he whispers, and it's almost a wince. He doesn't remember much of that night, but he remembers what led up to it far too clearly. Maybe there are reasons, but they don't feel like excuses.

Barely able to handle his own shit, he hadn't had the first idea what to do with Neil's.

"Lotta heaviness for just getting home," he adds with a very small smile, thin and pained.

[little_moons]

"Sorry," I murmur, breathing out a laugh and letting my head rest against his shoulder.

"Don't be afraid to say stuff, okay? I mean... about whatever."

[forthedog]

"I started it," he points out. Neil's head on his shoulder is a pleasant weight, and whatever else he might want now--food, a change of clothes, a shower--just sitting here like this is high on the list as far as appealing goes.

He turns his head, breathes in the scent of Neil's hair.

"But I'll try."

[little_moons]

"Good," I murmur, reaching down to curl my hand loosely around his wrist.

"You gonna call that number?"

[forthedog]

"Yeah," he says, stretching slightly and groaning as a twinge rolls up his muscles, somewhere between uncomfortable and pleasant. "Not tonight. I'll do it tomorrow."

Like other things like it, it suddenly feels insurmountably big.

"You wanna eat?"

[little_moons]

I know there's a chance he'll keep puttin' it off, but there's no fuckin' way I'm gonna let myself turn into a goddamn nag. Not yet.

"Yeah, sure. What do you want?"

[forthedog]

"I don't give a fuck," he groans, stretching again and hissing as his spine pops. One thing is definitely progressing: he's getting stronger, little by little. He's still skinnier than he should be, still weaker than he'd ever like, but bit by bit he's regaining what those weeks in the hospital took from him.

"Food. Something hot, I guess."

[little_moons]

"If you'd told me when you'd be home, I could've whipped somethin' up for you," I mutter, rolling my eyes and snorting out a laugh, my head tipping back so I can graze my lips against the side of his neck.

Neither one of us can cook for shit. I never thought that'd be a big deal 'til I moved away from home.

[forthedog]

"And had the place vacuumed and your makeup fixed, right?" He tilts his head back slightly, unconsciously giving Neil more access--then all at once he's very conscious of it, and then he firmly decides to not give a fuck.

"I really don't give a fuck. Let's just get delivery."

[little_moons]

"Okay," I murmur, but I don't pull away, not just yet, my lips trailing along the side of his neck, nuzzling up behind his ear, just breathing him in.

Dragging myself away takes effort, and I let out a tiny groan of frustration, pushing to my feet and flashing him a bleary grin.

"Donna needs to quit workin' you so fucking hard," I tease him on the way to the phone, 'cause he's tired and sweaty and I can tell he's hurting, but none of that's a bad thing. We both know he'd be completely fucked if not for her.

[forthedog]

"She says she's being nice to me," he says, blinking up at Neil and raking his fingers back through his hair. Once, working this hard had been something o get resentful over. And sometimes he still is, but even before the explosion a few days ago... not so much.

Maybe it's good to be tired. Maybe it helps him sleep better.

He pushes himself up off the couch with an effort that pulls another groan out of him. "I'm gonna get a shower."

[little_moons]

"Yeah, okay," I say to him, shuffling through the menu's by the phone and settling on Chinese.

I make the call, watching Mike through the kitchen doorway until he disappears into the bedroom, my focus still half on him and the sound of him moving around in the bathroom while I rattle off the order.

After I hang up, I wander back toward the bedroom, but something keeps me hanging just outside the bathroom door. Some big fuckin' revelation or not, I still don't know how far I can push him before it's too much.

[forthedog]

He's got his clothes off and the water on, leaning in to test the water with one hand, when he hears the footsteps outside the door. The creak of the floorboards.

Another creak. Another.

Someone standing, close by. He closes his eye for a moment, mouth twisting into something that might be a wry smile. He moves over to the door, opens it and leans out. Looks at Neil for a moment.

Baby steps toward sunlight.

He jerks his head back. "You gonna pace around out there? Or are you gonna come in?"

[little_moons]

"Fuck off," I mutter, rolling my eyes and shoving past him into the cramped little bathroom, and I think I can actually feel my face heating up. That kind of embarrassment is something I thought I'd shaken back when I was still a kid. Back before Coach.

There's really nowhere to go that isn't close, that isn't practically standing on top of each other, and I rest a hand on his hip, dropping a kiss to his shoulder. I'd gotten good at keeping my hands off him, but today, I can't seem to help myself.

[forthedog]

"You can help me with this," he grunts, stepping into the shower--but moving a little more reluctantly than he might otherwise have done, the feel of Neil's hand and lips lingering on his skin after they're gone. He folds down the chair and settles into it, sighing in the warmth, reaching down to remove the prosthesis.

"Here." He hands it out foot-forward, and something about it briefly strikes him as surreally humorous. "Prop that up somewhere."

He doesn't want to need the help. But really, it does make some things easier.

And it's not like he minds this particular intrusion that much anyway.

[little_moons]

It feels like another step, one of many, and I can't help but smile, my lips tugging up crookedly as I reach out to take the prosthesis and prop it up against the sink.

"That all you want help with?" I ask, playful in a way I don't always allow myself lately, still standing in all my clothes just outside the shower.

[forthedog]

"I dunno," he murmurs, head tilting back under the spray--some of it is splashing onto the bathroom floor but it's not like he cares.

"Do you want help with something? That why you were out there?"

[little_moons]

"Maybe I just wanted to see you naked," I tease, rolling my eyes and pulling off my shirt.

"I just wanted..." I shrug awkwardly, irritated with myself. I've felt off all week, fuckin' needy and uncertain, things that I'm almost positive have everything to do with that goddamn letter I got. "To be fuckin' near you, that's all."

[forthedog]

He opens his eye, watching Neil strip off his shirt, wishing with a brief intensity that surprises him that he had two good ones to use now.

He's gotten used to being half blind, whatever else is still eating at him. But Neil's worth the eyes.

"All right," he murmurs, pushing back another rolling wave of nerves. Not fucking now. "C'mere, then."

[little_moons]

Stripping off my jeans and kicking them aside, I slip into the shower, pulling the curtain closed behind me.

The water's warm, the air close and humid in the tiny cubicle, and I reach for the soap in the dish, bending down to press a kiss to his temple.

[forthedog]

He smiles at that, eye slipping closed again, feeling the hot water drumming against his skin, the closeness of another body. It's not like it was a few days before, when they'd both been so exhausted and drained that they'd been dangerously close to passing out on top of one another.

Now he's aware of everything. Very much so.

"Can't be near me too fucking long," he murmurs, leaning forward to lay a hand on Neil's hip. "Food's gonna get here."

[little_moons]

"Fuck you," I mutter, still distantly embarrassed by that admission, 'cause it was a thousand times more intimate than if I'd said I wanted to fuck him.

"They said half an hour. I think," I snort. The lady on the phone didn't exactly speak English fluently.

Soaping up my palms, I start in on his shoulders, knowing full well he can do all this on his own, but it's a decent excuse to touch him, and I'm gonna take it.

[forthedog]

Just for an instant, he almost shies away. He doesn't know exactly what he was expecting--probably exactly this, if it comes to it--but something about it still shocks him, makes him feel even more naked than he really is.

It's like the first night Neil spread the cream into his burns. But somehow more.

But then he makes a quiet sound low in his throat and lets it happen, forcing his tighter muscles to relax under Neil's fingers. And it does feel good.

It feels close to perfect.

[little_moons]

That sound he makes is all the encouragement I need. I lean over him, working my hands over his shoulders, his arms, down the length of his back, over his chest, bent low with my face just next to his.

Pausing to soap up my hands again and flashing him a crooked grin, I let my hands drift lower, over his stomach, the ridges of muscle he's been slowly rebuilding, then I let my hand slip down between his legs, sliding over his cock. And maybe I'm not exactly working toward sex, but there's nothing clinical or detached about it.

[forthedog]

He opens his eye long enough to catch that grin, everything unsaid in it, and he feels a surge of increased nervousness--liberally mixed with arousal. In fact, the remaining nerves are seeming less and less important, replaced by much more pleasant sensations.

Then Neil's hand slips down between his thighs and he lets out a heavy breath, almost laughing, as he feels his body responding. Every time this happens, part of him wonders if it might be the last time, if somehow next time he might not feel this level of... interest.

Then again, it's looking more and more like he doesn't have to worry about that at all.

He leans back a little further, legs spreading, looking up at Neil with his lips slightly parted and a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. Okay. He can do this.

"Do that again."