First Love, Chapter 22
Chapter 22
“Are you asleep?”
“Mmm-mmm.”
“Are you sure?”
“Responding verbally while asleep is not one of my many, many talents. At least I don’t think it is. Though I suppose I wouldn’t know…and wouldn’t actually be surprised. My talents are literally countless.”
“Reid, I think someone might have told you by now.”
“Unlikely. No siblings. Always had my own room. And even I wasn’t able to speak as an infant.”
“Yeah, but…surely, you’ve slept in the same room with someone as an adult.”
“Nope. And don’t call me Shirley.”
Luke lifted his head. “You’ve never spent the night in the presence of another person? Really.”
Reid met his eyes. “Nope.”
Holy shit. “Oh.”
His eyebrows still hovering near his hairline, Luke let his head be repositioned on Reid’s shoulder. The rumbles of cargo trucks seeped in through the closed windows. “So…do you want to go to sleep?”
Reid wrapped a finger in Luke’s hair. “I’m assuming that’s a leading question.”
“I just…I know you have surgery tomorrow, and I don’t-”
“Luke. Anything you want.”
Luke lifted his head again. After a brief check of Reid’s eyes (would he ever get used to seeing the trust?), Luke reached over to the drawer of the nearest bedside table while trying to maintain as much skin-to-skin contact as possible. During the rummaging Reid’s hand smoothed along Luke’s bare back, resting just above the curve of his buttock. Luke pulled out a bottle.
Reid watched silently as Luke returned to straddle him, both hands lifting to Luke’s thighs. Luke popped the cap.
“Hold the phone - is that…that smells like…caramel.”
A blush infiltrated Luke’s wicked grin as he squeezed oil into his palm and rubbed his hands together.
“Seems you were a busy boy while I was giving my talk this morning.” His thumbs turned circles over Luke’s skin. “So what are you gonna do with me now?”
Luke licked his lips. “I thought I might try giving you a massage.”
Reid’s smile had slightly more staying power than usual. “By all means…show me what the wisdom of the internets has to offer.”
Though the blush deepened, Luke’s hands continued rubbing the oil as he leaned forward. He skimmed his fingertips up Reid’s breastbone and across his clavicle in opposite directions, continuing up the side of his neck and ending at each ear. Beginning at the top, Luke rubbed small, soothing circles spiraling down to the lobe. With his eyes never leaving Reid’s, Luke hands traveled to the back of Reid’s head, lifting it, his fingers finding hollows at the base of the skull where they continued their circular pressure. Their faces were close; they exchanged breaths from open mouths.
Lowering Reid’s head back to the bed, Luke moved his fingers to Reid’s temples, again rubbing in slow circles. Backing his head away slightly, Luke used his thumbs to massage between Reid’s eyes - he imagined his thumbs were tingling from the activated energy (as the website had promised). Then, after making a detour to the bottle of oil, he pressed his palms above each nipple.
“You got the warming kind.”
The blush snuck back.
“Good choice.”
With only brief breaks in his gaze, Luke manipulated indentations - first below Reid’s collarbone and then over his heart. He spread his palms again, communing with Reid’s heartbeat, slowly fanning oil over the entirety of Reid’s chest. At first he ignored the hardness of Reid’s nipples, swerving around and down Reid’s belly with repeated strokes. Finally, he pressed into them with his full weight, backing off slightly to work each with a thumb and forefinger. He bent down to one, tripping the tip of his tongue with all the force of a fluttering eyelash.
“Mmm - really does taste like caramel.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word for that?” Reid seemed to be having trouble completing each word.
Grinning, Luke leaned over to the other nipple, wetly sucking it into his mouth before continuing up Reid’s body, his mouth hovering just short of Reid’s. Luke opened his mouth and extended his tongue. With the speed and accuracy of a snake, Reid captured that tongue for a brief, hard suck.
He licked his lips. “Maybe I should pour some in my coffee tomorrow. Though I’d rather pour it on you.”
Luke bent for a quick kiss before returning to spread more oil on Reid’s chest, eventually elongating the strokes to move past his shoulders (those shoulders) and down both arms (those arms), focusing on his biceps and fingers. He pretended not to notice the way the front of his body brushed against Reid’s penis as he slid to sit farther down, his eyes never leaving Reid’s. Squaring himself over his arms, Luke buried the heels of his hands into the thick tendons of Reid’s groin, his fingers curling into flesh as he sank his weight down. Then, skirting Reid’s penis, Luke framed his belly button with his hands, his thumbs taking a quick dip before rhythmically rubbing down the trail of light hair to where it thickened. With restraint he didn’t know he had access to, Luke lifted his hands before they reached (attacked) Reid’s leaking cock.
“Turn over.”
Reid complied, his commentary limited to only a lifted eyebrow.
Luke resettled on Reid’s body, sitting again on his legs. He squirted oil across the subtle strength of Reid’s upper back, smoothing outwards with flattened hands, kneading lightly with fingertips. Softly, he kissed the back of Reid’s neck. Working his thumbs under the edges of Reid’s shoulder blades, Luke searched for spots of special tension, his reward a sustained groan. Once again ignoring an awakened cock (this time his own), Luke pressed his thumbs and feathered fingers down the length of Reid’s spine several times, on the last pass switching to closed hands. Reid’s background sounds became louder with each dig.
“Remind me to order the highest-speed internet when we get home,” Reid mumbled into the pillow. “And to buy stock in Google.”
Gaining confidence, Luke used the weight of his body to press the heels of his hands into Reid’s lower back. He smoothed slick hands up and away across heated skin, methodically making his way back to the base of Reid’s spine.
Reid’s rumbling stopped when Luke brushed his buttocks on the way down to his feet. The low drone resumed as Luke began working upward from arches to calves to thighs. Luke lingered at Reid’s inner thighs, his thumbs pressing up and in. He wondered if Reid realized he’d begun rocking his hips.
Luke dug the heels of his hands into the crease at the bottom of Reid’s ass. Stuffing his nerves down, he let himself focus on Reid’s matchless matched ass cheeks, on their shape and texture, on the smoothness and tautness and resistance and give. On the heat of skin and muscle and oil. On how each rotating squeeze gave him a glimpse into the shadows. His mouth literally watered when he saw the puckered hole. Girding his loins, he focused instead on his movements, on the progression from fanning to kneading, working from hip to cleft on each side. He pummeled with cupped hands, then fists, first tentatively, then with more force. He returned to rubbing - slowly, deeply, with whole hands, from bottom to top. Inescapably, his attention was trapped by what was revealed with each spreading pass; increasingly mesmerized, increasingly helpless, Luke found his fingers drifting inward, making tighter circles, found his thumbs holding the cheeks apart wider, for longer. Found his spine curving inward, his neck sloping down. His lips parting.
Reid reacted only when Luke’s fingers grazed his hole. At that he quieted, tensing, though it seemed a half-hearted gesture. Encouraged - and not at all sure he could stop - Luke circled the closed ring with his thumb, rubbing oil into the surrounding flesh, through the fringe of hair. He pressed harder, spread wider, watched it undulate and wink. By now his face was close, so close that he could smell the mix of sweetness and earth. So close he could drown in it. He fell farther, closer, until he could feel Reid’s skin on his forehead, on his cheeks and chin. Pressing against his nose. Now Reid’s reaction was to grind slowly into the mattress, his groans gradually replaced by the sound of trembling breaths.
Luke touched it with his tongue. Reid pressed into the bed, his entire body clenching. Luke followed down, massaging the ass cheeks, continuing to spread. It wasn’t getting away this time. Drawn deeper by the scent, chasing the taste, Luke licked the skittering ring of muscles until it unlocked. His tongue curved around the entrance; he let the saliva flooding his mouth drizzle down, drenching it, getting it ready for when he pressed in with the tip, which he did accompanied by guttural sounds Reid was making into a pillow. Luke had thought he already knew the taste of Reid, that he was already addicted. But this - this was profound. Like being buried in soil, covered by mulch, transformed into fertile ground by the forces of nature. Luke was at once rooted and aloft, earthbound and astral. Both welcomed and opposed - Reid’s opening alternately grasped at and repelled Luke’s tongue as it made its way in, following the heat and softness and strength. Luke twisted and thrust, pulling out to kiss and lick and suck and bite. His fingers left marks in Reid’s cheeks. They moved around to grip Reid’s hips, to allow Luke to ride out the rutting. Luke brought his index finger up to join his tongue, to stroke the outside of the wet, pulsing hole, to join in the pressing, slipping in alongside the pointed tip of Luke’s tongue, through both muscular gates and into yielding warmth. It moved farther in, farther than Luke had gone, farther into Reid than he’d dreamed of going. He felt for the nub, wanting to give Reid even a fraction of the pleasure he’d given Luke. Licking around his finger, Luke focused on the internal massage.
“Ahhh…ffff…” Reid constricted sharply around Luke’s finger, nearly dislodging his tongue as he bucked. The hand on Reid’s hip pressed down with strength.
Luke realized he was humping Reid’s leg, his turgid penis strikingly veined. Abruptly, he withdrew from Reid’s body, roughly turning him onto his back. Clearly in a daze, Reid opened heavy lids. Luke slithered up Reid’s body, mashing together wetness and hardness. Grabbing the sides of Reid’s face, Luke pushed his tongue into Reid’s mouth, mixing tastes, sharing them, drawing his just-buried finger down Reid’s cheek, closer to his own nose. Reid let himself be consumed and invaded and filled. He dug his nails into Luke’s ass, lost his other hand in Luke’s hair. Spread his legs for Luke’s thigh. Luke had never felt such abandon, such urgency - there was no desperation, only rightness. A drive to completion. It was as if the dual orbits of their twin stars were starting to decay, to enter their final phase, slowly, inexorably spiraling closer and closer. Luke felt the pull, the inevitability. In the grips of something cosmic, Luke pulled away, fumbling in the bag on the nightstand and sitting lightly on his heels. With his eyes locked to Reid’s, he spread Reid’s legs, lifting and hooking them around his own waist. He could feel Reid’s awareness snapping back into focus the moment Luke began to stretch Reid’s hole with lubed fingers.
“Lu…Lu…Luke.”
Luke tore the condom wrapper with his teeth, his eyes boring into Reid’s. Reid stared back, the battle between trust and fear clear - fear of what, Luke could only guess. Of pain, of relinquishing, of no more secrets, nowhere left to hide. Fear of the unknown.
Wait, what?
“Never…I’ve never…”
Luke froze as Reid’s rugged gasps ricocheted in Luke’s ears, eyes filling with questions. Certitude started to subside; suddenly, Reid’s anal skittishness made more sense. A tide of mortification began to wash in, leaving corrosion and atrophy in its wake.
What have I done?
Dropping his eyes, Luke started to withdraw fingers that suddenly felt cold.
Reid clenched around them. Looking up, Luke saw it - the nod. The small but distinct movement of Reid’s head. The permission in Reid’s eyes, almost lost amid the anxiety, but glinting as clearly as a beacon in a foaming sea. He lifted a hand to Luke’s face, pushing back damp hair. Another nod.
Biting his lip and holding his breath, Luke slowly slid his finger back in. With the care of a surgeon, Luke continued to open him, eventually easing in a second finger. He fought to keep his mind at least somewhat intact, not completely blown by what his hand was feeling, focusing instead on the state of Reid’s eyes, on what messages were being transmitted, on how far Luke should go. The blue seas were blustery, but the light stayed green. Even when the tip of Luke’s cock knocked at the gate. Even when it began to press. To push against sucking resistance as it circled a collapsing aperture. For the first time in his life, Luke wished the flared head of his penis weren’t so wide. He leaned over Reid, straining, sweating, applying gentle, steady pressure to the slippery, gradually giving hole. He tried to pacify Reid with his eyes, to reassure with his own transmissions of trust and faith and love. Of conviction in an inviolable bond. Of certainty. Increasingly, he could feel the pull of Reid’s star; he knew this had to be the next step. That it was essential. That it was safe.
Please…Reid.
Let me in.
Reid arched his back, gulping for air after apparently having forgotten to breathe, his arms and hands tangling in the sheets beside him. The head was in. Bracing straight arms on either side of Reid’s head, Luke arched his own back, closing his eyes, trying not to be immediately undone by the sensations, giving Reid time to adjust. He was gone for only a moment, his eyes quickly falling back to Reid’s. There, Luke became transfixed by what he saw. By the pain. The extent of it was shattering; immediately, he began to pull out - but once again Reid’s muscles constricted, locking Luke in. Luke resisted, appalled at the idea of hurting Reid, but he grasped the sides of Luke’s face, pulling it down. He lifted and constricted his lower body, pulling Luke in. Millimeter by millimeter, his breath hitching, Luke began to press forward. Other than the efforts of ragged breathing, movement and sound were virtually nonexistent; eye-to-eye, hip-to-hip, the distance between them gradually diminished until it was finally gone. Evaporated. Luke was in.
Leaning down farther, Luke fell to his elbows, folding along Reid’s body, whose penis pulsed between them in counterpoint to the matched heartbeats thrumming against their fused chests. Searching Reid’s eyes, Luke’s own body unclenched as he saw the pain incrementally replaced by what looked like peace, a look promptly swamped by desire, prompting Luke to attempt his first slow thrusts. Reid looked as if he were fighting not to show the pain; his hands inched into Luke’s hair, urging him on with eyes and fingers, with legs and heels and hips. Responding to Reid’s cues, Luke cautiously increased the depth until he had pulled out practically to the entrance at the beginning of each thrust, the end marked by his balls against Reid’s ass. He could barely believe what was happening, what Reid was allowing to happen. What Reid was entrusting. Reid’s hands on Luke gripped harder; his sphincter muscles grasped at Luke’s cock with each withdrawal. Luke had never imagined anything as powerful, physically or metaphorically. Not only was the pleasure exquisite - the soft, tight, sucking, encompassing heat (fuck) - but it was as if Reid’s body were trying to prevent Luke’s loss, to keep him embedded. To keep him in.
Inside Reid…I’m inside…
Luke’s control was wavering; he felt the call of Reid’s star, the inexorable spiraling in as shared orbits steadily collapsed, pulling tighter, spinner faster, sending increasingly intense waves of energy through bone and tissue and consciousness and soul, illuminating adjacent hearts. As the stars sped on paths of shifting ellipses, Luke brought his hands to Reid’s face, the thrusts speeding as well, becoming harder and louder. Luke and Reid’s open eyes burned as they held each others faces, all that they could have been - their infinite potential - transforming, in those moments, to awakened energy: kinetic and chemical, heat and sound. A revolution approached - of revolving objects and resolving lives. The physical tempo of slapping skin increased in time with the stellar duet until the stars spun near the speed of light, their energies touching, assimilating, colliding, whirling around each other a thousand times each second in a gravitational embrace. Luke and Reid pressed foreheads as they gripped and burned, salty sweat and sweet oil filling noses and mouths as hard breaths passed between them.
The collision, when it came, was silent. Impossibly magnetized stars coalesced, their tangled lines of magnetism curling and twisting, becoming buoyant and flaring - causing magnetic reconnection on a cosmic scale. Spiral arms spun off, the celestial merge releasing the energy of ten billion suns. Earthly bodies manifested interstellar events as explosions of light and liquid and love - with the power not just to breach fortresses but to obliterate them, to liquefy stone, to transform the landscape into something soft and green. Eyes had remained open, so Luke had seen the metamorphosis, from moated stronghold to blooming meadow, sunlight glinting off the crystalline surface of an alpine lake. A wide open space, stripped of fortifications, back to nature. Black-eyed Susans shone by the shore. Willows wept.
Closing his eyes, Reid pulled Luke’s head against his slick neck, clenching his fingers in the damp hair. Open-mouthed, panting, his slack tongue just touching hot skin, Luke could taste burnt caramel and spiced Reid. The synchronized pounding of heartbeats and pulses shook and deafened, from chest down to dick up to inner ear. Everywhere their skin met it was sealed by sweat and semen and stellar activities. Belly buttons and nipples aligned; Reid’s passage still gripped Luke’s cock. When Luke began to pull out, the hold tightened: Reid’s legs and arms wrapped fiercely, hugging Luke’s body as if to fold him in, as if to absorb him. Luke returned the embrace, transferring as much weight as possible to his knees and elbows as he weaved his fingers into Reid’s hair and let the electromagnetic afterglow envelop them. He had no words, no thoughts; they were beyond such things. They were beyond.
Luke felt the drift toward sleep, felt Reid’s internal and external clutching finally subside. Kissing Reid’s neck, Luke gently eased out, a final act before floating together into pressureless space.
__________________________________________________
The light of dawn angled across Luke’s face. There was no moment of disorientation or anxiety - he knew exactly where he was and with whom. Knew he was right where he was supposed to be. For the first time in three years, Luke left sleep willingly, met the morning with a smile. For the first time in three years, he felt the sun’s full brightness, felt it permeate his tissues, dance behind his eyelids, burn off the last of the lassitude that had been plaguing his days. With eyes still closed, he lifted a hand to his chest, feeling for remnants of the interstellar merger, imagining he could still sense the magnetic pull. Turning on his side, a smile still curving his lips, he reached out for Reid.
And felt the cold sheet. Luke sat up, his eyes finally opening, blinking in the light. He looked toward the dark bathroom, at the clear desk, into the too-empty closet. He saw his own bags - and no others. Pivoting, he threw himself toward the foot of the bed, whipping his head to look down the small hallway, to search all corners of the room. Swiveling back slowly, air leaking from his lungs, his eyes fell on Reid's pillow, where he saw that only the hint of an indentation remained. His hand returned to his chest; he felt density and pressure increase, felt it begin to collapse under its own weight, bending spacetime.
Reid was gone.
Author's Note: Here is a visualization of what happens to the magnetic fields of two neutron stars during the first 12 milliseconds of their merger (because I am just that nerdy):
http://users.monash.edu.au/~dprice/research/nsmag/movies/pricerosswog_halfstars_3ivx.mov
And here's an animation of two neutron stars colliding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfDDI_SCarw&feature=related
“Are you asleep?”
“Mmm-mmm.”
“Are you sure?”
“Responding verbally while asleep is not one of my many, many talents. At least I don’t think it is. Though I suppose I wouldn’t know…and wouldn’t actually be surprised. My talents are literally countless.”
“Reid, I think someone might have told you by now.”
“Unlikely. No siblings. Always had my own room. And even I wasn’t able to speak as an infant.”
“Yeah, but…surely, you’ve slept in the same room with someone as an adult.”
“Nope. And don’t call me Shirley.”
Luke lifted his head. “You’ve never spent the night in the presence of another person? Really.”
Reid met his eyes. “Nope.”
Holy shit. “Oh.”
His eyebrows still hovering near his hairline, Luke let his head be repositioned on Reid’s shoulder. The rumbles of cargo trucks seeped in through the closed windows. “So…do you want to go to sleep?”
Reid wrapped a finger in Luke’s hair. “I’m assuming that’s a leading question.”
“I just…I know you have surgery tomorrow, and I don’t-”
“Luke. Anything you want.”
Luke lifted his head again. After a brief check of Reid’s eyes (would he ever get used to seeing the trust?), Luke reached over to the drawer of the nearest bedside table while trying to maintain as much skin-to-skin contact as possible. During the rummaging Reid’s hand smoothed along Luke’s bare back, resting just above the curve of his buttock. Luke pulled out a bottle.
Reid watched silently as Luke returned to straddle him, both hands lifting to Luke’s thighs. Luke popped the cap.
“Hold the phone - is that…that smells like…caramel.”
A blush infiltrated Luke’s wicked grin as he squeezed oil into his palm and rubbed his hands together.
“Seems you were a busy boy while I was giving my talk this morning.” His thumbs turned circles over Luke’s skin. “So what are you gonna do with me now?”
Luke licked his lips. “I thought I might try giving you a massage.”
Reid’s smile had slightly more staying power than usual. “By all means…show me what the wisdom of the internets has to offer.”
Though the blush deepened, Luke’s hands continued rubbing the oil as he leaned forward. He skimmed his fingertips up Reid’s breastbone and across his clavicle in opposite directions, continuing up the side of his neck and ending at each ear. Beginning at the top, Luke rubbed small, soothing circles spiraling down to the lobe. With his eyes never leaving Reid’s, Luke hands traveled to the back of Reid’s head, lifting it, his fingers finding hollows at the base of the skull where they continued their circular pressure. Their faces were close; they exchanged breaths from open mouths.
Lowering Reid’s head back to the bed, Luke moved his fingers to Reid’s temples, again rubbing in slow circles. Backing his head away slightly, Luke used his thumbs to massage between Reid’s eyes - he imagined his thumbs were tingling from the activated energy (as the website had promised). Then, after making a detour to the bottle of oil, he pressed his palms above each nipple.
“You got the warming kind.”
The blush snuck back.
“Good choice.”
With only brief breaks in his gaze, Luke manipulated indentations - first below Reid’s collarbone and then over his heart. He spread his palms again, communing with Reid’s heartbeat, slowly fanning oil over the entirety of Reid’s chest. At first he ignored the hardness of Reid’s nipples, swerving around and down Reid’s belly with repeated strokes. Finally, he pressed into them with his full weight, backing off slightly to work each with a thumb and forefinger. He bent down to one, tripping the tip of his tongue with all the force of a fluttering eyelash.
“Mmm - really does taste like caramel.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word for that?” Reid seemed to be having trouble completing each word.
Grinning, Luke leaned over to the other nipple, wetly sucking it into his mouth before continuing up Reid’s body, his mouth hovering just short of Reid’s. Luke opened his mouth and extended his tongue. With the speed and accuracy of a snake, Reid captured that tongue for a brief, hard suck.
He licked his lips. “Maybe I should pour some in my coffee tomorrow. Though I’d rather pour it on you.”
Luke bent for a quick kiss before returning to spread more oil on Reid’s chest, eventually elongating the strokes to move past his shoulders (those shoulders) and down both arms (those arms), focusing on his biceps and fingers. He pretended not to notice the way the front of his body brushed against Reid’s penis as he slid to sit farther down, his eyes never leaving Reid’s. Squaring himself over his arms, Luke buried the heels of his hands into the thick tendons of Reid’s groin, his fingers curling into flesh as he sank his weight down. Then, skirting Reid’s penis, Luke framed his belly button with his hands, his thumbs taking a quick dip before rhythmically rubbing down the trail of light hair to where it thickened. With restraint he didn’t know he had access to, Luke lifted his hands before they reached (attacked) Reid’s leaking cock.
“Turn over.”
Reid complied, his commentary limited to only a lifted eyebrow.
Luke resettled on Reid’s body, sitting again on his legs. He squirted oil across the subtle strength of Reid’s upper back, smoothing outwards with flattened hands, kneading lightly with fingertips. Softly, he kissed the back of Reid’s neck. Working his thumbs under the edges of Reid’s shoulder blades, Luke searched for spots of special tension, his reward a sustained groan. Once again ignoring an awakened cock (this time his own), Luke pressed his thumbs and feathered fingers down the length of Reid’s spine several times, on the last pass switching to closed hands. Reid’s background sounds became louder with each dig.
“Remind me to order the highest-speed internet when we get home,” Reid mumbled into the pillow. “And to buy stock in Google.”
Gaining confidence, Luke used the weight of his body to press the heels of his hands into Reid’s lower back. He smoothed slick hands up and away across heated skin, methodically making his way back to the base of Reid’s spine.
Reid’s rumbling stopped when Luke brushed his buttocks on the way down to his feet. The low drone resumed as Luke began working upward from arches to calves to thighs. Luke lingered at Reid’s inner thighs, his thumbs pressing up and in. He wondered if Reid realized he’d begun rocking his hips.
Luke dug the heels of his hands into the crease at the bottom of Reid’s ass. Stuffing his nerves down, he let himself focus on Reid’s matchless matched ass cheeks, on their shape and texture, on the smoothness and tautness and resistance and give. On the heat of skin and muscle and oil. On how each rotating squeeze gave him a glimpse into the shadows. His mouth literally watered when he saw the puckered hole. Girding his loins, he focused instead on his movements, on the progression from fanning to kneading, working from hip to cleft on each side. He pummeled with cupped hands, then fists, first tentatively, then with more force. He returned to rubbing - slowly, deeply, with whole hands, from bottom to top. Inescapably, his attention was trapped by what was revealed with each spreading pass; increasingly mesmerized, increasingly helpless, Luke found his fingers drifting inward, making tighter circles, found his thumbs holding the cheeks apart wider, for longer. Found his spine curving inward, his neck sloping down. His lips parting.
Reid reacted only when Luke’s fingers grazed his hole. At that he quieted, tensing, though it seemed a half-hearted gesture. Encouraged - and not at all sure he could stop - Luke circled the closed ring with his thumb, rubbing oil into the surrounding flesh, through the fringe of hair. He pressed harder, spread wider, watched it undulate and wink. By now his face was close, so close that he could smell the mix of sweetness and earth. So close he could drown in it. He fell farther, closer, until he could feel Reid’s skin on his forehead, on his cheeks and chin. Pressing against his nose. Now Reid’s reaction was to grind slowly into the mattress, his groans gradually replaced by the sound of trembling breaths.
Luke touched it with his tongue. Reid pressed into the bed, his entire body clenching. Luke followed down, massaging the ass cheeks, continuing to spread. It wasn’t getting away this time. Drawn deeper by the scent, chasing the taste, Luke licked the skittering ring of muscles until it unlocked. His tongue curved around the entrance; he let the saliva flooding his mouth drizzle down, drenching it, getting it ready for when he pressed in with the tip, which he did accompanied by guttural sounds Reid was making into a pillow. Luke had thought he already knew the taste of Reid, that he was already addicted. But this - this was profound. Like being buried in soil, covered by mulch, transformed into fertile ground by the forces of nature. Luke was at once rooted and aloft, earthbound and astral. Both welcomed and opposed - Reid’s opening alternately grasped at and repelled Luke’s tongue as it made its way in, following the heat and softness and strength. Luke twisted and thrust, pulling out to kiss and lick and suck and bite. His fingers left marks in Reid’s cheeks. They moved around to grip Reid’s hips, to allow Luke to ride out the rutting. Luke brought his index finger up to join his tongue, to stroke the outside of the wet, pulsing hole, to join in the pressing, slipping in alongside the pointed tip of Luke’s tongue, through both muscular gates and into yielding warmth. It moved farther in, farther than Luke had gone, farther into Reid than he’d dreamed of going. He felt for the nub, wanting to give Reid even a fraction of the pleasure he’d given Luke. Licking around his finger, Luke focused on the internal massage.
“Ahhh…ffff…” Reid constricted sharply around Luke’s finger, nearly dislodging his tongue as he bucked. The hand on Reid’s hip pressed down with strength.
Luke realized he was humping Reid’s leg, his turgid penis strikingly veined. Abruptly, he withdrew from Reid’s body, roughly turning him onto his back. Clearly in a daze, Reid opened heavy lids. Luke slithered up Reid’s body, mashing together wetness and hardness. Grabbing the sides of Reid’s face, Luke pushed his tongue into Reid’s mouth, mixing tastes, sharing them, drawing his just-buried finger down Reid’s cheek, closer to his own nose. Reid let himself be consumed and invaded and filled. He dug his nails into Luke’s ass, lost his other hand in Luke’s hair. Spread his legs for Luke’s thigh. Luke had never felt such abandon, such urgency - there was no desperation, only rightness. A drive to completion. It was as if the dual orbits of their twin stars were starting to decay, to enter their final phase, slowly, inexorably spiraling closer and closer. Luke felt the pull, the inevitability. In the grips of something cosmic, Luke pulled away, fumbling in the bag on the nightstand and sitting lightly on his heels. With his eyes locked to Reid’s, he spread Reid’s legs, lifting and hooking them around his own waist. He could feel Reid’s awareness snapping back into focus the moment Luke began to stretch Reid’s hole with lubed fingers.
“Lu…Lu…Luke.”
Luke tore the condom wrapper with his teeth, his eyes boring into Reid’s. Reid stared back, the battle between trust and fear clear - fear of what, Luke could only guess. Of pain, of relinquishing, of no more secrets, nowhere left to hide. Fear of the unknown.
Wait, what?
“Never…I’ve never…”
Luke froze as Reid’s rugged gasps ricocheted in Luke’s ears, eyes filling with questions. Certitude started to subside; suddenly, Reid’s anal skittishness made more sense. A tide of mortification began to wash in, leaving corrosion and atrophy in its wake.
What have I done?
Dropping his eyes, Luke started to withdraw fingers that suddenly felt cold.
Reid clenched around them. Looking up, Luke saw it - the nod. The small but distinct movement of Reid’s head. The permission in Reid’s eyes, almost lost amid the anxiety, but glinting as clearly as a beacon in a foaming sea. He lifted a hand to Luke’s face, pushing back damp hair. Another nod.
Biting his lip and holding his breath, Luke slowly slid his finger back in. With the care of a surgeon, Luke continued to open him, eventually easing in a second finger. He fought to keep his mind at least somewhat intact, not completely blown by what his hand was feeling, focusing instead on the state of Reid’s eyes, on what messages were being transmitted, on how far Luke should go. The blue seas were blustery, but the light stayed green. Even when the tip of Luke’s cock knocked at the gate. Even when it began to press. To push against sucking resistance as it circled a collapsing aperture. For the first time in his life, Luke wished the flared head of his penis weren’t so wide. He leaned over Reid, straining, sweating, applying gentle, steady pressure to the slippery, gradually giving hole. He tried to pacify Reid with his eyes, to reassure with his own transmissions of trust and faith and love. Of conviction in an inviolable bond. Of certainty. Increasingly, he could feel the pull of Reid’s star; he knew this had to be the next step. That it was essential. That it was safe.
Please…Reid.
Let me in.
Reid arched his back, gulping for air after apparently having forgotten to breathe, his arms and hands tangling in the sheets beside him. The head was in. Bracing straight arms on either side of Reid’s head, Luke arched his own back, closing his eyes, trying not to be immediately undone by the sensations, giving Reid time to adjust. He was gone for only a moment, his eyes quickly falling back to Reid’s. There, Luke became transfixed by what he saw. By the pain. The extent of it was shattering; immediately, he began to pull out - but once again Reid’s muscles constricted, locking Luke in. Luke resisted, appalled at the idea of hurting Reid, but he grasped the sides of Luke’s face, pulling it down. He lifted and constricted his lower body, pulling Luke in. Millimeter by millimeter, his breath hitching, Luke began to press forward. Other than the efforts of ragged breathing, movement and sound were virtually nonexistent; eye-to-eye, hip-to-hip, the distance between them gradually diminished until it was finally gone. Evaporated. Luke was in.
Leaning down farther, Luke fell to his elbows, folding along Reid’s body, whose penis pulsed between them in counterpoint to the matched heartbeats thrumming against their fused chests. Searching Reid’s eyes, Luke’s own body unclenched as he saw the pain incrementally replaced by what looked like peace, a look promptly swamped by desire, prompting Luke to attempt his first slow thrusts. Reid looked as if he were fighting not to show the pain; his hands inched into Luke’s hair, urging him on with eyes and fingers, with legs and heels and hips. Responding to Reid’s cues, Luke cautiously increased the depth until he had pulled out practically to the entrance at the beginning of each thrust, the end marked by his balls against Reid’s ass. He could barely believe what was happening, what Reid was allowing to happen. What Reid was entrusting. Reid’s hands on Luke gripped harder; his sphincter muscles grasped at Luke’s cock with each withdrawal. Luke had never imagined anything as powerful, physically or metaphorically. Not only was the pleasure exquisite - the soft, tight, sucking, encompassing heat (fuck) - but it was as if Reid’s body were trying to prevent Luke’s loss, to keep him embedded. To keep him in.
Inside Reid…I’m inside…
Luke’s control was wavering; he felt the call of Reid’s star, the inexorable spiraling in as shared orbits steadily collapsed, pulling tighter, spinner faster, sending increasingly intense waves of energy through bone and tissue and consciousness and soul, illuminating adjacent hearts. As the stars sped on paths of shifting ellipses, Luke brought his hands to Reid’s face, the thrusts speeding as well, becoming harder and louder. Luke and Reid’s open eyes burned as they held each others faces, all that they could have been - their infinite potential - transforming, in those moments, to awakened energy: kinetic and chemical, heat and sound. A revolution approached - of revolving objects and resolving lives. The physical tempo of slapping skin increased in time with the stellar duet until the stars spun near the speed of light, their energies touching, assimilating, colliding, whirling around each other a thousand times each second in a gravitational embrace. Luke and Reid pressed foreheads as they gripped and burned, salty sweat and sweet oil filling noses and mouths as hard breaths passed between them.
The collision, when it came, was silent. Impossibly magnetized stars coalesced, their tangled lines of magnetism curling and twisting, becoming buoyant and flaring - causing magnetic reconnection on a cosmic scale. Spiral arms spun off, the celestial merge releasing the energy of ten billion suns. Earthly bodies manifested interstellar events as explosions of light and liquid and love - with the power not just to breach fortresses but to obliterate them, to liquefy stone, to transform the landscape into something soft and green. Eyes had remained open, so Luke had seen the metamorphosis, from moated stronghold to blooming meadow, sunlight glinting off the crystalline surface of an alpine lake. A wide open space, stripped of fortifications, back to nature. Black-eyed Susans shone by the shore. Willows wept.
Closing his eyes, Reid pulled Luke’s head against his slick neck, clenching his fingers in the damp hair. Open-mouthed, panting, his slack tongue just touching hot skin, Luke could taste burnt caramel and spiced Reid. The synchronized pounding of heartbeats and pulses shook and deafened, from chest down to dick up to inner ear. Everywhere their skin met it was sealed by sweat and semen and stellar activities. Belly buttons and nipples aligned; Reid’s passage still gripped Luke’s cock. When Luke began to pull out, the hold tightened: Reid’s legs and arms wrapped fiercely, hugging Luke’s body as if to fold him in, as if to absorb him. Luke returned the embrace, transferring as much weight as possible to his knees and elbows as he weaved his fingers into Reid’s hair and let the electromagnetic afterglow envelop them. He had no words, no thoughts; they were beyond such things. They were beyond.
Luke felt the drift toward sleep, felt Reid’s internal and external clutching finally subside. Kissing Reid’s neck, Luke gently eased out, a final act before floating together into pressureless space.
__________________________________________________
The light of dawn angled across Luke’s face. There was no moment of disorientation or anxiety - he knew exactly where he was and with whom. Knew he was right where he was supposed to be. For the first time in three years, Luke left sleep willingly, met the morning with a smile. For the first time in three years, he felt the sun’s full brightness, felt it permeate his tissues, dance behind his eyelids, burn off the last of the lassitude that had been plaguing his days. With eyes still closed, he lifted a hand to his chest, feeling for remnants of the interstellar merger, imagining he could still sense the magnetic pull. Turning on his side, a smile still curving his lips, he reached out for Reid.
And felt the cold sheet. Luke sat up, his eyes finally opening, blinking in the light. He looked toward the dark bathroom, at the clear desk, into the too-empty closet. He saw his own bags - and no others. Pivoting, he threw himself toward the foot of the bed, whipping his head to look down the small hallway, to search all corners of the room. Swiveling back slowly, air leaking from his lungs, his eyes fell on Reid's pillow, where he saw that only the hint of an indentation remained. His hand returned to his chest; he felt density and pressure increase, felt it begin to collapse under its own weight, bending spacetime.
Reid was gone.
Author's Note: Here is a visualization of what happens to the magnetic fields of two neutron stars during the first 12 milliseconds of their merger (because I am just that nerdy):
http://users.monash.edu.au/~dprice/research/nsmag/movies/pricerosswog_halfstars_3ivx.mov
And here's an animation of two neutron stars colliding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfDDI_SCarw&feature=related