Fic: Quiver II: Redefined, WCPairings, Peter/Neal/El, NC-17
Title: Quiver II: Redefined
Author: coffeethyme4me
Pairings: Peter/El/Neal, Peter/Neal, El/Neal, Peter/El
Rating: NC-17
Words: 6,915
Prompts: 2. Neal/Peter - There is joy in this 3. Neal/Peter - Don't hold me back/don't hold back/holding on for all it's worth 4. Elizabeth/Neal - No need to feel guilty 5. Peter/Neal - Wing!fic or Tentacle!fic or a combination of both 6. Peter/Neal - Soul bonding (planned or accidental) 8. Neal/Peter Neal/Elizabeth (or any pairing, for that matter) - I didn't want it to happen this way.
For: My absolute bestie, elrhiarhodan. Your prompts were all divine. It just so happened that so many of them worked in this piece. (And you just HAD to know I’d do the wings. It was torture not to tell you. ;-) )
Warnings/Content: mild jealousy/threesome complications/uneven feelings, pain kink, hurt/comfort, shades of fuck-or-die/”healing cock”
Beta: Thanks go to embroiderama for a fantastic job! Any remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone.
Original Fic: http://coffeethyme4me.livejournal.com/26346.html
They didn’t realize that something was really wrong until Dallas - until Peter was gone, consulting on a case, and Neal’s wings started to vibrate, and he had to curl up in a ball on the floor and sometimes couldn’t even get to the bathroom on his own much less make it in to work. Nobody expected him to show up with Peter gone anyway, so that was a blessing.
Elizabeth had fucked Neal with the strap-on several times since Neal had sprouted the wings, and it had always worked before, had taken the edge off. But Neal couldn’t let her near him right now. Not for that. She suggested her fingers, but Neal had winced and shivered and he kept whispering, “I’m sorry. It’s Peter. I’m sorry,” even though he didn’t even really know what he meant, and he felt bad for upsetting her.
El had called Peter right away, of course. Neal had listened, curled on the couch under a blanket, his wings retracted as far as they would go. El’s voice was worried but soothing. Neal liked to listen to her sock feet as she paced the floor. She kept her shoes by the door in case she had to get him to the emergency room in a hurry. He’d never go, of course. He had wings for Christ’s sake.
“Peter said he’d take the first flight out he could,” El said after she hung up. She sat on the ottoman and gently laid her hand on his leg. “That still won’t have him home until tomorrow, though.”
He nodded. He understood. He didn’t know what was going on; he just knew it wasn’t the same. They’d gotten good at it now. Neal could go for days at a time, sometimes a couple of weeks, without the need to fuck. They’d do it anyway, because hey, it was sex, and it was fun, and they’d all found out rather quickly that they loved one another. But he didn’t *need* it as often as he had at first. And this was even worse than that had been, those days when he thought he’d break down sobbing if he didn’t get Peter’s cock in him, when it was an ache like no other he’d ever felt in his life.
This was a pain he felt in his soul.
Elizabeth offered him tea with cream and honey. He sat gingerly and sipped, and she was always beside him. She took his temperature; she adjusted his pillows; she just sat with him. She had stopped offering to fuck him, but she held his hand in hers, unwavering. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to be able to explain. But he couldn’t. He didn’t even understand it himself.
When she helped him to bed, she lingered and stroked his hair off his hot brow.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said, his voice coming out choked and shivering.
“Oh honey…” she breathed. She kissed his forehead. Then she said, “Peter’s not the jealous type. I mean, he is. But not with us. If you wanted-“
He cut her off. “It’s not that. It’s something else.”
“You don’t have to talk about it, sweetie.”
He took her hand in his and held it tight. Her eyes held nothing but sympathy, a sea of it. He missed the taste of her lips. Things felt like they were slipping away, beyond repair, and Neal was in too much pain, too exhausted to fight it. He just wanted her to take him in her arms, and yet that would hurt far too much. He just wanted the warmth of his lovers’ bodies. He wanted her wink over their morning coffee and Peter’s sly, loving smile.
Peter and Peter and Peter.
“I think…” he said. “Could you…?”
“Anything,” she answered.
“Use your finger now?”
She sighed. It was a sound of relief, and he was glad to give that to her. Neal knew that it wasn’t what he needed. He also knew that it wasn’t about her fingers or her strap-on - no one and nothing could give him what he needed right now. Not a porn star’s ten inch dick or the softest tongue or the highest vibrations - nothing. Nothing but Peter. And that’s what he couldn’t say, couldn’t understand.
He rolled over for her, onto his stomach, and he let her pull and tug at his pajama pants until they were down around his thighs, baring his ass. He tucked his arms under him, curled against his chest, and closed his eyes. Her hands were cool against his skin as she kneaded his buttocks. They warmed slowly, and Neal sighed, the pain constant but her hands a welcome distraction from it.
She lubed him. She swirled a finger around his hole. She leaned down and murmured against his back, “Are you sure?”
He nodded, and she entered him. Methodically, she relaxed him. He took the pain in his heart, like the rending of some connective tissue that held his spirit together, and he breathed past it, around it. He centered his attention elsewhere - on El’s gentle coaxing, the warmth that spread through his body, starting where she thrust inside him. He spread his legs for her. His wings unfolded and lay open against the sheets. The cotton felt soft against his skin but rough against his feathers. He’d gotten used to that.
“I love you,” she said to him in the quiet.
“I love you, too,” he answered. His cock was rising, pressed awkwardly to the bed. He moved against her finger.
“He’ll be home soon,” she whispered, and Neal turned his face into the pillow and moaned. “He’ll come home and he’ll fuck you, Neal.” She moved her finger in long, practiced strokes. “He’ll bend you, open you, and put it so deep inside you. He’ll make you cry.”
Neal moved his hips, letting her touch and her silky words take him there.
“Maybe after the first time…once he’s had you…once he’s come,” and with that she tickled him, barely entering, “once you’re stretched and slick…you can wear that plug we got you…”
Neal nodded, and she continued.
“I’ll spread my legs for you, honey, and you can put your cock inside me.” Her voice became all breath, and he knew they were both about to come. “I love it when you hold me in your wings and fuck me.”
His orgasm was a quiet, whimpering thing. His wings jerked. He heard the sound El’s fingers made between her labia; he heard her sharp staccato breath. Her finger in him was soft and gentle, easing him through.
Neal began to weep.
“Oh, sweetheart. Sweetheart… Did I…?” El pulled her finger out of him.
He shook his head. “No, it was good. It just…” How could he tell her? It just *hurt*. It still hurt so bad. All he could think about was Peter. His strong arms, his thrusting cock, the little grunts in Neal’s ear, the come flooding into him, the RELIEF.
The joy.
“Neal,” El said.
He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want this to be happening - this divide.
“Baby,” she insisted, her voice, despite the endearment, stronger. “Roll over and look at me. I promise it’ll be all right.”
Neal sniffed, retracted his wings, inched his pajama pants up, and rolled onto his side. He felt like a bad child, like an angel who didn’t deserve his wings, only the pain that seemed to accompany their existence.
El took him by the shoulder. Her solid, confident touch reassured him. “I know you’re still hurting. And you wish you could tell me otherwise. I know.” She squeezed his shoulder. “We’re gonna get you through this, all right? Now I want you to try to sleep. I’ll get your pills. Then I’m going to go get my laptop, and I’m gonna get some work done, okay?”
“Here?” he asked, hating how he sounded. Hating that he needed her close.
“Right here next to you in the bed.”
“Thank you,” he sighed.
She looked sad then, and she said, “I’ll always be here for you. I wish you knew that.”
He frowned. He thought he *did* know that. Sort of.
She got up, fetched his sleeping pills and gave him one, then she left the bedroom and came back with her computer. He was half asleep by the time she got under the covers beside him, propped up with pillows.
He slept restlessly, dreaming about drowning, about Peter’s face above the waterline, receding. He had dreams the color of tears.
…
“You can do this,” she said to her reflection. “He needs you. He loves you. You can do this.” Her voice sounded foreign, as though from far away, through a tunnel. She still thrummed from her orgasm, from penetrating Neal. She still ached for his pain.
And she missed her husband. She thought about calling him again and telling him that if he had to fucking *walk*, she and Neal needed him home NOW.
But then she looked into her own eyes again, and she saw what Peter was always telling her was there: strength and beauty beyond measure. His words, of course. But she saw it. She took a deep breath and went to fetch her laptop. She had a job to do.
She snuggled in next to Neal, trying to avoid the wings. They were back to non-erection size, but Neal, even in his sleep, still shivered with pain. She opened her browser and did the search.
At first, she didn’t know which words to use. She just tried to describe it as she saw it, as she suspected it: “soul pain, soul mates, painful love”. She got a lot of sites about co-dependency. Not really anything with wings, though. She had googled ‘wings’ before, though, and gotten everything from mythology to lists of Christian angels to birder websites. Nothing like Neal. Never anything like Neal.
And that always made her feel both sad and proud. She and Peter had something maybe no one else in the world had. Or others did but, like them, they had no intention of sharing online and inviting media scrutiny and misery into their already complicated lives.
El sighed, adjusted her glasses, and kept searching. It was nearly nine, nearly the time when Peter had said he would call, when she found something that made her press her hand to her heart, it resonated so completely, so horribly and wonderfully.
She found ‘soul bonding’, and suddenly, the beautiful, wretched, perfect thing lying next to her that missed her husband like he might miss his own skin…made sense. Well, this new pain did. The wings never made sense. The wings were a gift they’d never understand. The wings were terrible and incomprehensible and precious.
The phone rang beside her, and she jumped. She picked it up quickly, and Neal shifted but didn’t seem to wake. She whispered, “Hello?”
“Why are you whispering?” Peter said.
“Just a minute.” She eased out from under her computer, out of the bed, glancing at Neal and then slipping out of the bedroom. She padded downstairs. “Neal’s asleep. I didn’t want to wake him.”
“How’s he doing?” The worry was thick in his voice.
“Not great,” she said.
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Yeah, me either.”
“Why, what’s wrong?” El asked, but she had a strong feeling she knew the answer.
“I don’t know, honey. It’s just…a feeling. Like…dread maybe? Or… God, I don’t know, my stomach hurts and I can’t concentrate. I really wish I could have gotten an earlier flight.”
“Yeah.”
“But I’m okay. I’m more worried about Neal. Is he eating?”
“Broth. Tea. A few bites of toast.”
“Shit. Can you tell him I *order* him to eat more?”
El had to smile. Peter’s answer to everything. “Well, I could, dear, and I’m sure that would make him feel suitably worse.”
“That’s not the point and you know it.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Peter sighed. “I’m sorry. That was… I snapped at you.”
“It’s okay,” she breathed. She bit her lip. “Has that been happening…a lot?”
“Huh?”
“Have you been snapping at people today?”
“Today, yesterday…” he said. “And not just snapping. I’ve been biting heads off. El, I almost punched the SAC in the stomach.” He just breathed on the other end of the line for a moment. “I’ve been testy, yeah.”
“That’s how it sometimes manifests,” El said, more to herself.
“How what manifests?”
“Especially in the Top.”
“How WHAT manifests? The top of what?”
“You just really need to come home, Peter. I mean it.”
“I know. It’s almost all I can think about,” he confessed miserably.
“I know.” El wanted to hold him so much. And yet she knew, in a way that made her feel all sorts of crazy - happy, jealous, hurt, fiercely protective of both of them, turned on - that when Peter walked in that door, it was Neal’s legs wrapped around him that he’d need.
He’d need it. Physical, addictive, destructive, awesome need. No matter how much he loved her, craved her, desired her, adored her. By the time her husband got home, he’d need to fuck Neal so bad he’d be practically rabid, if what she’d read was at all true.
“My flight’s at six,” he said, and she could hear the slight tremor in his voice, like a cat watching a bird through a window.
“Don’t punch anybody in the stomach before then, okay, dear?” Although, she had to admit that it turned her on to think of it - her out-of-control-with-lust husband, her testosterone-overloaded man. Her fuck-ready lover.
“What about the face?” he asked.
She smiled. “That either. Save it for Neal.”
“I don’t want to hit Neal!”
“No, we both know what you want to do to him.” Her nipples had drawn tight.
Peter schooled his breathing. “And to you,” he said.
“After,” she added.
“I’m sorry. It’s really bad this time.”
“I understand.”
“But that doesn’t mean that-“
“I know, hon. I’ve never doubted how much you want me. You’ve always made that quite clear.” Countless nights of love-making, of Peter going down on her like she was water for his thirst, flashed through her body’s memory, and she had to wonder if Peter and Neal’s little…problem? blessing? might be affecting her, too. Like electrons jumping orbit.
She had had Peter. Over and over again. He had been all hers for over a decade. She’d reached a point in their marriage where she knew she could share, where she understood that the love they had for each other was so great, there was plenty of overflow for someone else. That someone, they’d both known for a long time, from before the wings, was Neal. Neal deserved something special from Peter. And from her. He deserved all the love and attention and…well, sex that they could pile onto him.
That didn’t mean she didn’t still feel the sting. The slight but persistent sting. That they had something she didn’t.
Soul bonding.
She hoped she’d never grow to despise that phrase. Right now it seemed so…thrilling. So right for them. New and different and powerful. And she was an integral part of it. El knew they would suffer much more without her help. Without her love and her guidance. And that made her feel like maybe *she* had something *they* didn’t. With each of them.
She had control.
She had their hearts in her hands, and because she loved them, they were safe.
“We’ll be waiting,” she told him, knowing and feeling a small bite of guilt that she, in fact, didn’t have to wait. Wouldn’t wait. “Love you…”
“Love you, too.”
El hung up. She climbed the stairs back to their bedroom and the bed the three of them could only share with Neal’s wings hanging off the side, which mostly they did *not* share together. Neal often chose the guestroom, even though she knew he wanted to sleep with Peter. She wouldn’t let him choose it tonight. Tonight, he was hers to care for. Tonight, she would stroke his cock when he needed it; she would suck it or she would ride him or push her long vibrator into his ass until he came. And it wouldn’t be enough. But it would be theirs.
…
Neal tried to take his 1 am flight but only got so far as two blocks away when he started to sweat even in the cold air and he had to turn around and fly home. El was waiting for him under a dark porch light in the back yard, her robe on, arms wrapped around herself, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.
“I was worried sick,” she hissed when he landed. But when he stumbled and fell into the grass, she was by his side in an instant. So was Satchmo, nosing him on the cheek and whining. El worried over him, pulling at his arms. “Are you all right? Let’s get inside. You need to warm up.”
“Yeah, okay,” he breathed. He pulled his wings in and leaned on her as little as possible until they got to the door and he had to turn sideways to get through.
“I’ll make some hot chocolate,” she said.
“El.”
“What?”
“I’m tired of being this dependent. Let me make it.”
“Are you feeling any better?”
“A little,” he lied. The cold had wakened him a bit more, but the pain was still throbbing through every blood vessel in his body. The yearning for Peter to come home was like an elegy. Still, he couldn’t bear to let her do anything more for him.
She touched his stubbled cheek. “I shouldn’t. But I know you want to.” She sighed, “Go ahead.”
He gave the dog a treat first to get him out from under foot and then pulled down the cocoa mix and started the kettle. He could feel El’s eyes on him. On his wings. There was no helping that. They were, and always would be, the elephant in the room.
“Do you wish it hadn’t happened?”
Her question made him pause. He looked over his shoulder, holding a spoon over a mug. She was blinking at him in the dim light, sitting in a dining room chair, her hands warming between her knees. He smiled at her, the first one he’d managed since Peter left on his trip. “If it hadn’t happened…would I be here now?”
“I would hope so,” she said, something in her tone both sad and beseeching. As if it would have been *his* choice, to join them or not. It would always, always be Peter’s choice, and Neal felt she should know that better than anyone. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much now for him to be gone; maybe Neal needed the permission to stay, permission to be a fucked up mess in Elizabeth Burke’s kitchen. In her bed. Her life.
He tipped the contents of the spoon into El’s mug, adding extra cocoa because that’s how she liked it. “But you can’t be sure,” he said. Some fissure of energy hit him and his wings seized. He grabbed the edge of the counter, and El stood. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” He hid the worst from her, and when it passed, he turned, waiting for the water to boil and leaning his butt against the counter. His left wing touched a wet spot on the countertop and twitched away. He folded them in tighter, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “Do you wish things were different?”
“I wish it didn’t hurt you so much.”
“But the pain makes it more pleasurable,” he admitted. It was nothing they hadn’t talked about before.
“Normal-“ El seemed to catch herself. She changed words, looking a bit sheepish, “Ordinary sex is hot, too, you know.”
Neal felt immediately chagrined. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disparage…”
“You didn’t, honey. Peter and I are good. More than good.”
He relaxed a little more, relieved that he hadn’t hurt her feelings. “Do you want marshmallows?”
She smiled. “Always.”
He grabbed the bag of mini-marshmallows down from the cupboard. It felt good to do something ‘normal’ together. Neal missed work - missed his friends who still didn’t know about the change in him, that he was now a creature rather than a person. Or at least that’s how he felt. Especially now, hurting so much, being so debilitated that he couldn’t even really live. He couldn’t even hold a brush to paint with. The smell of chocolate, the sound of Elizabeth’s breath, the dog scratching his neck in the corner and jingling his collar - these things kept him grounded enough to bear the pain, the loss. For now. He knew he wouldn’t last without Peter.
They sat at the dining table. Neal’s wings had retracted enough that he didn’t have to set his chair sideways. He did have to lean forward. That was something he hardly even thought of anymore. He supposed it made him appear unduly interested at staff meetings.
Elizabeth sipped her hot chocolate. “I know you’re not in love with me.”
Neal gasped. “Of course I-“ The lie came so quickly and easily, but she stopped him.
“You love me. It’s not the same.”
Neal swallowed. He was wracked with shivers and wrapped his hands around his mug. He stared into the fragrant steam unable to meet her eyes, the pain of hearing it adding to the physical and psychic pain he was already in. El got up and fetched the blanket off the back of the couch.
“I’m okay, you know,” she said. She wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, and he drew it around himself. She touched his hair. “Neal…” It was yet another moment of tenderness he knew he didn’t deserve. He didn’t look at her, and she sat across from him once more, gesturing for his hand. He took it across the table reluctantly. “I have more than I ever dreamed,” she said. “I have two beautiful men who love me, one who is head-over-heels *in* love with me and one who lets me love him and whose smile makes me feel like…” She stopped and sighed, redirecting, and Neal felt like his already fragile world might burn away like a wisp of paper, igniting in the wind and turning to nothing in a gasp.
“You and Peter,” El said. Her words were cautious, her hand gripping his. “You’ve developed a Soul Bond.”
Her eyes searched his for recognition. Neal felt something low in his gut. Something like hope. “I don’t…” he began. The stirring in his body at those words… It was unbelievable. It was total cognition.
“I do,” she said. And then she proceeded to tell him what she’d found, what she’d discovered. And Neal could only gape at her in shock, the most intimate details of what he was feeling tumbling from her lips as though she knew - as though she could reach inside his spirit and feel him, know him, explain him, in ways he’d never found words for himself.
Somewhere in the process, they moved to the couch, and El shared his blanket with him. They talked in the dark, curled up, their heads on the back of the couch, facing each other like children at a sleep-over. Sharing secrets.
“I’m sorry,” Neal finally said once it was all laid out between them.
El entwined her fingers with his. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But Peter… Peter and I…”
“You have something I can’t have with either one of you.”
Neal couldn’t even nod. Two tears fell down onto his cheeks.
“Neal. Peter and I have something you don’t, too.” He looked up at her, sniffed, and she went on. “We have a partnership that’s lasted over ten years. We have a shared life. One you’re newly a part of. Peter can finish my sentences. I can look at him - just look at him - and know what he needs.” She looked down at their hands. “To be honest, I’ve felt bad about that. Bad for you, I mean.” When her eyes came back to his, they were moist. She shrugged. “I don’t have to feel guilty about that anymore,” she told him.
He reached out and touched her face. He was always surprised at the softness of her cheek. He brushed his thumb over it. “What about us?” he asked.
She took his hand and brought it down between them, joining the others, their fingers entangling. “Neal, I’ve never known anyone like you. You’re like…an instant best friend.”
He frowned. He didn’t like to think that they were having the ‘just friends’ talk. He knew it was more than that. Pain vibrated through his feathers.
“No, not like that,” she amended at his bristling. “I can tell you things I can’t tell Peter. I can…drink cocoa with you in the middle of the night. Do you think I could drag Peter Burke out of bed just to talk like this? Do you think that would happen in a million years? I mean, I *could* drag him.” She was smiling at him now. “But I don’t have to drag you. You and I… We’re a different kind of soul mate. You’re precious to me.” She shrugged and blinked, her fingers nervous between his. “We just have to find our way, Neal. Can you do that with me?”
He swallowed down the fresh tears and nodded. He knew he would do anything to keep this. Them. The three of them. Unequal, messy them.
Soul bonded. He and Peter were soul bonded. Unbidden, the knowledge made him hard. His body recognized the truth in a way his mind couldn’t yet. He ached for Peter to come home. Neal curled up with El under the blanket and concealed his ache as much as possible, thrumming - his whole body thrumming like a migraine.
They talked for a long time. Then they devolved into watching early morning infomercials. When Neal woke with a start, he was alone on the couch, curled up under two blankets, and Elizabeth was gone, he guessed upstairs. Satchmo lay like a rug up against the base of the couch. The two mugs sat encrusted with old melted marshmallows on the coffee table.
As Neal stared at them, the pain hit. The intensity was like nothing he’d ever felt. He arched, the agony in his wings, through his limbs, down his whole body, was excruciating. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. Satchmo sat at attention and whined and whined. Neal used the last of his strength and a gasped in breath to call for her, “Eh-liza…” Then he seemed to pass out, falling into that dark watery place. He fell away from Peter and Elizabeth, away from himself. Down, down, and down again, until there was nothing but pain and yearning in the suffocating darkness.
…
Peter’s flight touched down, and he realized he’d mutilated, or rather strangled, a copy of Skymall in his tight, twisting fists. Not for the first time he had to wonder what the hell was wrong with him. El had been cryptic on the phone every time he checked in. She hadn’t let him talk to Neal. She’d said it would make things worse. Peter knew enough about what Neal had gone through early in their relationship not to question that kind of assertion, but the desire to hear Neal’s voice was potent, and it was work not to resent his wife getting to be with Neal all this time even as he was grateful to her for taking care of him.
He’d never, *never* resented El before. Peter looked down at the magazine. He shoved it back in its pocket, still crumpled. What was *wrong* with him?
He deplaned, pushing aggressively at the other passengers to get through. He almost pulled his badge and abused his job position to get past the crowd. Almost.
He caught a cab, gave his address, and tried to relax back into the seat. He couldn’t. He could NOT relax. He was breathing so hard he feared hyperventilation, and the cabbie was giving him looks in the rearview mirror every so often. Peter rubbed his hands on his slacks. He was sweating. He was agitated.
He was erect.
He schooled his breathing so that the cab driver wouldn’t pull over and eject him for being on meth. There was nothing he could do about the hard-on, though. He’d had that on and off for several hours. It was humiliating really. Peter supposed he should be grateful he hadn’t been this hard during all the consults. But it was difficult to feel grateful for anything when it felt for all the world like he might die if he didn’t fuck Neal Caffrey in the next fifteen minutes.
“Could you go a little faster?” Peter called, gritting his teeth. He banged his head back against the rest and closed his eyes.
It was eons before the cab pulled up in front of his house. Peter thought he’d feel relief, but as he paid and hauled his duffel up the driveway, all he felt like was breaking into a run.
What happened instead was that his wife burst from the front door and came at a run toward *him*. For a moment, he felt relief that someone besides him felt that same way. But then she launched herself into his arms, and her soft body was like an anchor, bringing him back to himself, and he gripped her tight, growling into her loose hair, “God, El…”
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, on the verge of tears.
He drew back and held her shoulders, peering into her face. “He’s bad,” Peter said, knowing.
She nodded. “I got him to the bedroom - I don’t know how. It’s terrible, Peter. He needs you. He needs you now.”
Peter’s cock jumped against his wife’s thigh. He gripped her shoulders tighter and she gasped but didn’t pull away. “Can you…stay with us?” he asked her. “I’m afraid… I’m afraid I might…I *will* hurt him.” He swallowed, the guilt and arousal coursing through him.
She shook her head. “Not this first time. Peter, he *needs* you to hurt him. That’s what he’s *begging* for.”
He nodded, tamped down his own monstrous need for Neal, and kissed his wife. Her lips were pliant and sweet, and as always, he felt as though his tongue in her mouth was a barbarism. She pressed close to him once more, her breasts exquisite against his chest. It was too much. He wanted to push her back to the garage door, wrap her legs around him, and go in her hard for all the neighbors to see. He tore away, nearly shoving her back. He looked around to see if there were, indeed, any peeping neighbors. None that he could tell, but that didn’t mean they weren’t gawking behind their curtains. El was blushing. She nodded toward the door, licking him from her lips.
He walked resolutely and El followed. He stopped just inside the door; he could hear Neal moaning from where he stood and it pulled at his cock like a hand. Peter grimaced, beginning to leak. He turned back to El one last time.
“I insist,” she said. “Go.”
He nodded. And then he took the stairs two at a time, strode down the hall, and swung the door open on Neal, naked, wings unfurled until they were the span of the king-sized bed. He was on his knees, bent over at the waist. He had stuffed himself full of a large vibrating plug, and he was crying and punching a weak and trembling fist into the mattress time and again, whimpering:
“Comehomecomehomecomehomecomehomecomehomecomehome….”
Peter’s heart broke at the sight. His body was on fire. He ripped at his shirt and slammed the door shut. Neal turned his head with a gasp. “P-puh-“ he cried. Peter didn’t have time to work his cuffs open and simply left the shirt hanging off his body. He opened his pants, his huge cock springing free. Neal dropped his head to the bed, spread his knees, and waited in complete supplication, even though Peter knew he felt like he was dying with every passing second.
Neal whimpered as Peter pulled him matter-of-factly by the hips to the foot of the bed, standing behind him. He pulled the plug free and threw it to the side. Neal keened at its sudden loss, and then once again tried and failed to say Peter’s name. He made precious begging noises. Peter lined up, gritted his teeth, and sank himself inside on one brutal thrust.
And Neal came. Peter grabbed Neal’s hips and yanked him back on each and every savage fuck while Neal screamed and orgasmed, his feathers tense and shivering, his hole clamping down on Peter’s moving cock for what seemed like several minutes. Peter roared wordlessly, pumping Neal’s ass on the entire length of his cock. Every thrust was home, home, home, home, home, home, home. Every thrust damned him, absolved him, hurt and healed him. Tears stung Peter’s eyes.
When Neal’s climax subsided, leaving his body weak, still Peter fucked him. He went faster than he realized he could go, stretching Neal’s hole so wide so quickly, Peter was afraid he would bleed.
Neal arched his back like something gone into heat, just accepting Peter, accepting the pain. “P-Peter,” he finally got out.
“Ah Christ,” Peter groaned and started to come. He came hot and long inside Neal, moving his cock through it. There was so much. It ran down Neal’s thighs. Peter made an inhuman sound, bruising Neal’s slight hips in his grip.
“Hard…again…” Neal cried. “Please…keep fucking…me…”
Peter knew he was in no danger of losing this hard-on. But he slowed. He regripped at Neal’s waist, and he took long, mindful, rolling thrusts. “Angel…” he breathed, the sweat dripping down his chest, his stomach. “My angel… Are you dripping, baby?” He’d missed this, he’d missed this, he’d MISSED THIS; him and Neal. Impossible. Agony itself and the antidote to that agony both.
Neal reached between his legs and produced his hand back for Peter. Peter touched the smeared fingers and brought the stuff to his mouth, eating Neal off his hand, nostrils flaring at the scent like a horse. He groaned and then resituated his grip on Neal once more, needing him even more open, even more vulnerable. Peter took him by the thighs, lifting him until he dangled, Neal holding himself off the bed with his hands. Neal whined. Peter started hitting him hard again, giving Neal’s worn ass as much as he could. Neal just moaned helplessly and beat his wings slowly, rhythmically, as Peter fucked him.
“You’re beautiful,” Peter told him. “You’re my beautiful creature.”
He did Neal like that until he was crying again. Then he set Neal back down and withdrew. It hurt him to do it, but Peter pulled all the way out, even as Neal wailed, “Nooooo…!”
Peter opened the drawer with Neal’s favorite toys in it and took out a long vibrator. He turned back to Neal, dying to plunge himself back inside, to be enveloped by that delicious, needy body.
“Peter, please! Please!”
“I’ve got what you need,” Peter promised him. “I’m gonna make it all better. Shhh…” Peter stroked Neal’s buttocks.
Neal nodded, and Peter got behind him again, pushing the head of his cock in and then lining the vibrator up along side. Neal immediately arched. “Yes! Do it please yes!”
Peter pressed the unbearable thickness inside him, opening him horribly. Neal’s little hole was so soaked that it was easy to slide inside even as tight as it had become. He didn’t let Neal adjust before he was moving both vibe and cock, stretching, stretching, stretching him. Neal moaned luridly. Then Peter turned on the vibrations, and Neal’s throat tore with it.
Peter drove into him as Neal started sobbing. Unintelligible things came out of his mouth, then Peter’s name, more sobbing. Finally, he seemed to just give up. Neal didn’t arch or beg. He just whispered Peter’s name over and over again, something akin to joy in the tremor of his voice. Peter pulled the vibe free and sank all the way into Neal. He let go of Neal’s sweaty body. He reached for the tips of his huge wings, and while he rode deep in Neal’s ass, he stroked the feathers tenderly, feeling their silk between his fingers and thumbs, touching Neal only with his cock and his fingertips, deep and soft.
“GOD!” Neal yelled. He came again, and Peter felt it tremble through his feathers, grasping hard onto his buried cock. Tears pricked Peter’s eyes again quite suddenly. He smiled for the first time in days. He stroked the feathers for a long time, and it prolonged Neal’s orgasm, just like he was stroking his cock - better even. When he was finally through, Peter pulled out, still hard, and eased his lover off his knees, onto his side, the wings retracting more with every labored breath.
Peter took a moment to strip, finally undoing his cuffs and peeling off his ruined shirt. He dropped trou and toed off shoes and socks. When he was as naked as Neal, he curled up on his side facing him. Neal reached for him immediately, and Peter bit back his emotion at seeing Neal’s tear-streaked face. He tucked Neal’s head under his chin and held him, shushed him, told him it would be all right now, and Neal, exhausted, just wept into Peter’s chest.
…
After a twenty minute rest during which Peter just let his hands stroke over Neal’s body, Peter urged him up and into a hot bath. Peter bathed him, careful as he washed Neal and rubbed his sore, abused muscles under the hot water. Neal was serene, only wincing and gasping here and there - the major pain very obviously gone now.
They dressed and went downstairs. El was busying around with dinner. “Perfect timing,” she smiled too big, fussing. “The chicken’s got about five minutes left to it.”
Peter watched Neal approach her, take her elbow, and pull her close, forcing her to stop. Peter loved how Neal’s arms wrapped around his wife, holding her closely and reverently. He watched the fervent tension leave her body, all the strife, the holding it together, melting at his touch. Peter pressed himself to her back and held them both, rocking slightly.
“Oh…” El sighed. Peter felt her deep breathing as she laid her cheek against Neal’s chest and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh God that’s nice.”
Peter chuckled into her hair.
They ate. They sat in the living room and talked over glasses of wine, and Peter finally came to understand something he hadn’t had any idea about - something that explained so much. He held El’s hand as she spoke. He kissed her for a long, long time once they’d talked out the logistics - that he and Neal shared a connection that would be painful if they were physically parted, that it was only between them, that El supported and loved them, that somehow it would all be all right. He kissed her longer than maybe he ever had, barring their wedding night.
“Hun…” he said against her lips.
“I know,” she murmured. She kissed him again.
And then he looked at Neal, sitting on the floor at his feet. His Neal. Their eyes met, and they said nothing. Peter laid his palm against Neal’s face, feeling rough beard and tremor. Peter nodded at him, swallowing. Neal smiled, the most brilliant thing Peter had ever seen.
They went to bed together, and El took Neal from behind with the thickest dildo they owned. Peter lay beneath him and kissed him periodically. He held his gaze as he stroked himself and then Neal and then himself again, always again finding Neal’s lips and kissing him, kissing him through the end, as tender as his wife was rough. Peter gazed into Neal’s blown eyes and felt redefined.
Peter made love to Elizabeth while Neal rested afterward, hugging a pillow and watching them sedately. While Peter was inside her, they each looked over at Neal often - they each reached out to stroke a hand through his messy hair. El came with one hand on the back of Peter’s neck and the other against Neal’s chest, over his heart.
They fell asleep with Peter cramped in the middle, Neal and Elizabeth’s hands entwined across his chest and Neal’s wings hanging crazily off the side of the bed.
It was the middle of the night when Peter woke and had to piss so bad he was afraid he wouldn’t make it to the toilet. He eased out from between his lovers and tiptoed to the bathroom. When he came back out, it was to find Neal standing at the window, the light from the moon reflecting on his wings. It stole Peter’s breath - the power, the serenity.
Peter walked up behind him and saw the reflection of Neal’s lips curving up in the glass. Peter stroked his hair and Neal turned to him, entering Peter’s arms. Peter held him, neither one of them erect, neither one urgent. He listened to Neal’s breath, felt the rise and fall of his naked chest, and watched the moon slowly setting through the branches of the trees.
Author: coffeethyme4me
Pairings: Peter/El/Neal, Peter/Neal, El/Neal, Peter/El
Rating: NC-17
Words: 6,915
Prompts: 2. Neal/Peter - There is joy in this 3. Neal/Peter - Don't hold me back/don't hold back/holding on for all it's worth 4. Elizabeth/Neal - No need to feel guilty 5. Peter/Neal - Wing!fic or Tentacle!fic or a combination of both 6. Peter/Neal - Soul bonding (planned or accidental) 8. Neal/Peter Neal/Elizabeth (or any pairing, for that matter) - I didn't want it to happen this way.
For: My absolute bestie, elrhiarhodan. Your prompts were all divine. It just so happened that so many of them worked in this piece. (And you just HAD to know I’d do the wings. It was torture not to tell you. ;-) )
Warnings/Content: mild jealousy/threesome complications/uneven feelings, pain kink, hurt/comfort, shades of fuck-or-die/”healing cock”
Beta: Thanks go to embroiderama for a fantastic job! Any remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone.
Original Fic: http://coffeethyme4me.livejournal.com/26346.html
They didn’t realize that something was really wrong until Dallas - until Peter was gone, consulting on a case, and Neal’s wings started to vibrate, and he had to curl up in a ball on the floor and sometimes couldn’t even get to the bathroom on his own much less make it in to work. Nobody expected him to show up with Peter gone anyway, so that was a blessing.
Elizabeth had fucked Neal with the strap-on several times since Neal had sprouted the wings, and it had always worked before, had taken the edge off. But Neal couldn’t let her near him right now. Not for that. She suggested her fingers, but Neal had winced and shivered and he kept whispering, “I’m sorry. It’s Peter. I’m sorry,” even though he didn’t even really know what he meant, and he felt bad for upsetting her.
El had called Peter right away, of course. Neal had listened, curled on the couch under a blanket, his wings retracted as far as they would go. El’s voice was worried but soothing. Neal liked to listen to her sock feet as she paced the floor. She kept her shoes by the door in case she had to get him to the emergency room in a hurry. He’d never go, of course. He had wings for Christ’s sake.
“Peter said he’d take the first flight out he could,” El said after she hung up. She sat on the ottoman and gently laid her hand on his leg. “That still won’t have him home until tomorrow, though.”
He nodded. He understood. He didn’t know what was going on; he just knew it wasn’t the same. They’d gotten good at it now. Neal could go for days at a time, sometimes a couple of weeks, without the need to fuck. They’d do it anyway, because hey, it was sex, and it was fun, and they’d all found out rather quickly that they loved one another. But he didn’t *need* it as often as he had at first. And this was even worse than that had been, those days when he thought he’d break down sobbing if he didn’t get Peter’s cock in him, when it was an ache like no other he’d ever felt in his life.
This was a pain he felt in his soul.
Elizabeth offered him tea with cream and honey. He sat gingerly and sipped, and she was always beside him. She took his temperature; she adjusted his pillows; she just sat with him. She had stopped offering to fuck him, but she held his hand in hers, unwavering. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to be able to explain. But he couldn’t. He didn’t even understand it himself.
When she helped him to bed, she lingered and stroked his hair off his hot brow.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said, his voice coming out choked and shivering.
“Oh honey…” she breathed. She kissed his forehead. Then she said, “Peter’s not the jealous type. I mean, he is. But not with us. If you wanted-“
He cut her off. “It’s not that. It’s something else.”
“You don’t have to talk about it, sweetie.”
He took her hand in his and held it tight. Her eyes held nothing but sympathy, a sea of it. He missed the taste of her lips. Things felt like they were slipping away, beyond repair, and Neal was in too much pain, too exhausted to fight it. He just wanted her to take him in her arms, and yet that would hurt far too much. He just wanted the warmth of his lovers’ bodies. He wanted her wink over their morning coffee and Peter’s sly, loving smile.
Peter and Peter and Peter.
“I think…” he said. “Could you…?”
“Anything,” she answered.
“Use your finger now?”
She sighed. It was a sound of relief, and he was glad to give that to her. Neal knew that it wasn’t what he needed. He also knew that it wasn’t about her fingers or her strap-on - no one and nothing could give him what he needed right now. Not a porn star’s ten inch dick or the softest tongue or the highest vibrations - nothing. Nothing but Peter. And that’s what he couldn’t say, couldn’t understand.
He rolled over for her, onto his stomach, and he let her pull and tug at his pajama pants until they were down around his thighs, baring his ass. He tucked his arms under him, curled against his chest, and closed his eyes. Her hands were cool against his skin as she kneaded his buttocks. They warmed slowly, and Neal sighed, the pain constant but her hands a welcome distraction from it.
She lubed him. She swirled a finger around his hole. She leaned down and murmured against his back, “Are you sure?”
He nodded, and she entered him. Methodically, she relaxed him. He took the pain in his heart, like the rending of some connective tissue that held his spirit together, and he breathed past it, around it. He centered his attention elsewhere - on El’s gentle coaxing, the warmth that spread through his body, starting where she thrust inside him. He spread his legs for her. His wings unfolded and lay open against the sheets. The cotton felt soft against his skin but rough against his feathers. He’d gotten used to that.
“I love you,” she said to him in the quiet.
“I love you, too,” he answered. His cock was rising, pressed awkwardly to the bed. He moved against her finger.
“He’ll be home soon,” she whispered, and Neal turned his face into the pillow and moaned. “He’ll come home and he’ll fuck you, Neal.” She moved her finger in long, practiced strokes. “He’ll bend you, open you, and put it so deep inside you. He’ll make you cry.”
Neal moved his hips, letting her touch and her silky words take him there.
“Maybe after the first time…once he’s had you…once he’s come,” and with that she tickled him, barely entering, “once you’re stretched and slick…you can wear that plug we got you…”
Neal nodded, and she continued.
“I’ll spread my legs for you, honey, and you can put your cock inside me.” Her voice became all breath, and he knew they were both about to come. “I love it when you hold me in your wings and fuck me.”
His orgasm was a quiet, whimpering thing. His wings jerked. He heard the sound El’s fingers made between her labia; he heard her sharp staccato breath. Her finger in him was soft and gentle, easing him through.
Neal began to weep.
“Oh, sweetheart. Sweetheart… Did I…?” El pulled her finger out of him.
He shook his head. “No, it was good. It just…” How could he tell her? It just *hurt*. It still hurt so bad. All he could think about was Peter. His strong arms, his thrusting cock, the little grunts in Neal’s ear, the come flooding into him, the RELIEF.
The joy.
“Neal,” El said.
He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want this to be happening - this divide.
“Baby,” she insisted, her voice, despite the endearment, stronger. “Roll over and look at me. I promise it’ll be all right.”
Neal sniffed, retracted his wings, inched his pajama pants up, and rolled onto his side. He felt like a bad child, like an angel who didn’t deserve his wings, only the pain that seemed to accompany their existence.
El took him by the shoulder. Her solid, confident touch reassured him. “I know you’re still hurting. And you wish you could tell me otherwise. I know.” She squeezed his shoulder. “We’re gonna get you through this, all right? Now I want you to try to sleep. I’ll get your pills. Then I’m going to go get my laptop, and I’m gonna get some work done, okay?”
“Here?” he asked, hating how he sounded. Hating that he needed her close.
“Right here next to you in the bed.”
“Thank you,” he sighed.
She looked sad then, and she said, “I’ll always be here for you. I wish you knew that.”
He frowned. He thought he *did* know that. Sort of.
She got up, fetched his sleeping pills and gave him one, then she left the bedroom and came back with her computer. He was half asleep by the time she got under the covers beside him, propped up with pillows.
He slept restlessly, dreaming about drowning, about Peter’s face above the waterline, receding. He had dreams the color of tears.
…
“You can do this,” she said to her reflection. “He needs you. He loves you. You can do this.” Her voice sounded foreign, as though from far away, through a tunnel. She still thrummed from her orgasm, from penetrating Neal. She still ached for his pain.
And she missed her husband. She thought about calling him again and telling him that if he had to fucking *walk*, she and Neal needed him home NOW.
But then she looked into her own eyes again, and she saw what Peter was always telling her was there: strength and beauty beyond measure. His words, of course. But she saw it. She took a deep breath and went to fetch her laptop. She had a job to do.
She snuggled in next to Neal, trying to avoid the wings. They were back to non-erection size, but Neal, even in his sleep, still shivered with pain. She opened her browser and did the search.
At first, she didn’t know which words to use. She just tried to describe it as she saw it, as she suspected it: “soul pain, soul mates, painful love”. She got a lot of sites about co-dependency. Not really anything with wings, though. She had googled ‘wings’ before, though, and gotten everything from mythology to lists of Christian angels to birder websites. Nothing like Neal. Never anything like Neal.
And that always made her feel both sad and proud. She and Peter had something maybe no one else in the world had. Or others did but, like them, they had no intention of sharing online and inviting media scrutiny and misery into their already complicated lives.
El sighed, adjusted her glasses, and kept searching. It was nearly nine, nearly the time when Peter had said he would call, when she found something that made her press her hand to her heart, it resonated so completely, so horribly and wonderfully.
She found ‘soul bonding’, and suddenly, the beautiful, wretched, perfect thing lying next to her that missed her husband like he might miss his own skin…made sense. Well, this new pain did. The wings never made sense. The wings were a gift they’d never understand. The wings were terrible and incomprehensible and precious.
The phone rang beside her, and she jumped. She picked it up quickly, and Neal shifted but didn’t seem to wake. She whispered, “Hello?”
“Why are you whispering?” Peter said.
“Just a minute.” She eased out from under her computer, out of the bed, glancing at Neal and then slipping out of the bedroom. She padded downstairs. “Neal’s asleep. I didn’t want to wake him.”
“How’s he doing?” The worry was thick in his voice.
“Not great,” she said.
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Yeah, me either.”
“Why, what’s wrong?” El asked, but she had a strong feeling she knew the answer.
“I don’t know, honey. It’s just…a feeling. Like…dread maybe? Or… God, I don’t know, my stomach hurts and I can’t concentrate. I really wish I could have gotten an earlier flight.”
“Yeah.”
“But I’m okay. I’m more worried about Neal. Is he eating?”
“Broth. Tea. A few bites of toast.”
“Shit. Can you tell him I *order* him to eat more?”
El had to smile. Peter’s answer to everything. “Well, I could, dear, and I’m sure that would make him feel suitably worse.”
“That’s not the point and you know it.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Peter sighed. “I’m sorry. That was… I snapped at you.”
“It’s okay,” she breathed. She bit her lip. “Has that been happening…a lot?”
“Huh?”
“Have you been snapping at people today?”
“Today, yesterday…” he said. “And not just snapping. I’ve been biting heads off. El, I almost punched the SAC in the stomach.” He just breathed on the other end of the line for a moment. “I’ve been testy, yeah.”
“That’s how it sometimes manifests,” El said, more to herself.
“How what manifests?”
“Especially in the Top.”
“How WHAT manifests? The top of what?”
“You just really need to come home, Peter. I mean it.”
“I know. It’s almost all I can think about,” he confessed miserably.
“I know.” El wanted to hold him so much. And yet she knew, in a way that made her feel all sorts of crazy - happy, jealous, hurt, fiercely protective of both of them, turned on - that when Peter walked in that door, it was Neal’s legs wrapped around him that he’d need.
He’d need it. Physical, addictive, destructive, awesome need. No matter how much he loved her, craved her, desired her, adored her. By the time her husband got home, he’d need to fuck Neal so bad he’d be practically rabid, if what she’d read was at all true.
“My flight’s at six,” he said, and she could hear the slight tremor in his voice, like a cat watching a bird through a window.
“Don’t punch anybody in the stomach before then, okay, dear?” Although, she had to admit that it turned her on to think of it - her out-of-control-with-lust husband, her testosterone-overloaded man. Her fuck-ready lover.
“What about the face?” he asked.
She smiled. “That either. Save it for Neal.”
“I don’t want to hit Neal!”
“No, we both know what you want to do to him.” Her nipples had drawn tight.
Peter schooled his breathing. “And to you,” he said.
“After,” she added.
“I’m sorry. It’s really bad this time.”
“I understand.”
“But that doesn’t mean that-“
“I know, hon. I’ve never doubted how much you want me. You’ve always made that quite clear.” Countless nights of love-making, of Peter going down on her like she was water for his thirst, flashed through her body’s memory, and she had to wonder if Peter and Neal’s little…problem? blessing? might be affecting her, too. Like electrons jumping orbit.
She had had Peter. Over and over again. He had been all hers for over a decade. She’d reached a point in their marriage where she knew she could share, where she understood that the love they had for each other was so great, there was plenty of overflow for someone else. That someone, they’d both known for a long time, from before the wings, was Neal. Neal deserved something special from Peter. And from her. He deserved all the love and attention and…well, sex that they could pile onto him.
That didn’t mean she didn’t still feel the sting. The slight but persistent sting. That they had something she didn’t.
Soul bonding.
She hoped she’d never grow to despise that phrase. Right now it seemed so…thrilling. So right for them. New and different and powerful. And she was an integral part of it. El knew they would suffer much more without her help. Without her love and her guidance. And that made her feel like maybe *she* had something *they* didn’t. With each of them.
She had control.
She had their hearts in her hands, and because she loved them, they were safe.
“We’ll be waiting,” she told him, knowing and feeling a small bite of guilt that she, in fact, didn’t have to wait. Wouldn’t wait. “Love you…”
“Love you, too.”
El hung up. She climbed the stairs back to their bedroom and the bed the three of them could only share with Neal’s wings hanging off the side, which mostly they did *not* share together. Neal often chose the guestroom, even though she knew he wanted to sleep with Peter. She wouldn’t let him choose it tonight. Tonight, he was hers to care for. Tonight, she would stroke his cock when he needed it; she would suck it or she would ride him or push her long vibrator into his ass until he came. And it wouldn’t be enough. But it would be theirs.
…
Neal tried to take his 1 am flight but only got so far as two blocks away when he started to sweat even in the cold air and he had to turn around and fly home. El was waiting for him under a dark porch light in the back yard, her robe on, arms wrapped around herself, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.
“I was worried sick,” she hissed when he landed. But when he stumbled and fell into the grass, she was by his side in an instant. So was Satchmo, nosing him on the cheek and whining. El worried over him, pulling at his arms. “Are you all right? Let’s get inside. You need to warm up.”
“Yeah, okay,” he breathed. He pulled his wings in and leaned on her as little as possible until they got to the door and he had to turn sideways to get through.
“I’ll make some hot chocolate,” she said.
“El.”
“What?”
“I’m tired of being this dependent. Let me make it.”
“Are you feeling any better?”
“A little,” he lied. The cold had wakened him a bit more, but the pain was still throbbing through every blood vessel in his body. The yearning for Peter to come home was like an elegy. Still, he couldn’t bear to let her do anything more for him.
She touched his stubbled cheek. “I shouldn’t. But I know you want to.” She sighed, “Go ahead.”
He gave the dog a treat first to get him out from under foot and then pulled down the cocoa mix and started the kettle. He could feel El’s eyes on him. On his wings. There was no helping that. They were, and always would be, the elephant in the room.
“Do you wish it hadn’t happened?”
Her question made him pause. He looked over his shoulder, holding a spoon over a mug. She was blinking at him in the dim light, sitting in a dining room chair, her hands warming between her knees. He smiled at her, the first one he’d managed since Peter left on his trip. “If it hadn’t happened…would I be here now?”
“I would hope so,” she said, something in her tone both sad and beseeching. As if it would have been *his* choice, to join them or not. It would always, always be Peter’s choice, and Neal felt she should know that better than anyone. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much now for him to be gone; maybe Neal needed the permission to stay, permission to be a fucked up mess in Elizabeth Burke’s kitchen. In her bed. Her life.
He tipped the contents of the spoon into El’s mug, adding extra cocoa because that’s how she liked it. “But you can’t be sure,” he said. Some fissure of energy hit him and his wings seized. He grabbed the edge of the counter, and El stood. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” He hid the worst from her, and when it passed, he turned, waiting for the water to boil and leaning his butt against the counter. His left wing touched a wet spot on the countertop and twitched away. He folded them in tighter, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “Do you wish things were different?”
“I wish it didn’t hurt you so much.”
“But the pain makes it more pleasurable,” he admitted. It was nothing they hadn’t talked about before.
“Normal-“ El seemed to catch herself. She changed words, looking a bit sheepish, “Ordinary sex is hot, too, you know.”
Neal felt immediately chagrined. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disparage…”
“You didn’t, honey. Peter and I are good. More than good.”
He relaxed a little more, relieved that he hadn’t hurt her feelings. “Do you want marshmallows?”
She smiled. “Always.”
He grabbed the bag of mini-marshmallows down from the cupboard. It felt good to do something ‘normal’ together. Neal missed work - missed his friends who still didn’t know about the change in him, that he was now a creature rather than a person. Or at least that’s how he felt. Especially now, hurting so much, being so debilitated that he couldn’t even really live. He couldn’t even hold a brush to paint with. The smell of chocolate, the sound of Elizabeth’s breath, the dog scratching his neck in the corner and jingling his collar - these things kept him grounded enough to bear the pain, the loss. For now. He knew he wouldn’t last without Peter.
They sat at the dining table. Neal’s wings had retracted enough that he didn’t have to set his chair sideways. He did have to lean forward. That was something he hardly even thought of anymore. He supposed it made him appear unduly interested at staff meetings.
Elizabeth sipped her hot chocolate. “I know you’re not in love with me.”
Neal gasped. “Of course I-“ The lie came so quickly and easily, but she stopped him.
“You love me. It’s not the same.”
Neal swallowed. He was wracked with shivers and wrapped his hands around his mug. He stared into the fragrant steam unable to meet her eyes, the pain of hearing it adding to the physical and psychic pain he was already in. El got up and fetched the blanket off the back of the couch.
“I’m okay, you know,” she said. She wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, and he drew it around himself. She touched his hair. “Neal…” It was yet another moment of tenderness he knew he didn’t deserve. He didn’t look at her, and she sat across from him once more, gesturing for his hand. He took it across the table reluctantly. “I have more than I ever dreamed,” she said. “I have two beautiful men who love me, one who is head-over-heels *in* love with me and one who lets me love him and whose smile makes me feel like…” She stopped and sighed, redirecting, and Neal felt like his already fragile world might burn away like a wisp of paper, igniting in the wind and turning to nothing in a gasp.
“You and Peter,” El said. Her words were cautious, her hand gripping his. “You’ve developed a Soul Bond.”
Her eyes searched his for recognition. Neal felt something low in his gut. Something like hope. “I don’t…” he began. The stirring in his body at those words… It was unbelievable. It was total cognition.
“I do,” she said. And then she proceeded to tell him what she’d found, what she’d discovered. And Neal could only gape at her in shock, the most intimate details of what he was feeling tumbling from her lips as though she knew - as though she could reach inside his spirit and feel him, know him, explain him, in ways he’d never found words for himself.
Somewhere in the process, they moved to the couch, and El shared his blanket with him. They talked in the dark, curled up, their heads on the back of the couch, facing each other like children at a sleep-over. Sharing secrets.
“I’m sorry,” Neal finally said once it was all laid out between them.
El entwined her fingers with his. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But Peter… Peter and I…”
“You have something I can’t have with either one of you.”
Neal couldn’t even nod. Two tears fell down onto his cheeks.
“Neal. Peter and I have something you don’t, too.” He looked up at her, sniffed, and she went on. “We have a partnership that’s lasted over ten years. We have a shared life. One you’re newly a part of. Peter can finish my sentences. I can look at him - just look at him - and know what he needs.” She looked down at their hands. “To be honest, I’ve felt bad about that. Bad for you, I mean.” When her eyes came back to his, they were moist. She shrugged. “I don’t have to feel guilty about that anymore,” she told him.
He reached out and touched her face. He was always surprised at the softness of her cheek. He brushed his thumb over it. “What about us?” he asked.
She took his hand and brought it down between them, joining the others, their fingers entangling. “Neal, I’ve never known anyone like you. You’re like…an instant best friend.”
He frowned. He didn’t like to think that they were having the ‘just friends’ talk. He knew it was more than that. Pain vibrated through his feathers.
“No, not like that,” she amended at his bristling. “I can tell you things I can’t tell Peter. I can…drink cocoa with you in the middle of the night. Do you think I could drag Peter Burke out of bed just to talk like this? Do you think that would happen in a million years? I mean, I *could* drag him.” She was smiling at him now. “But I don’t have to drag you. You and I… We’re a different kind of soul mate. You’re precious to me.” She shrugged and blinked, her fingers nervous between his. “We just have to find our way, Neal. Can you do that with me?”
He swallowed down the fresh tears and nodded. He knew he would do anything to keep this. Them. The three of them. Unequal, messy them.
Soul bonded. He and Peter were soul bonded. Unbidden, the knowledge made him hard. His body recognized the truth in a way his mind couldn’t yet. He ached for Peter to come home. Neal curled up with El under the blanket and concealed his ache as much as possible, thrumming - his whole body thrumming like a migraine.
They talked for a long time. Then they devolved into watching early morning infomercials. When Neal woke with a start, he was alone on the couch, curled up under two blankets, and Elizabeth was gone, he guessed upstairs. Satchmo lay like a rug up against the base of the couch. The two mugs sat encrusted with old melted marshmallows on the coffee table.
As Neal stared at them, the pain hit. The intensity was like nothing he’d ever felt. He arched, the agony in his wings, through his limbs, down his whole body, was excruciating. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. Satchmo sat at attention and whined and whined. Neal used the last of his strength and a gasped in breath to call for her, “Eh-liza…” Then he seemed to pass out, falling into that dark watery place. He fell away from Peter and Elizabeth, away from himself. Down, down, and down again, until there was nothing but pain and yearning in the suffocating darkness.
…
Peter’s flight touched down, and he realized he’d mutilated, or rather strangled, a copy of Skymall in his tight, twisting fists. Not for the first time he had to wonder what the hell was wrong with him. El had been cryptic on the phone every time he checked in. She hadn’t let him talk to Neal. She’d said it would make things worse. Peter knew enough about what Neal had gone through early in their relationship not to question that kind of assertion, but the desire to hear Neal’s voice was potent, and it was work not to resent his wife getting to be with Neal all this time even as he was grateful to her for taking care of him.
He’d never, *never* resented El before. Peter looked down at the magazine. He shoved it back in its pocket, still crumpled. What was *wrong* with him?
He deplaned, pushing aggressively at the other passengers to get through. He almost pulled his badge and abused his job position to get past the crowd. Almost.
He caught a cab, gave his address, and tried to relax back into the seat. He couldn’t. He could NOT relax. He was breathing so hard he feared hyperventilation, and the cabbie was giving him looks in the rearview mirror every so often. Peter rubbed his hands on his slacks. He was sweating. He was agitated.
He was erect.
He schooled his breathing so that the cab driver wouldn’t pull over and eject him for being on meth. There was nothing he could do about the hard-on, though. He’d had that on and off for several hours. It was humiliating really. Peter supposed he should be grateful he hadn’t been this hard during all the consults. But it was difficult to feel grateful for anything when it felt for all the world like he might die if he didn’t fuck Neal Caffrey in the next fifteen minutes.
“Could you go a little faster?” Peter called, gritting his teeth. He banged his head back against the rest and closed his eyes.
It was eons before the cab pulled up in front of his house. Peter thought he’d feel relief, but as he paid and hauled his duffel up the driveway, all he felt like was breaking into a run.
What happened instead was that his wife burst from the front door and came at a run toward *him*. For a moment, he felt relief that someone besides him felt that same way. But then she launched herself into his arms, and her soft body was like an anchor, bringing him back to himself, and he gripped her tight, growling into her loose hair, “God, El…”
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, on the verge of tears.
He drew back and held her shoulders, peering into her face. “He’s bad,” Peter said, knowing.
She nodded. “I got him to the bedroom - I don’t know how. It’s terrible, Peter. He needs you. He needs you now.”
Peter’s cock jumped against his wife’s thigh. He gripped her shoulders tighter and she gasped but didn’t pull away. “Can you…stay with us?” he asked her. “I’m afraid… I’m afraid I might…I *will* hurt him.” He swallowed, the guilt and arousal coursing through him.
She shook her head. “Not this first time. Peter, he *needs* you to hurt him. That’s what he’s *begging* for.”
He nodded, tamped down his own monstrous need for Neal, and kissed his wife. Her lips were pliant and sweet, and as always, he felt as though his tongue in her mouth was a barbarism. She pressed close to him once more, her breasts exquisite against his chest. It was too much. He wanted to push her back to the garage door, wrap her legs around him, and go in her hard for all the neighbors to see. He tore away, nearly shoving her back. He looked around to see if there were, indeed, any peeping neighbors. None that he could tell, but that didn’t mean they weren’t gawking behind their curtains. El was blushing. She nodded toward the door, licking him from her lips.
He walked resolutely and El followed. He stopped just inside the door; he could hear Neal moaning from where he stood and it pulled at his cock like a hand. Peter grimaced, beginning to leak. He turned back to El one last time.
“I insist,” she said. “Go.”
He nodded. And then he took the stairs two at a time, strode down the hall, and swung the door open on Neal, naked, wings unfurled until they were the span of the king-sized bed. He was on his knees, bent over at the waist. He had stuffed himself full of a large vibrating plug, and he was crying and punching a weak and trembling fist into the mattress time and again, whimpering:
“Comehomecomehomecomehomecomehomecomehomecomehome….”
Peter’s heart broke at the sight. His body was on fire. He ripped at his shirt and slammed the door shut. Neal turned his head with a gasp. “P-puh-“ he cried. Peter didn’t have time to work his cuffs open and simply left the shirt hanging off his body. He opened his pants, his huge cock springing free. Neal dropped his head to the bed, spread his knees, and waited in complete supplication, even though Peter knew he felt like he was dying with every passing second.
Neal whimpered as Peter pulled him matter-of-factly by the hips to the foot of the bed, standing behind him. He pulled the plug free and threw it to the side. Neal keened at its sudden loss, and then once again tried and failed to say Peter’s name. He made precious begging noises. Peter lined up, gritted his teeth, and sank himself inside on one brutal thrust.
And Neal came. Peter grabbed Neal’s hips and yanked him back on each and every savage fuck while Neal screamed and orgasmed, his feathers tense and shivering, his hole clamping down on Peter’s moving cock for what seemed like several minutes. Peter roared wordlessly, pumping Neal’s ass on the entire length of his cock. Every thrust was home, home, home, home, home, home, home. Every thrust damned him, absolved him, hurt and healed him. Tears stung Peter’s eyes.
When Neal’s climax subsided, leaving his body weak, still Peter fucked him. He went faster than he realized he could go, stretching Neal’s hole so wide so quickly, Peter was afraid he would bleed.
Neal arched his back like something gone into heat, just accepting Peter, accepting the pain. “P-Peter,” he finally got out.
“Ah Christ,” Peter groaned and started to come. He came hot and long inside Neal, moving his cock through it. There was so much. It ran down Neal’s thighs. Peter made an inhuman sound, bruising Neal’s slight hips in his grip.
“Hard…again…” Neal cried. “Please…keep fucking…me…”
Peter knew he was in no danger of losing this hard-on. But he slowed. He regripped at Neal’s waist, and he took long, mindful, rolling thrusts. “Angel…” he breathed, the sweat dripping down his chest, his stomach. “My angel… Are you dripping, baby?” He’d missed this, he’d missed this, he’d MISSED THIS; him and Neal. Impossible. Agony itself and the antidote to that agony both.
Neal reached between his legs and produced his hand back for Peter. Peter touched the smeared fingers and brought the stuff to his mouth, eating Neal off his hand, nostrils flaring at the scent like a horse. He groaned and then resituated his grip on Neal once more, needing him even more open, even more vulnerable. Peter took him by the thighs, lifting him until he dangled, Neal holding himself off the bed with his hands. Neal whined. Peter started hitting him hard again, giving Neal’s worn ass as much as he could. Neal just moaned helplessly and beat his wings slowly, rhythmically, as Peter fucked him.
“You’re beautiful,” Peter told him. “You’re my beautiful creature.”
He did Neal like that until he was crying again. Then he set Neal back down and withdrew. It hurt him to do it, but Peter pulled all the way out, even as Neal wailed, “Nooooo…!”
Peter opened the drawer with Neal’s favorite toys in it and took out a long vibrator. He turned back to Neal, dying to plunge himself back inside, to be enveloped by that delicious, needy body.
“Peter, please! Please!”
“I’ve got what you need,” Peter promised him. “I’m gonna make it all better. Shhh…” Peter stroked Neal’s buttocks.
Neal nodded, and Peter got behind him again, pushing the head of his cock in and then lining the vibrator up along side. Neal immediately arched. “Yes! Do it please yes!”
Peter pressed the unbearable thickness inside him, opening him horribly. Neal’s little hole was so soaked that it was easy to slide inside even as tight as it had become. He didn’t let Neal adjust before he was moving both vibe and cock, stretching, stretching, stretching him. Neal moaned luridly. Then Peter turned on the vibrations, and Neal’s throat tore with it.
Peter drove into him as Neal started sobbing. Unintelligible things came out of his mouth, then Peter’s name, more sobbing. Finally, he seemed to just give up. Neal didn’t arch or beg. He just whispered Peter’s name over and over again, something akin to joy in the tremor of his voice. Peter pulled the vibe free and sank all the way into Neal. He let go of Neal’s sweaty body. He reached for the tips of his huge wings, and while he rode deep in Neal’s ass, he stroked the feathers tenderly, feeling their silk between his fingers and thumbs, touching Neal only with his cock and his fingertips, deep and soft.
“GOD!” Neal yelled. He came again, and Peter felt it tremble through his feathers, grasping hard onto his buried cock. Tears pricked Peter’s eyes again quite suddenly. He smiled for the first time in days. He stroked the feathers for a long time, and it prolonged Neal’s orgasm, just like he was stroking his cock - better even. When he was finally through, Peter pulled out, still hard, and eased his lover off his knees, onto his side, the wings retracting more with every labored breath.
Peter took a moment to strip, finally undoing his cuffs and peeling off his ruined shirt. He dropped trou and toed off shoes and socks. When he was as naked as Neal, he curled up on his side facing him. Neal reached for him immediately, and Peter bit back his emotion at seeing Neal’s tear-streaked face. He tucked Neal’s head under his chin and held him, shushed him, told him it would be all right now, and Neal, exhausted, just wept into Peter’s chest.
…
After a twenty minute rest during which Peter just let his hands stroke over Neal’s body, Peter urged him up and into a hot bath. Peter bathed him, careful as he washed Neal and rubbed his sore, abused muscles under the hot water. Neal was serene, only wincing and gasping here and there - the major pain very obviously gone now.
They dressed and went downstairs. El was busying around with dinner. “Perfect timing,” she smiled too big, fussing. “The chicken’s got about five minutes left to it.”
Peter watched Neal approach her, take her elbow, and pull her close, forcing her to stop. Peter loved how Neal’s arms wrapped around his wife, holding her closely and reverently. He watched the fervent tension leave her body, all the strife, the holding it together, melting at his touch. Peter pressed himself to her back and held them both, rocking slightly.
“Oh…” El sighed. Peter felt her deep breathing as she laid her cheek against Neal’s chest and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh God that’s nice.”
Peter chuckled into her hair.
They ate. They sat in the living room and talked over glasses of wine, and Peter finally came to understand something he hadn’t had any idea about - something that explained so much. He held El’s hand as she spoke. He kissed her for a long, long time once they’d talked out the logistics - that he and Neal shared a connection that would be painful if they were physically parted, that it was only between them, that El supported and loved them, that somehow it would all be all right. He kissed her longer than maybe he ever had, barring their wedding night.
“Hun…” he said against her lips.
“I know,” she murmured. She kissed him again.
And then he looked at Neal, sitting on the floor at his feet. His Neal. Their eyes met, and they said nothing. Peter laid his palm against Neal’s face, feeling rough beard and tremor. Peter nodded at him, swallowing. Neal smiled, the most brilliant thing Peter had ever seen.
They went to bed together, and El took Neal from behind with the thickest dildo they owned. Peter lay beneath him and kissed him periodically. He held his gaze as he stroked himself and then Neal and then himself again, always again finding Neal’s lips and kissing him, kissing him through the end, as tender as his wife was rough. Peter gazed into Neal’s blown eyes and felt redefined.
Peter made love to Elizabeth while Neal rested afterward, hugging a pillow and watching them sedately. While Peter was inside her, they each looked over at Neal often - they each reached out to stroke a hand through his messy hair. El came with one hand on the back of Peter’s neck and the other against Neal’s chest, over his heart.
They fell asleep with Peter cramped in the middle, Neal and Elizabeth’s hands entwined across his chest and Neal’s wings hanging crazily off the side of the bed.
It was the middle of the night when Peter woke and had to piss so bad he was afraid he wouldn’t make it to the toilet. He eased out from between his lovers and tiptoed to the bathroom. When he came back out, it was to find Neal standing at the window, the light from the moon reflecting on his wings. It stole Peter’s breath - the power, the serenity.
Peter walked up behind him and saw the reflection of Neal’s lips curving up in the glass. Peter stroked his hair and Neal turned to him, entering Peter’s arms. Peter held him, neither one of them erect, neither one urgent. He listened to Neal’s breath, felt the rise and fall of his naked chest, and watched the moon slowly setting through the branches of the trees.