[RPS] The Sacred Simplicity of You at My Side (10/10)
Title: The Sacred Simplicity of You at My Side (10/10)
Wordcount: ~7,000 this part, ~62,000 in all (jesus christ)
Pairing/Characters: Matt Doyle/Wesley Taylor, Matt Doyle/Jonathan Groff, Lauren Molina, Blake Daniel, Krysta Rodriguez
Rating: NC-17 overall
Warnings: This fic (as a whole) is by far the dirtiest things I've ever written. Fingering, handjobs, blowjobs, rimming, and explicit male/male sex, light bondage. Also, ANGST.
Summary: Snapshots throughout close to two years of a relationship between two young Broadway actors, and all the drama that entails. I'm not sure how to summarize it beyond that.
Notes: Title from Eric's Song by Vienna Teng. While this fic is based off real people and a lot of the scenes are extrapolated from real events, I gave up trying to fit it into the real world's timelines about halfway through, so please bear with me and I hope it won't bug you too much.
Also, as I post these I'm getting worried that this is terribly paced. Um. I hope it's not, but I am too tired of it to play with it until I'm satisfied (because I am a horrible perfectionist about pacing).
Matt puts his hands on the top of Lauren's door and looks at Jon.
Jon smiles at him, the heartbreak-smile. "Bye, Matt."
"If I." Matt stops. "If I come back alone - "
"You mean if Wes has gone mad?" Jon grins, and then sobers a little. "You know how I feel about you," he says, and somewhere in there, buried under general Jon-ness and cheer and more acting talent than Matt would know what to do with, lurk tears. "But if you're asking me to wait for you, on the faint hope that..."
"I'm not," Matt says quickly. "I wouldn't -"
"I know." Jon says gently, and he takes a single step forward and just for a second Matt aches for him, for the ease they had on the beach, for what they might have been. "I won't wait for you forever," Jon says in the voice he uses when he knows he's lying, and Matt swallows down his tears.
He considers, just for an instant, kissing Jon goodbye, but he's not sure he'll be able to do this (not sure he can hurt Jon like this, not with Jon's pain so close and Wes' so far away) if he does and so he swallows again and raises a hand in farewell and slips sideways into Lauren's passenger seat.
It's the third roadtrip he's taken in the last two months and he's beginning to hate all the flavors of silence that can stretch across the space between two seats.
Lauren keeps casting little glances at him, but doesn't seem to have anything to actually say, and neither does Matt. He's too nervous for words, his whole stomach knotted into a single horrible lump and he takes a long breath. He catches a glance from Lauren and she attempts a smile and he closes his eyes. He leans his head back onto the headrest and, for the first time in two months, lets himself really think about Wes.
He lets himself imagine what he's been doing, while Matt's been dating Jon. He lets himself think about the Addams Family, lets himself think about how close Krysta and Wes must be getting, thinks about them flirting onstage and laughing off-stage and being generally delightful people and it hurts, it hurts to imagine that Wes has probably changed in the time he hasn't seen him. It hurts that there's a part of Wes' life that Matt doesn't even get to see and he's just being selfish again, wanting everything despite everything he's done.
"How is he?" he asks Lauren because surely she knows, surely they talk, they're friends, and even that makes his stomach clench further, thinking about Wes calling Lauren and not calling him, besides that one early, awful half-conversation, and Wes' voice is in his ears again. I miss you, he says miserably, and Matt thinks desperately, selfishly back, please don't stop.
"Alive," Lauren says shortly, and he opens his eyes. "Enjoying playing boyfriend to Krysta. They work well together."
"Good," Matt says uselessly. "Does. He knows I miss him, right?"
Lauren looks at his sharply. "Do you miss him?"
"Yes," Mat answers immediately and fervently, and Lauren nods as if satisfied.
"I'm not going to lie to you," she says. "When Krysta first told me what happened, and I couldn't get Wes to talk about it at all, I was furious with you. And there's a part of me that still is, Matt. I meant what I said to you, after I found you in Wes' bed that first time."
"Except for the baseball bat part?" Matt jokes weakly.
Lauren ignores him. "But. You say you miss him and I believe you. You let Jon go, poor boy, and you really seem to want Wes back, so. Here we are, getting him back."
Matt wets his lips, swallows. "And. And if he doesn't want me?"
Lauren barks a laugh, slapping an open palm against the wheel.
"I'm serious," says Matt, staring at her. "I fucked it all up, Lauren. I hurt Wes and I, I hurt Jon, and I fucked everything up and he's probably realized it by now and maybe he thinks I'll do it again, or realizes he can do better...what if he's moved on?"
Lauren glares at him. "If he'd moved on, if there was any chance he was happy down in Chicago right now, you think I would be kidnapping you like this?"
"Eyes on the road," Matt squeaks, and then, from under the shelter of his arm, "Why are you kidnapping me like this? I'm just going to end up hurting him again."
"Okay, stop," Lauren says sharply, and for a split second of terror Matt thinks she's just going to stop dead in the middle of the highway, just for dramatic effect. "I'm calling the cops on this self-pity-party right the fuck now, because you're being an idiot and if you show up to Chicago and be an idiot at Wes he's just going to be an idiot right back and no one will get anywhere with anything."
"But -"
"No. Listen. Wesley Taylor is one of my best friends in the whole world and normally I would kill anyone who's put him through what you've put him through. Possibly with boiling pitch involved. But here's the thing. Before all the bullshit, before you got too scared to come and talk to me, you were becoming a really good friend, too, and - " She sighed. "Balls, I'm bad at this. Wes is really the girl in our relationship, he gets the touchy-feely crap." She takes a breath and merges into the center lane, flipping off another driver. It seems to settle her.
"In the time you were together you made Wes happier than I've ever seen him, and it wasn't, like, I'm-getting-laid-happy, well, mostly, it was like." She gestures, driving with her knees. "Sunshine-is-pouring-through-the-pores-of-the-world happy. So, yeah, maybe you fucked that up, but what doesn't kill us makes us stranger, right? What I'm trying to say is, you're not going to hurt him again. You're going to love him and keep loving him and then the two of you are going to make beautiful gay babies together."
"That's, um, not how genetics work - "
"Shut. Up."
Matt shuts up.
**
Seeing Wes again is...strange. At first Matt almost doesn't recognize him - not because of the make-up or the costume or whatever the hell they've done to his hair but because he'd spent two and a half months seeing Wes everywhere, his smile in every smile, and now here he is and Matt's brain is trying to refuse it, tell him, no, it's just your heart playing tricks again, and what have I told you about trusting such a loud, unsteady organ?
But then Wes laughs in response to something Krysta's said, and Matt's heart just gets louder and unsteadier and he feels such a wave of longing that he has to catch himself against a wall.
Lauren doesn't let him rest for long, though, tugging him through the press of people to Wes' side. Wes sees her first, gives her a grin and lifts her up in a hug that reminds Matt for a dizzying moment how strong he is, and then he opens his eyes and sees Matt.
He's still got his arms wrapped around Lauren, half his face hidden by her shoulder, and all Matt can really see are his eyes and his arching brows but that's all he really needs in order to know, know the moment when shock turns to hope turns to pain, and he tries to find a reassuring smile, say, it's going to be alright but he's fucking terrified and he doesn't know and Wes has buried his face in Lauren's neck anyway, eyes clenched shut like he can't even bear to look at Matt.
So he just shifts from foot to foot and hopes no one in the party behind him can see him trembling.
"Wes," says Lauren, "You're going to have to let go."
Her voice is light, but Wes tenses, hands flexing in her shirt, and then he says, misery-quiet, "Okay."
He releases her and steps back, eyes slipping closed for a moment as he calms himself, and then he says to Matt's feet, "Come outside with me?" It's not quite a question and it's not quite a command and it's a little desperate and trembling and Matt's only heard him use that tone once and it sends shivers down his spine. "Just like this, okay, Matt?" Misery and longing and hope all at once.
Wes brushes past him, still not looking him in the face, and Matt clenches his fist at his side to keep from grabbing his hand or pulling him in just to feel him, breathe in the medley of scents that is post-performance Wes. He follows him through the room and out the door. For a minute he thinks that "outside" might mean in the hallway or the lobby but Wes stays silent until they've pushed their way through the main doors and into the warm Chicago night.
Matt opens his mouth, but Wes spins to look at him before he can say anything. "What are you doing here?" he asks, sharp, gaze somewhere a tiny bit beyond Matt's left ear.
"Came to see you," Matt says simply, because it's true.
"I. I told her not to bring you." Wes says, and swallows. He looks agitated, frustrated, despairing. "I told her - "
"So you don't want to see me." Matt cuts in, heavily. "I get that, Wes, but why not just say it - "
"Because I'd be lying," Wes says, tongue flickering out to moisten his lips. "I do want to see you. Some days - some days it scares me just how much I've wanted to - I'd. I'd be lying, again, if I said that part of me wasn't hoping Lauren would ignore me and bring you anyway, out of some sort of misplaced meddling, but. That part of me was wrong." He swallows again and stops even pretending to look at Matt's face, turning away, and then adds, almost to himself, "this just makes it worse."
"Wes," Matt grits out, needing him to stop, stay where he was, needing him to listen. "Wes, please, I'm sorry. I fucked everything up but, but, god, just. Just let me try to fix it. Please. Tell me how to fix it."
Wes laughs, bitter, and it feels like someone's punched Matt in the stomach. His eyes are stinging with tears. "Let's see," Wes says, voice full of sarcasm and self-deprecation, "You could break up with Jon, realize it was me you loved all along, kiss me like you mean it and let me take you back to my hotel room and show you just how much I missed you. Oh, and we have to go to Mars for our honeymoon."
Matt smiles, tremulous, through his tears. "Well, I've done the first two," he said softly. "That last one might give me some trouble, but the ones in-between - "
Wes spins, eyes enormous. "You and Jon - "
Matt's smile fades. "I broke up with him."
"But - you - why?"
Matt closes his eyes for a long moment, wills away the urge to say, you. "He deserved -- deserves -- more than me."
Wes shoves his hands into his pockets, shoulders tight and face blank, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "A-And I don't?" he asks, throat working.
Matt swallows. "You do," he says, words weighty in his mouth. "You do, but I...I can't, Wes." He crumples into himself a little, one hand across his stomach, the other in his hair. "Nevermind." He turns. "I shouldn't have come. You're right, you're better off without me."
He starts walking away, wandering blind into the streets of Chicago, everything aching.
"Matt," Wes says, sharp, behind him, and Matt snaps to a stop. There are footsteps and Matt's trembling because if Wes touches him he'll, he'll cry or fall to pieces or spin and grab him and kiss him senseless -
"Matt, what can't you do?"
Matt closes his eyes. "Let you go," he says, and hopes it's too soft for Wes to hear because jesus. But Wes takes a breath and Matt has to look at him, needs to, and turns.
One of Wes' hands is raised, like he was going to touch Matt's back, but stopped when Matt turned. His eyes are wide and soft, like they haven't quite managed to let go of their tears yet, and after a moment of perfect stillness Wes continues to raise his hand, trembling fingers tracing not the line of Matt's shoulders but the line of his jaw, and Matt sags forward a little at his touch. His eyelids slip nearly closed but he keeps them open with an effort, wanting to drink Wes in, watch his throat work as he searches for words.
"I don't want you to," he says finally, voice distant and lost. "I - I don't - please stop trying to. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I sent you away - "
And Matt is crushing Wes' face into his neck, arms wrapped hard and sudden around his back, breath short. His exhales are sobs, his inhales gasps of relief and Wes might still be talking but he's muffled against Matt's shirt and the thundering, shuddering drum of Matt's own heart. He swallows and swallows again, trying to listen, and then he realizes Wes isn't talking at all but just mouthing desperate at Matt's neck and the realization steals his breath entirely and makes the world spin.
He loosens his arms a little, giving Wes more range of motion and Wes bites at his jaw, mindless, like he's just trying to get at as much of Matt as possible and Matt pulls back further, shivers running down his spine, and grips his chin, tugging him around for a real kiss. Wes clutches fistfuls of Matt's shirt, legs tangled together, and pushes into the kiss, his tongue sweeping across the line of Matt's teeth. Matt opens his mouth to Wes and fuck, he'd forgotten the taste of him, forgotten the way he kisses like he's smiling, like he can't help it, forgotten the curl of his tongue.
Wes breaks the kiss, not to pull away but to come even closer, lips brushing wet across Matt's tearstained cheekbones, breath hot against his ear. "What was that about kissing you like I meant it?" Matt asks, trying for a joke but it comes out so fucking sincere, like he's worried and willing to do it again and he is and Wes doesn't laugh at the humor that neither of them heard. His hands are tugging, tugging downwards, like he wants to root Matt in place.
"Missed you," He mutters. "Love you," and there are the tears, trapped in the words, only released when Wes' voice cracks them open ragged and raw. They slide more down Matt's cheeks than Wes' own.
Matt turns his head so their lips slot together again, this kiss slower and sadder, salt in the corners of their mouths. He slides his hands up Wes' chest to cup his jaw, just on the edge of rough, and Wes responds with a nip of teeth against his lower lip. They scratch and hurt each other in the small, pleasurable ways that they used to, overshadowed for so long by the enormous, nightmarish ways they have hurt and been hurt. Wes digs his fingernails in at the base of Matt's skull, holding him here and now and his, and Matt walks him backwards, presses him up against the wall, hard enough for the brick to leave patterns in the skin beneath his thin t-shirt. They move slow, languorous, letting pain and pleasure last.
Matt bows his head, moving his way down Wes' neck in little kitten-licks along the tendon that stretches in sharp relief against the hollow of his throat when Wes arches. "I love you," he mutters to the V of his collarbone, and it slips right through his skin to echo back out from Wes' lips. When Wes follows it with a repeated, "missed you," this time sharp with desire, Matt straightens.
"Item four on the checklist," he breathes, holding Wes' eyes. "Show me."
Wes' eyes are gleaming in the dark and his tongue slips out to wet his lips. Matt steps back from him a little and Wes straightens up from the wall. "You're sure?" He asks. "You're absolutely sure that this is - that I'm - what you want?" His voice is hard, serious.
Matt opens his mouth and Wes stops him with a palm across his face. "Think, Matt." He says. "I don't. I don't just mean what you...want," he says with an arched brow and twitch of hips that basically invalidates his command to think by shutting Matt's brain off entirely. "I mean what you want, what you really want, in your life, for - for forever. Because that's what this would be. I can't. I can't fucking do this if it's for anything less." He opens his mouth, swallows. "Can't get you back and just to lose you again. I think. I think I'd go mad."
"Wes," Matt says. "If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't be standing here right now. If I wasn't sure, I'd be back in New York, alone and indecisive. I'm here, Wes. I'm yours."
Wes flicks his eyes to the ground, and then back to Matt's face, still unconvinced. "But Lauren made you - "
"Yeah," Matt says, and lets his grin free. "But I was already packed."
Wes blinks at him, a disbelieving smile twitching at the edges of his lips. "You were coming - "
"I was coming anyway," Matt laughs over him. "I want this, Wes." He takes a breath, breathes in the joy that's blossoming in Wes' eyes. "I. I need you."
Wes stares at him, smiling open-mouthed, and then his eyes narrow and it becomes a smirk. "Right," he says, and kisses Matt quickly, tracing nails down his shoulder and along his bicep. He draws sharp trails across the soft place on the inside of Matt's elbow. For a moment Matt thinks he's going to take his hand, and he smiles a little, but Wes' fingers stop, flickering over his pulse-point, and then close in a circle, vise-tight, right above the delicate bones of Matt's wrist.
Matt raises his eyebrows and Wes flashes him a grin, flash of white teeth and slick lips, and tugs him back through the hotel doors and inside.
**
Wes' pretty sure there has never been a slower elevator in the history of, of anything. He wants to push Matt up against the wall right here, suck marks in his skin now that he can mean them, bite his lips bloody. He wants to wipe Matt's skin clean of anything that isn't Matt and isn't Wes, wants to make him forget everything but heat and skin and love in its most primal form.
He wants to make Matt his.
But the elevator ticks stolidly up the floors, and Wes stands stock-still, fingers tightening on Matt's wrist because this is part of it. He can feel Matt's pulse race against the pads of his fingers, he can feel Matt's gaze on the side of his face, but he doesn't look and Matt doesn't move and that in itself is incredible, mind-blowing, impossible, that Matt gets it, that in itself has Wes shivering and breathing shallow. He unconsciously licks his lips, shifting his stance slightly.
Matt's arm shudders in his grip, and Wes looks at him, can't help it.
Matt's eyes slam closed as he turns his head, and his throat moves as he swallows rapidly, and Wes' lips part. The elevator doors open and Wes leans in. "I love you," he murmurs against the shell of Matt's ear, and then steps away, drags him out of the elevator and down the hall.
His fingers shake as he tries to fish out his keycard with the wrong hand, refusing to let go of Matt's wrist, and then Matt reaches over, just quick and businesslike, and slips his hand into Wes' back pocket. His warm palm lingers just a moment longer than necessary against the curve of his ass and then he's swiping the card through the lock. Wes knees the door open, mouth dry, and swings Matt through it.
Matt's back hits the wall right inside the door and Wes slips a leg between his, keeping him there. He lays Matt's wrist out carefully against the wall with both hands. Matt twitches his hips forward but Wes ignores him, fingers tracing gentle over the place where they'd been clamped before. Slowly, carefully, he leans forward and presses his lips to the inside of Matt's wrist. The skin is soft and smells like Matt and Wes opens his mouth, mouthing toothless at it until Matt's spasms, his fingers clenching, and the tendons come alive under his tongue.
"Wes," Matt says, breathless, and it's the first word he's spoken in what feels like years and it reminds Wes that this is Matt, Matt who's here, Matt who loves him, Matt who wants him -
Matt who knows him. Knows what he likes, probably knows what he wants right now, god, more than anything -
"Matt," he says back, tightly. He drops his eyes, just for a second, and traces one hand across Matt's chest to his other wrist. Deliberate, he presses that wrist to the wall as well, held there by the trembling semicircle of his fingers. "I want. I. Can I..."
With his hands out to either side keeping Matt's hands out to either side, they're left face to face, and Matt stares at him, dark eyed, and then smirks. He tosses his head a little to get his hair out of his eyes and arches his neck forward to put his lips along Wes' jaw, right along the soft corner where it curls up to his ear. "You can do," he breathes, "whatever you want with me, Wesley Taylor."
Wes bites his lip so hard he draws blood and pulls, stumbling away from the wall, still holding Matt by the wrists, and shoves him back on his bed. He releases him, fumbling clumsy-fingered with the buttons of his shirt. Matt arches up to kiss him, using the fact that his hands are free to pull Wes' face to his, his other hand hooks long-fingered in the waistband of Wes' pants. "You k-know when I said," gasps Wes between kisses, finally managing to shove the shirt from his shoulders, "that you s-s-sucked at dirty talk?"
Matt hums against his lips, hands skimming over Wes' chest now and it feels fucking incredible, palms warm and smooth and clever.
"It was a fucking lie," Wes says, steadying himself with a knee along the outside of Matt's hip on the bed. "A big, fat - a-ah!"
Matt smirks up at him, hand running back down his thigh, and no, no, not with what he's just said. Wes lets his smirk last a little (because even at insufferably smug, Matt is beautiful) and then says, "No."
Matt blinks at him, smirk fading, and Wes reaches down and plucks his hand from where it rests comfortably above his knee. "No. Clever as your fingers are, not tonight." He collects Matt's other hand from where it was curled against his ribs and fits them both into one palm.
Matt swallows, and Wes reaches up to slide a his free hand along his jaw. He traces gentle fingers over the bow of his lips, presses a thumb to the corner of his mouth before tracing it downward, downward, and slipping Matt's tie from his neck.
Matt closes his eyes. The silk is cool against Wes' fingertips, cooler in contrast to the overheated skin of Matt's chest.
"Look at me," Wes says, because it's important. This isn't his car and this isn't goodbye and he needs Matt to be here, with him. For Matt to be okay.
Matt opens his eyes, focuses on Wes' face, while Wes draws the silk up and over the rungs of the bed (and thank god for old-fashioned hotels rooms), and crosses it over itself against Matt's wrists. He's straddling Matt's hips, now, shins flat on either side of his thighs, and when he hesitates, fingers against Matt's arms, he looks down at Matt.
Matt stays still, except for the parting of his lips, and waits.
Waits for Wes.
Wes crosses the silk behind Matt's wrists, loops it once between them, and tugs it tight in a knot. His mouth is dry. He leans in and presses kisses along the patterned silk, flickers his tongue along the line of it where it cuts just slightly into Matt's pale wrist. He brushes his lips down Matt's arms, presses little kisses to his elbows, sinks his teeth into the curve of his bicep and Matt arches, hips shuddering upwards into Wes'. Wes presses his moan into Matt's skin.
"W-Wes," Matt gulps, barely above a rough whisper, wrists already twisting against the silk and the silk whispering against the metal. "Y-you're going to hhhave tell me th-the rules, if." He swallows, swallowed again as Wes slips teasing fingers across his stomach under his shirt. "If this is going to b-be a re-regular - oh fuck."
Wes releases his mouthful of Matt's skin with a pop, watches as it blossoms red, and then darker, obvious and obscene on the skin below his ear. "Rules?" He asks absently, because it's easier than thinking about the fact that Matt is apparently fine with this being a regular fucking occurrence, because that's a doorway to something hotter than Wes knows how to deal with, especially with Matt already trapped under his hips, words dropping shattered from his lips.
"Hnng," says Matt intelligently as Wes shoves his shirt up his chest and latches onto the the curve of his hip, tracing circles with his thumb as he sucks bruises along the line of the bone. He arches and lists sideways, trying to wriggle so that Wes' mouth lands somewhere more central. Wes obliges, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his navel and the light dusting of hair below it and Matt spits, "Fuck, oh, oh, W-Wes - " to the ceiling, back bowed, shoulders shoved hard against the bed. Wes flickers distracted eyes to his wrists, still secure, and then his face, blush sitting high on his cheekbones, lips loose as he pants. Wes straightens up a little, splays one hand against Matt's stomach. He can feel the muscles there trembling, and carefully, deliberately, he shoves Matt back down on the bed.
"Stay down," he says, quietly, and shivers when Matt clenches his eyes shut and nods.
"L-like I said," he gasps out, twitching as Wes walks his fingers up his chest, "Rules."
"I don't - " Wes starts, and stops. "I don't know them. I've. This isn't something m-most people - " Matt tugs a little at the tie and Wes takes a ragged breath. "I've never," he gestures, helpless, because words aren't exactly coming easily right now, and then Matt grins at him, open mouthed, and there are no words at all. He slides his hand over to lay it open-palm over Matt's heart and takes a moment to be blindingly glad that it's Matt under his hands because usually the last thing he should do is admit to the half-naked, writhing boy trapped under him that he has no idea what he's doing.
"So we make them up," Matt says softly, a reassurance and a promise and Wes kind of wants to cry, but the tears turn to heat in the pit of his stomach. He leans over to kiss Matt again but dodges at the last moment, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his cheeks and his chin and his neck, anywhere but his mouth. Matt makes little frustrated groaning noises, chest stuttering upwards as he curves his neck to try to get to Wes' lips, but he keeps himself down, thrusts turning to helpless twitches and trembles of his hips. Wes' hands tangle in his shirt and he curses his lack of foresight because with Matt's wrists bound he can't get the fucking thing off, but he shoves it up over his shoulders, dragging it over Matt's head so that it's stretched between his elbows and Matt's chest arches bare to the ceiling and to Wes' roving palms.
Wes explores it like it's new territory, knuckles over Matt's ribs. He runs his thumbail down the center of Matt's chest, circles his navel, pauses to feel the muscle trembling beneath him. He glances up at Matt's face, lip trapped between his teeth, and grins against his skin, slipping one hand lower to palm over his erection.
"Ngah - f-f-fucking shit, Wes," Matt babbles, and Wes trails his hand back up, unzipping Matt's fly and tugging his jeans down his legs. Matt's mumbling, muttering broken "I love you"s as his wrists twist and shake in their bonds, and maybe he says something else but Wes can't hear it, suddenly can't hear anything over the roaring in his ears because there's a shadow on the inside of the Matt's thigh, a fading bruise left there by lips that aren't his.
For a moment he just stares at it. He runs a gentle thumb across it like he can wipe it away like ink, but it remains, a stubborn reminder of everything Wes wants to erase, and suddenly it isn't enough that Matt's here and his, now, claimed by hands and lips and fragile silk bonds. "Matt," he says against the rushing silence inside his head, and there must be something in his voice because Matt stills completely. Wes slips his hands over Matt's hips and under his ass, eyes still fixed on that little imperfection on Matt's pale skin. He lifts one of Matt's legs, bending his knee over his shoulder, and tightens his grip on Matt's ass. Matt lets out a bitten-off curse, stopping himself and lapsing into shivering silence because Wes isn't done, hasn't said what he was going to say, and Wes is in control.
Control, he reminds himself, ignoring the roiling mass of emotions in his stomach, weeks of anger and despair, short, soaring moments of elation, and above it all an overwhelming, possessive need. "Matt," he says again, voice coming out rough, and slips a hand into Matt's boxers, tracing shaking fingers down the cleft of his ass. "Can I - "
"Please," Matt spits, and Wes' control breaks.
He shoves Matt's boxers down with both hands, lets go of Matt's ass reluctantly to get out of his own pants. He rises on his knees, Matt's leg still thrown over his shoulder, and shoves his jeans and boxers off in one move. Matt is watching him, dark-eyed and shaking. His wrists are red beneath the black tie, fingers clenched tight against his palms. He licks his lips, gesture just on the edge of nervous as Wes palms over his hip. "Are we - " He swallows. "Without..."
Wes immediately shakes his head, but there's a dark part of him that considers it, considers tearing into Matt, taking him, washing away Jon's touch with pain as well as pleasure. He swallows, closes his eyes against the want and the self-disgust both. The dark part of him points out that Matt phrased it as a question, almost an offer, they could talk about this - "No," he says, and pushes himself away from the bed.
He rummages in the outside pocket of his empty suitcase where it's lying by the bed, trembling fingers closing on the small tube he put there back when he thought Matt might be visiting, and there it had stayed. He fishes out a condom as well, turns, and forgets how to breathe.
Matt's stretched long and pale against his bed, naked from elbows to knees, framed by the dark tangles of his shirt and jeans. His hair's flopped over half his face, wrists crossed above his head. His one visible eye is fixed on Wes' face, dark with desire, his lips swollen and parted. As Wes stares he shudders, tremors running down his body like ripples, and Wes jerks forward. His hand hits Matt's knee with an audible slap and then he's moved between his legs, palms sliding flat along the inside of Matt's thighs.
"Wes," Matt breathes, hips arching off the bed.
Wes traces his thumb one again over the little shadow on Matt's thigh and then bends down, folding nearly in half to place his lips over the same place. Matt twists, letting out a strangled curse as Wes moves higher, sucking open-mouthed kisses to the curve where Matt's legs meet his ass. He bites the swell of it, just lightly, and then pulls back, breathing hard, and watches Matt squirm.
He pushes both Matt's legs up over his shoulders, flicks open the tube and pours a cold pool of gel into his palm. He slicks up his fingers and then slowly, deliberately draws a line down the back of Matt's cock, flickers feather-light over his balls, and presses at his entrance.
Matt screams. It's a high, helpless, needy noise, ending in low, broken curses. "Jesus fucking ch-ch-Christ, Wes," Matt chokes out. "Please, just, god - "
Wes slips his fingers inside and starts opening him up, slow and teasing but not as slow and teasing as he'd like (like this to last forever, like this to be forever, him in Matt and over Matt and Matt his his his) because he feels like he's going to fucking explode and when Matt spasms, trying to drag Wes closer, his heel thumping against Wes' back, he pulls his fingers away entirely. He rolls on the condom and slides his hands up to grip Matt's thighs.
"Wr-wrists," Matt manages, and Wes pauses, looking up at him. He swallows hard, because Matt is staring at him, chest rising and falling fast. He tugs, pulls at his arms. "Need, need to t-touch you," Matt stresses, and Wes nods, because he gets it. As much as this is him claiming Matt, it's also Matt choosing him, and if he denies that it'll just be the car all over again, one-sided and off-balance. He reaches up, slippery, trembling fingers making a mess of the tie, but he finally manages to undo his knots.
As soon as he can move Matt's hands are slipping over Wes' bare shoulders, over his chest. He pulls Wes in, in, kissing him like he's trying to swallow his tongue, and then slips his legs off Wes' shoulders. He kicks his jeans the rest of the way off and lifts his feet to curl around Wes' hips and pull him in.
Wes gasps against Matt's mouth, gone slack against him as Matt stills. They hang motionless for a moment, Wes bent over Matt on the bed, Matt's hands in his hair, and then someone starts moving and they're crashing together. Wes knows his lips are moving but can't tell whether he's talking or kissing, can't tell anything but tight and hot and Matt, the quick flickers of pain as Matt's hands fist and tug at his hair. There's cold silk clutched in one of his hands and Matt's chest rises, pressing for a too-short instant against his collarbone and he needs, needs more of that, more skin. He bends lower, tries, tries to press all along Matt, feel him, but one of Matt's hands is between them now, wrapped around himself, and his knuckles brush up and down Wes' chest with every stroke. Matt's head is tossing, back and forth, rolling on his neck, and Wes cranes up, latches onto the tantalizing skin behind his ear and Matt lets out a sobbing, "Fuck - ", beautiful voice broken, made ragged and rough by him, by Wes, and Wes catches one of his hands, thumb tracing over the red lines left by the silk. He grips it hard as he comes, nails biting into the lined flesh.
When he's blinked away the glimmering darkness from behind his eyes he reaches down to help Matt, but there's no need. Matt's face is slack, lips hanging open and exhausted. Wes wants to curl up with him, pull him to his chest and sleep knowing that he'll be there when he wakes, knowing this hasn't been a dream, and he will, he can, but first he pushes back a little to just look.
Matt is a slow-eyed, naked mess. He slips his hand out of the sleeve of his shirt and tosses it away, blushing under Wes' scrutiny. He's marked with bruises, scrapes and bites, wrists lined red, claimed and signed and sealed, and he pushes a hand through his sweaty tangle of air and opens his arms out to Wes. "Well?" He asks.
Wes crawls across the bed to him, pecks him on the forehead, on the nose. "Thank you," he says to Matt's grin, fingers against his lips. "Thank you."
Matt tugs him in, hand in the curve of his side. He slides a finger along the edge of Wes' jaw, turning his head gently so he can murmur in his ear, "I love you."
Wes closes his eyes.
"I love you," Matt says again. "So much, so goddamn much, Wes." Wes can feel his fingers trail down his throat and he swallows against them. Matt takes a breath. "I know I did a lot to, to break your trust in me. And I know - it might take a while for that to come back. But I'm not going anywhere. I'll wait, hell, I'll wait forever if that's what you want, I'll be here even if you told me right now that you could never trust me again, because. I'm yours, Wes." His hands slips lower, to Wes' chest, five points of heat in a circle around his heart. "I've made my choice, and I'm yours."
Wes opens his mouth wetly, can't, won't open his eyes or he'll start crying. It isn't until Matt whispers, pleading and insecure, "Look at me," that he lifts his eyelids.
Tentatively, Matt smiles at him, and it's a real smile, tinged not with bitterness or second thoughts or even guilty, just...Matt. Smiling.
Wes swallows. "God," he breathes, and reaches forward, tracing fingers over Matt's face. "I'm so glad," he says, and glad is such a bland, awful word, such an ill-fitting word for the enormous wellspring of joy and relief inside him, "I'm so fucking - I just - I don't think I could love like this ever again."
"It's a good thing we're forever," Matt says, a note to his voice like he's joking, like he's testing the words out, but Wes can hear the honesty in it anyway and now there are tears on his cheeks. Matt's lips part in dismay, like he can't imagine why Wes is crying, and then he smiles again, reaching forward to wipe at Wes' tears. "Stop it," he admonishes gently. "Stop it, we're done with that."
Wes laughs, blushing, and scrubs the back of his hand over his face. "I got a lot stored up in me," he chokes out. "Might have to get used to this."
There's a flash of guilt in Matt's eyes and his smile fades. He drops his eyes and Wes frowns. "Now that," he says, fingers lifting Matt's chin, "we're really done with."
Matt licks his lips. "Got about as much of that as you have tears, I bet," he says ruefully.
Wes sighs, shaking his head, a smile twitching again at the edges of his lips. "I guess we're just going to have to deal."
Matt raises his eyebrows. "Not perfect?" He asks with a grin.
"Not perfect," Wes agrees, and tangles their fingers together. "But mine."
**
Wes wakes up aching, but for the first time in two and a half months it's an ache that's entirely physical, muscles complaining but his heart light. He smooths a hand over Matt's hair and Matt sighs into his chest.
His phone buzzes from the pocket of his jeans, in their pile across the room. He ignores it, closing his eyes and pressing his lips soft to Matt's harline.
"Wesley Taylor, open your goddamned door," Lauren calls from outside, and Wes rolls his eyes open with a sigh.
He extricates himself as well as he can, trying not to wake Matt, and his boyfriend rolls over, pulling Wes' pillow to his chest, a tiny frown between his eyebrows. Wes can't help the tiny smile that twitches across his mouth, but pulls himself away, shimmying into his jeans and shirt and opening the door.
Lauren steps just enough inside the door to see the sleeping - and naked - form in Wes' bed, and stops. She opens her mouth to question, or possibly scream, it's kind of impossible to tell with Lauren.
"Shhh," Wes admonishes, slapping two fingers against her lips and backing her into the hall. He pulls the door almost closed behind him, remembering just in time that he doesn't have his keycard on him.
He takes his hand away and Lauren stares at him. "Either you went crazy and bought a high-class hooker to literally sleep with you, or that was Matt," she says, excitement in her voice echoed by the growing smile in her eyes, and Wes can't help it, he can't, he beams back, catching her up in a spinning hug.
"I knew it, I knew it - " Lauren's squealing into his shoulder, and he puts her down but doesn't let go.
"Thank you," he says, soft and sincere. "Thank you, for. For being here for me and for bringing Matt and." He lets out a shaky, crazy, happy breath. "For knowing."
Lauren pulls back, grinning wide. "I'm Sherlock Holmes, remember?" She says. "I'm never wrong."
Wes chuckles, and then smooths his face into something he hopes looks threatening. "That said, if you keep insisting on interrupting my morning-snuggles with my boyfriend, I will kill you."
"Ha!" Lauren laughs, contemptuous. "I'll just recruit Krysta to back me up, and we all know how that fight'll go down."
Wes grimaces. "She told you about that, huh?"
"Called me right after she left here, freaking out because she thought you were going to hate her." Lauren shakes her head. "I told her, with all the things I put Wes through on a daily basis, you'll be lucky if he even remembers a punch in the face by this time next week." She pauses. "After I told her that if she hadn't have a good reason for hitting you I would knock her teeth out."
"She did, though." Wes says a little guiltily, and leans against the wall. "She kind of kept me sane through this whole thing, Lauren. What'd I do to deserve you guys?"
"I don't know," Lauren says, sliding a hand up his arm, "but I'm glad you did it." She pulls him into another hug. "Now go snuggle. I've got to go let everyone know you're alive."
"Thank you," he says again, and watches her bounce down the hall, phone already flipped open in hand. He shakes his head and slips back inside, fully intending to climb back into bed with his boyfriend (his boyfriend) and sleep until at least noon.
Matt's already up, though, standing in the door to Wes' bathroom, yawning. He turns when he hears Wes, his smile making his eyes bright.
Wes closes the door behind him. "You're wearing my shirt."
Matt glances down at himself, cheeks flushed slightly. "Oh," he says. "Yeah."
Wes pads across to him, and pulls him into his chest. It's completely still in the hotel room, but when Matt wraps his arms around him Wes finds himself remembering a night when the everything had been dizzying and dancing, a night that feels like it was a million years ago, when Wesley Taylor leaned up and kissed Matthew Doyle for the first time.
"I missed you so much," he mutters into Matt's hair, and Matt's hands tighten in his shirt.
They have breakfast at a little cafe that Wes has never been to before and spend the day wandering Chicago. Wes shows Matt what he knows and where he knows and Matt shows Wes all the beauty in those places that somehow he'd missed before, all the little things, bird's nests in the crooks of suspension bridges, rainbow graffiti on the undersides of mailboxes, things Wes has looked at but not cared to see. He leaves Matt with Lauren and goes off to act and sing in front of an enthusiastic audience with one of his best friends in the world and meets Matt again two blocks from the stage door and thinks, I could get used to this.
Matt and Lauren leave the next day, because Matt has a reading and Lauren's got a show, and Wes kisses Lauren goodbye on the cheek and kisses Matt goodbye like he's trying to leave enough of himself against Matt's mouth to last until they see each other again. Matt mutters a shaky, "Tease," against his ear and then they're off.
Krysta leans an elbow on his shoulder, other hand on her hip, as he watches them go. "You going to be okay?" she asks.
Wes smiles. "Yeah," he says, and means it. "I am."
Epilogue
Wordcount: ~7,000 this part, ~62,000 in all (jesus christ)
Pairing/Characters: Matt Doyle/Wesley Taylor, Matt Doyle/Jonathan Groff, Lauren Molina, Blake Daniel, Krysta Rodriguez
Rating: NC-17 overall
Warnings: This fic (as a whole) is by far the dirtiest things I've ever written. Fingering, handjobs, blowjobs, rimming, and explicit male/male sex, light bondage. Also, ANGST.
Summary: Snapshots throughout close to two years of a relationship between two young Broadway actors, and all the drama that entails. I'm not sure how to summarize it beyond that.
Notes: Title from Eric's Song by Vienna Teng. While this fic is based off real people and a lot of the scenes are extrapolated from real events, I gave up trying to fit it into the real world's timelines about halfway through, so please bear with me and I hope it won't bug you too much.
Also, as I post these I'm getting worried that this is terribly paced. Um. I hope it's not, but I am too tired of it to play with it until I'm satisfied (because I am a horrible perfectionist about pacing).
Matt puts his hands on the top of Lauren's door and looks at Jon.
Jon smiles at him, the heartbreak-smile. "Bye, Matt."
"If I." Matt stops. "If I come back alone - "
"You mean if Wes has gone mad?" Jon grins, and then sobers a little. "You know how I feel about you," he says, and somewhere in there, buried under general Jon-ness and cheer and more acting talent than Matt would know what to do with, lurk tears. "But if you're asking me to wait for you, on the faint hope that..."
"I'm not," Matt says quickly. "I wouldn't -"
"I know." Jon says gently, and he takes a single step forward and just for a second Matt aches for him, for the ease they had on the beach, for what they might have been. "I won't wait for you forever," Jon says in the voice he uses when he knows he's lying, and Matt swallows down his tears.
He considers, just for an instant, kissing Jon goodbye, but he's not sure he'll be able to do this (not sure he can hurt Jon like this, not with Jon's pain so close and Wes' so far away) if he does and so he swallows again and raises a hand in farewell and slips sideways into Lauren's passenger seat.
It's the third roadtrip he's taken in the last two months and he's beginning to hate all the flavors of silence that can stretch across the space between two seats.
Lauren keeps casting little glances at him, but doesn't seem to have anything to actually say, and neither does Matt. He's too nervous for words, his whole stomach knotted into a single horrible lump and he takes a long breath. He catches a glance from Lauren and she attempts a smile and he closes his eyes. He leans his head back onto the headrest and, for the first time in two months, lets himself really think about Wes.
He lets himself imagine what he's been doing, while Matt's been dating Jon. He lets himself think about the Addams Family, lets himself think about how close Krysta and Wes must be getting, thinks about them flirting onstage and laughing off-stage and being generally delightful people and it hurts, it hurts to imagine that Wes has probably changed in the time he hasn't seen him. It hurts that there's a part of Wes' life that Matt doesn't even get to see and he's just being selfish again, wanting everything despite everything he's done.
"How is he?" he asks Lauren because surely she knows, surely they talk, they're friends, and even that makes his stomach clench further, thinking about Wes calling Lauren and not calling him, besides that one early, awful half-conversation, and Wes' voice is in his ears again. I miss you, he says miserably, and Matt thinks desperately, selfishly back, please don't stop.
"Alive," Lauren says shortly, and he opens his eyes. "Enjoying playing boyfriend to Krysta. They work well together."
"Good," Matt says uselessly. "Does. He knows I miss him, right?"
Lauren looks at his sharply. "Do you miss him?"
"Yes," Mat answers immediately and fervently, and Lauren nods as if satisfied.
"I'm not going to lie to you," she says. "When Krysta first told me what happened, and I couldn't get Wes to talk about it at all, I was furious with you. And there's a part of me that still is, Matt. I meant what I said to you, after I found you in Wes' bed that first time."
"Except for the baseball bat part?" Matt jokes weakly.
Lauren ignores him. "But. You say you miss him and I believe you. You let Jon go, poor boy, and you really seem to want Wes back, so. Here we are, getting him back."
Matt wets his lips, swallows. "And. And if he doesn't want me?"
Lauren barks a laugh, slapping an open palm against the wheel.
"I'm serious," says Matt, staring at her. "I fucked it all up, Lauren. I hurt Wes and I, I hurt Jon, and I fucked everything up and he's probably realized it by now and maybe he thinks I'll do it again, or realizes he can do better...what if he's moved on?"
Lauren glares at him. "If he'd moved on, if there was any chance he was happy down in Chicago right now, you think I would be kidnapping you like this?"
"Eyes on the road," Matt squeaks, and then, from under the shelter of his arm, "Why are you kidnapping me like this? I'm just going to end up hurting him again."
"Okay, stop," Lauren says sharply, and for a split second of terror Matt thinks she's just going to stop dead in the middle of the highway, just for dramatic effect. "I'm calling the cops on this self-pity-party right the fuck now, because you're being an idiot and if you show up to Chicago and be an idiot at Wes he's just going to be an idiot right back and no one will get anywhere with anything."
"But -"
"No. Listen. Wesley Taylor is one of my best friends in the whole world and normally I would kill anyone who's put him through what you've put him through. Possibly with boiling pitch involved. But here's the thing. Before all the bullshit, before you got too scared to come and talk to me, you were becoming a really good friend, too, and - " She sighed. "Balls, I'm bad at this. Wes is really the girl in our relationship, he gets the touchy-feely crap." She takes a breath and merges into the center lane, flipping off another driver. It seems to settle her.
"In the time you were together you made Wes happier than I've ever seen him, and it wasn't, like, I'm-getting-laid-happy, well, mostly, it was like." She gestures, driving with her knees. "Sunshine-is-pouring-through-the-pores-of-the-world happy. So, yeah, maybe you fucked that up, but what doesn't kill us makes us stranger, right? What I'm trying to say is, you're not going to hurt him again. You're going to love him and keep loving him and then the two of you are going to make beautiful gay babies together."
"That's, um, not how genetics work - "
"Shut. Up."
Matt shuts up.
**
Seeing Wes again is...strange. At first Matt almost doesn't recognize him - not because of the make-up or the costume or whatever the hell they've done to his hair but because he'd spent two and a half months seeing Wes everywhere, his smile in every smile, and now here he is and Matt's brain is trying to refuse it, tell him, no, it's just your heart playing tricks again, and what have I told you about trusting such a loud, unsteady organ?
But then Wes laughs in response to something Krysta's said, and Matt's heart just gets louder and unsteadier and he feels such a wave of longing that he has to catch himself against a wall.
Lauren doesn't let him rest for long, though, tugging him through the press of people to Wes' side. Wes sees her first, gives her a grin and lifts her up in a hug that reminds Matt for a dizzying moment how strong he is, and then he opens his eyes and sees Matt.
He's still got his arms wrapped around Lauren, half his face hidden by her shoulder, and all Matt can really see are his eyes and his arching brows but that's all he really needs in order to know, know the moment when shock turns to hope turns to pain, and he tries to find a reassuring smile, say, it's going to be alright but he's fucking terrified and he doesn't know and Wes has buried his face in Lauren's neck anyway, eyes clenched shut like he can't even bear to look at Matt.
So he just shifts from foot to foot and hopes no one in the party behind him can see him trembling.
"Wes," says Lauren, "You're going to have to let go."
Her voice is light, but Wes tenses, hands flexing in her shirt, and then he says, misery-quiet, "Okay."
He releases her and steps back, eyes slipping closed for a moment as he calms himself, and then he says to Matt's feet, "Come outside with me?" It's not quite a question and it's not quite a command and it's a little desperate and trembling and Matt's only heard him use that tone once and it sends shivers down his spine. "Just like this, okay, Matt?" Misery and longing and hope all at once.
Wes brushes past him, still not looking him in the face, and Matt clenches his fist at his side to keep from grabbing his hand or pulling him in just to feel him, breathe in the medley of scents that is post-performance Wes. He follows him through the room and out the door. For a minute he thinks that "outside" might mean in the hallway or the lobby but Wes stays silent until they've pushed their way through the main doors and into the warm Chicago night.
Matt opens his mouth, but Wes spins to look at him before he can say anything. "What are you doing here?" he asks, sharp, gaze somewhere a tiny bit beyond Matt's left ear.
"Came to see you," Matt says simply, because it's true.
"I. I told her not to bring you." Wes says, and swallows. He looks agitated, frustrated, despairing. "I told her - "
"So you don't want to see me." Matt cuts in, heavily. "I get that, Wes, but why not just say it - "
"Because I'd be lying," Wes says, tongue flickering out to moisten his lips. "I do want to see you. Some days - some days it scares me just how much I've wanted to - I'd. I'd be lying, again, if I said that part of me wasn't hoping Lauren would ignore me and bring you anyway, out of some sort of misplaced meddling, but. That part of me was wrong." He swallows again and stops even pretending to look at Matt's face, turning away, and then adds, almost to himself, "this just makes it worse."
"Wes," Matt grits out, needing him to stop, stay where he was, needing him to listen. "Wes, please, I'm sorry. I fucked everything up but, but, god, just. Just let me try to fix it. Please. Tell me how to fix it."
Wes laughs, bitter, and it feels like someone's punched Matt in the stomach. His eyes are stinging with tears. "Let's see," Wes says, voice full of sarcasm and self-deprecation, "You could break up with Jon, realize it was me you loved all along, kiss me like you mean it and let me take you back to my hotel room and show you just how much I missed you. Oh, and we have to go to Mars for our honeymoon."
Matt smiles, tremulous, through his tears. "Well, I've done the first two," he said softly. "That last one might give me some trouble, but the ones in-between - "
Wes spins, eyes enormous. "You and Jon - "
Matt's smile fades. "I broke up with him."
"But - you - why?"
Matt closes his eyes for a long moment, wills away the urge to say, you. "He deserved -- deserves -- more than me."
Wes shoves his hands into his pockets, shoulders tight and face blank, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "A-And I don't?" he asks, throat working.
Matt swallows. "You do," he says, words weighty in his mouth. "You do, but I...I can't, Wes." He crumples into himself a little, one hand across his stomach, the other in his hair. "Nevermind." He turns. "I shouldn't have come. You're right, you're better off without me."
He starts walking away, wandering blind into the streets of Chicago, everything aching.
"Matt," Wes says, sharp, behind him, and Matt snaps to a stop. There are footsteps and Matt's trembling because if Wes touches him he'll, he'll cry or fall to pieces or spin and grab him and kiss him senseless -
"Matt, what can't you do?"
Matt closes his eyes. "Let you go," he says, and hopes it's too soft for Wes to hear because jesus. But Wes takes a breath and Matt has to look at him, needs to, and turns.
One of Wes' hands is raised, like he was going to touch Matt's back, but stopped when Matt turned. His eyes are wide and soft, like they haven't quite managed to let go of their tears yet, and after a moment of perfect stillness Wes continues to raise his hand, trembling fingers tracing not the line of Matt's shoulders but the line of his jaw, and Matt sags forward a little at his touch. His eyelids slip nearly closed but he keeps them open with an effort, wanting to drink Wes in, watch his throat work as he searches for words.
"I don't want you to," he says finally, voice distant and lost. "I - I don't - please stop trying to. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I sent you away - "
And Matt is crushing Wes' face into his neck, arms wrapped hard and sudden around his back, breath short. His exhales are sobs, his inhales gasps of relief and Wes might still be talking but he's muffled against Matt's shirt and the thundering, shuddering drum of Matt's own heart. He swallows and swallows again, trying to listen, and then he realizes Wes isn't talking at all but just mouthing desperate at Matt's neck and the realization steals his breath entirely and makes the world spin.
He loosens his arms a little, giving Wes more range of motion and Wes bites at his jaw, mindless, like he's just trying to get at as much of Matt as possible and Matt pulls back further, shivers running down his spine, and grips his chin, tugging him around for a real kiss. Wes clutches fistfuls of Matt's shirt, legs tangled together, and pushes into the kiss, his tongue sweeping across the line of Matt's teeth. Matt opens his mouth to Wes and fuck, he'd forgotten the taste of him, forgotten the way he kisses like he's smiling, like he can't help it, forgotten the curl of his tongue.
Wes breaks the kiss, not to pull away but to come even closer, lips brushing wet across Matt's tearstained cheekbones, breath hot against his ear. "What was that about kissing you like I meant it?" Matt asks, trying for a joke but it comes out so fucking sincere, like he's worried and willing to do it again and he is and Wes doesn't laugh at the humor that neither of them heard. His hands are tugging, tugging downwards, like he wants to root Matt in place.
"Missed you," He mutters. "Love you," and there are the tears, trapped in the words, only released when Wes' voice cracks them open ragged and raw. They slide more down Matt's cheeks than Wes' own.
Matt turns his head so their lips slot together again, this kiss slower and sadder, salt in the corners of their mouths. He slides his hands up Wes' chest to cup his jaw, just on the edge of rough, and Wes responds with a nip of teeth against his lower lip. They scratch and hurt each other in the small, pleasurable ways that they used to, overshadowed for so long by the enormous, nightmarish ways they have hurt and been hurt. Wes digs his fingernails in at the base of Matt's skull, holding him here and now and his, and Matt walks him backwards, presses him up against the wall, hard enough for the brick to leave patterns in the skin beneath his thin t-shirt. They move slow, languorous, letting pain and pleasure last.
Matt bows his head, moving his way down Wes' neck in little kitten-licks along the tendon that stretches in sharp relief against the hollow of his throat when Wes arches. "I love you," he mutters to the V of his collarbone, and it slips right through his skin to echo back out from Wes' lips. When Wes follows it with a repeated, "missed you," this time sharp with desire, Matt straightens.
"Item four on the checklist," he breathes, holding Wes' eyes. "Show me."
Wes' eyes are gleaming in the dark and his tongue slips out to wet his lips. Matt steps back from him a little and Wes straightens up from the wall. "You're sure?" He asks. "You're absolutely sure that this is - that I'm - what you want?" His voice is hard, serious.
Matt opens his mouth and Wes stops him with a palm across his face. "Think, Matt." He says. "I don't. I don't just mean what you...want," he says with an arched brow and twitch of hips that basically invalidates his command to think by shutting Matt's brain off entirely. "I mean what you want, what you really want, in your life, for - for forever. Because that's what this would be. I can't. I can't fucking do this if it's for anything less." He opens his mouth, swallows. "Can't get you back and just to lose you again. I think. I think I'd go mad."
"Wes," Matt says. "If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't be standing here right now. If I wasn't sure, I'd be back in New York, alone and indecisive. I'm here, Wes. I'm yours."
Wes flicks his eyes to the ground, and then back to Matt's face, still unconvinced. "But Lauren made you - "
"Yeah," Matt says, and lets his grin free. "But I was already packed."
Wes blinks at him, a disbelieving smile twitching at the edges of his lips. "You were coming - "
"I was coming anyway," Matt laughs over him. "I want this, Wes." He takes a breath, breathes in the joy that's blossoming in Wes' eyes. "I. I need you."
Wes stares at him, smiling open-mouthed, and then his eyes narrow and it becomes a smirk. "Right," he says, and kisses Matt quickly, tracing nails down his shoulder and along his bicep. He draws sharp trails across the soft place on the inside of Matt's elbow. For a moment Matt thinks he's going to take his hand, and he smiles a little, but Wes' fingers stop, flickering over his pulse-point, and then close in a circle, vise-tight, right above the delicate bones of Matt's wrist.
Matt raises his eyebrows and Wes flashes him a grin, flash of white teeth and slick lips, and tugs him back through the hotel doors and inside.
**
Wes' pretty sure there has never been a slower elevator in the history of, of anything. He wants to push Matt up against the wall right here, suck marks in his skin now that he can mean them, bite his lips bloody. He wants to wipe Matt's skin clean of anything that isn't Matt and isn't Wes, wants to make him forget everything but heat and skin and love in its most primal form.
He wants to make Matt his.
But the elevator ticks stolidly up the floors, and Wes stands stock-still, fingers tightening on Matt's wrist because this is part of it. He can feel Matt's pulse race against the pads of his fingers, he can feel Matt's gaze on the side of his face, but he doesn't look and Matt doesn't move and that in itself is incredible, mind-blowing, impossible, that Matt gets it, that in itself has Wes shivering and breathing shallow. He unconsciously licks his lips, shifting his stance slightly.
Matt's arm shudders in his grip, and Wes looks at him, can't help it.
Matt's eyes slam closed as he turns his head, and his throat moves as he swallows rapidly, and Wes' lips part. The elevator doors open and Wes leans in. "I love you," he murmurs against the shell of Matt's ear, and then steps away, drags him out of the elevator and down the hall.
His fingers shake as he tries to fish out his keycard with the wrong hand, refusing to let go of Matt's wrist, and then Matt reaches over, just quick and businesslike, and slips his hand into Wes' back pocket. His warm palm lingers just a moment longer than necessary against the curve of his ass and then he's swiping the card through the lock. Wes knees the door open, mouth dry, and swings Matt through it.
Matt's back hits the wall right inside the door and Wes slips a leg between his, keeping him there. He lays Matt's wrist out carefully against the wall with both hands. Matt twitches his hips forward but Wes ignores him, fingers tracing gentle over the place where they'd been clamped before. Slowly, carefully, he leans forward and presses his lips to the inside of Matt's wrist. The skin is soft and smells like Matt and Wes opens his mouth, mouthing toothless at it until Matt's spasms, his fingers clenching, and the tendons come alive under his tongue.
"Wes," Matt says, breathless, and it's the first word he's spoken in what feels like years and it reminds Wes that this is Matt, Matt who's here, Matt who loves him, Matt who wants him -
Matt who knows him. Knows what he likes, probably knows what he wants right now, god, more than anything -
"Matt," he says back, tightly. He drops his eyes, just for a second, and traces one hand across Matt's chest to his other wrist. Deliberate, he presses that wrist to the wall as well, held there by the trembling semicircle of his fingers. "I want. I. Can I..."
With his hands out to either side keeping Matt's hands out to either side, they're left face to face, and Matt stares at him, dark eyed, and then smirks. He tosses his head a little to get his hair out of his eyes and arches his neck forward to put his lips along Wes' jaw, right along the soft corner where it curls up to his ear. "You can do," he breathes, "whatever you want with me, Wesley Taylor."
Wes bites his lip so hard he draws blood and pulls, stumbling away from the wall, still holding Matt by the wrists, and shoves him back on his bed. He releases him, fumbling clumsy-fingered with the buttons of his shirt. Matt arches up to kiss him, using the fact that his hands are free to pull Wes' face to his, his other hand hooks long-fingered in the waistband of Wes' pants. "You k-know when I said," gasps Wes between kisses, finally managing to shove the shirt from his shoulders, "that you s-s-sucked at dirty talk?"
Matt hums against his lips, hands skimming over Wes' chest now and it feels fucking incredible, palms warm and smooth and clever.
"It was a fucking lie," Wes says, steadying himself with a knee along the outside of Matt's hip on the bed. "A big, fat - a-ah!"
Matt smirks up at him, hand running back down his thigh, and no, no, not with what he's just said. Wes lets his smirk last a little (because even at insufferably smug, Matt is beautiful) and then says, "No."
Matt blinks at him, smirk fading, and Wes reaches down and plucks his hand from where it rests comfortably above his knee. "No. Clever as your fingers are, not tonight." He collects Matt's other hand from where it was curled against his ribs and fits them both into one palm.
Matt swallows, and Wes reaches up to slide a his free hand along his jaw. He traces gentle fingers over the bow of his lips, presses a thumb to the corner of his mouth before tracing it downward, downward, and slipping Matt's tie from his neck.
Matt closes his eyes. The silk is cool against Wes' fingertips, cooler in contrast to the overheated skin of Matt's chest.
"Look at me," Wes says, because it's important. This isn't his car and this isn't goodbye and he needs Matt to be here, with him. For Matt to be okay.
Matt opens his eyes, focuses on Wes' face, while Wes draws the silk up and over the rungs of the bed (and thank god for old-fashioned hotels rooms), and crosses it over itself against Matt's wrists. He's straddling Matt's hips, now, shins flat on either side of his thighs, and when he hesitates, fingers against Matt's arms, he looks down at Matt.
Matt stays still, except for the parting of his lips, and waits.
Waits for Wes.
Wes crosses the silk behind Matt's wrists, loops it once between them, and tugs it tight in a knot. His mouth is dry. He leans in and presses kisses along the patterned silk, flickers his tongue along the line of it where it cuts just slightly into Matt's pale wrist. He brushes his lips down Matt's arms, presses little kisses to his elbows, sinks his teeth into the curve of his bicep and Matt arches, hips shuddering upwards into Wes'. Wes presses his moan into Matt's skin.
"W-Wes," Matt gulps, barely above a rough whisper, wrists already twisting against the silk and the silk whispering against the metal. "Y-you're going to hhhave tell me th-the rules, if." He swallows, swallowed again as Wes slips teasing fingers across his stomach under his shirt. "If this is going to b-be a re-regular - oh fuck."
Wes releases his mouthful of Matt's skin with a pop, watches as it blossoms red, and then darker, obvious and obscene on the skin below his ear. "Rules?" He asks absently, because it's easier than thinking about the fact that Matt is apparently fine with this being a regular fucking occurrence, because that's a doorway to something hotter than Wes knows how to deal with, especially with Matt already trapped under his hips, words dropping shattered from his lips.
"Hnng," says Matt intelligently as Wes shoves his shirt up his chest and latches onto the the curve of his hip, tracing circles with his thumb as he sucks bruises along the line of the bone. He arches and lists sideways, trying to wriggle so that Wes' mouth lands somewhere more central. Wes obliges, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his navel and the light dusting of hair below it and Matt spits, "Fuck, oh, oh, W-Wes - " to the ceiling, back bowed, shoulders shoved hard against the bed. Wes flickers distracted eyes to his wrists, still secure, and then his face, blush sitting high on his cheekbones, lips loose as he pants. Wes straightens up a little, splays one hand against Matt's stomach. He can feel the muscles there trembling, and carefully, deliberately, he shoves Matt back down on the bed.
"Stay down," he says, quietly, and shivers when Matt clenches his eyes shut and nods.
"L-like I said," he gasps out, twitching as Wes walks his fingers up his chest, "Rules."
"I don't - " Wes starts, and stops. "I don't know them. I've. This isn't something m-most people - " Matt tugs a little at the tie and Wes takes a ragged breath. "I've never," he gestures, helpless, because words aren't exactly coming easily right now, and then Matt grins at him, open mouthed, and there are no words at all. He slides his hand over to lay it open-palm over Matt's heart and takes a moment to be blindingly glad that it's Matt under his hands because usually the last thing he should do is admit to the half-naked, writhing boy trapped under him that he has no idea what he's doing.
"So we make them up," Matt says softly, a reassurance and a promise and Wes kind of wants to cry, but the tears turn to heat in the pit of his stomach. He leans over to kiss Matt again but dodges at the last moment, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his cheeks and his chin and his neck, anywhere but his mouth. Matt makes little frustrated groaning noises, chest stuttering upwards as he curves his neck to try to get to Wes' lips, but he keeps himself down, thrusts turning to helpless twitches and trembles of his hips. Wes' hands tangle in his shirt and he curses his lack of foresight because with Matt's wrists bound he can't get the fucking thing off, but he shoves it up over his shoulders, dragging it over Matt's head so that it's stretched between his elbows and Matt's chest arches bare to the ceiling and to Wes' roving palms.
Wes explores it like it's new territory, knuckles over Matt's ribs. He runs his thumbail down the center of Matt's chest, circles his navel, pauses to feel the muscle trembling beneath him. He glances up at Matt's face, lip trapped between his teeth, and grins against his skin, slipping one hand lower to palm over his erection.
"Ngah - f-f-fucking shit, Wes," Matt babbles, and Wes trails his hand back up, unzipping Matt's fly and tugging his jeans down his legs. Matt's mumbling, muttering broken "I love you"s as his wrists twist and shake in their bonds, and maybe he says something else but Wes can't hear it, suddenly can't hear anything over the roaring in his ears because there's a shadow on the inside of the Matt's thigh, a fading bruise left there by lips that aren't his.
For a moment he just stares at it. He runs a gentle thumb across it like he can wipe it away like ink, but it remains, a stubborn reminder of everything Wes wants to erase, and suddenly it isn't enough that Matt's here and his, now, claimed by hands and lips and fragile silk bonds. "Matt," he says against the rushing silence inside his head, and there must be something in his voice because Matt stills completely. Wes slips his hands over Matt's hips and under his ass, eyes still fixed on that little imperfection on Matt's pale skin. He lifts one of Matt's legs, bending his knee over his shoulder, and tightens his grip on Matt's ass. Matt lets out a bitten-off curse, stopping himself and lapsing into shivering silence because Wes isn't done, hasn't said what he was going to say, and Wes is in control.
Control, he reminds himself, ignoring the roiling mass of emotions in his stomach, weeks of anger and despair, short, soaring moments of elation, and above it all an overwhelming, possessive need. "Matt," he says again, voice coming out rough, and slips a hand into Matt's boxers, tracing shaking fingers down the cleft of his ass. "Can I - "
"Please," Matt spits, and Wes' control breaks.
He shoves Matt's boxers down with both hands, lets go of Matt's ass reluctantly to get out of his own pants. He rises on his knees, Matt's leg still thrown over his shoulder, and shoves his jeans and boxers off in one move. Matt is watching him, dark-eyed and shaking. His wrists are red beneath the black tie, fingers clenched tight against his palms. He licks his lips, gesture just on the edge of nervous as Wes palms over his hip. "Are we - " He swallows. "Without..."
Wes immediately shakes his head, but there's a dark part of him that considers it, considers tearing into Matt, taking him, washing away Jon's touch with pain as well as pleasure. He swallows, closes his eyes against the want and the self-disgust both. The dark part of him points out that Matt phrased it as a question, almost an offer, they could talk about this - "No," he says, and pushes himself away from the bed.
He rummages in the outside pocket of his empty suitcase where it's lying by the bed, trembling fingers closing on the small tube he put there back when he thought Matt might be visiting, and there it had stayed. He fishes out a condom as well, turns, and forgets how to breathe.
Matt's stretched long and pale against his bed, naked from elbows to knees, framed by the dark tangles of his shirt and jeans. His hair's flopped over half his face, wrists crossed above his head. His one visible eye is fixed on Wes' face, dark with desire, his lips swollen and parted. As Wes stares he shudders, tremors running down his body like ripples, and Wes jerks forward. His hand hits Matt's knee with an audible slap and then he's moved between his legs, palms sliding flat along the inside of Matt's thighs.
"Wes," Matt breathes, hips arching off the bed.
Wes traces his thumb one again over the little shadow on Matt's thigh and then bends down, folding nearly in half to place his lips over the same place. Matt twists, letting out a strangled curse as Wes moves higher, sucking open-mouthed kisses to the curve where Matt's legs meet his ass. He bites the swell of it, just lightly, and then pulls back, breathing hard, and watches Matt squirm.
He pushes both Matt's legs up over his shoulders, flicks open the tube and pours a cold pool of gel into his palm. He slicks up his fingers and then slowly, deliberately draws a line down the back of Matt's cock, flickers feather-light over his balls, and presses at his entrance.
Matt screams. It's a high, helpless, needy noise, ending in low, broken curses. "Jesus fucking ch-ch-Christ, Wes," Matt chokes out. "Please, just, god - "
Wes slips his fingers inside and starts opening him up, slow and teasing but not as slow and teasing as he'd like (like this to last forever, like this to be forever, him in Matt and over Matt and Matt his his his) because he feels like he's going to fucking explode and when Matt spasms, trying to drag Wes closer, his heel thumping against Wes' back, he pulls his fingers away entirely. He rolls on the condom and slides his hands up to grip Matt's thighs.
"Wr-wrists," Matt manages, and Wes pauses, looking up at him. He swallows hard, because Matt is staring at him, chest rising and falling fast. He tugs, pulls at his arms. "Need, need to t-touch you," Matt stresses, and Wes nods, because he gets it. As much as this is him claiming Matt, it's also Matt choosing him, and if he denies that it'll just be the car all over again, one-sided and off-balance. He reaches up, slippery, trembling fingers making a mess of the tie, but he finally manages to undo his knots.
As soon as he can move Matt's hands are slipping over Wes' bare shoulders, over his chest. He pulls Wes in, in, kissing him like he's trying to swallow his tongue, and then slips his legs off Wes' shoulders. He kicks his jeans the rest of the way off and lifts his feet to curl around Wes' hips and pull him in.
Wes gasps against Matt's mouth, gone slack against him as Matt stills. They hang motionless for a moment, Wes bent over Matt on the bed, Matt's hands in his hair, and then someone starts moving and they're crashing together. Wes knows his lips are moving but can't tell whether he's talking or kissing, can't tell anything but tight and hot and Matt, the quick flickers of pain as Matt's hands fist and tug at his hair. There's cold silk clutched in one of his hands and Matt's chest rises, pressing for a too-short instant against his collarbone and he needs, needs more of that, more skin. He bends lower, tries, tries to press all along Matt, feel him, but one of Matt's hands is between them now, wrapped around himself, and his knuckles brush up and down Wes' chest with every stroke. Matt's head is tossing, back and forth, rolling on his neck, and Wes cranes up, latches onto the tantalizing skin behind his ear and Matt lets out a sobbing, "Fuck - ", beautiful voice broken, made ragged and rough by him, by Wes, and Wes catches one of his hands, thumb tracing over the red lines left by the silk. He grips it hard as he comes, nails biting into the lined flesh.
When he's blinked away the glimmering darkness from behind his eyes he reaches down to help Matt, but there's no need. Matt's face is slack, lips hanging open and exhausted. Wes wants to curl up with him, pull him to his chest and sleep knowing that he'll be there when he wakes, knowing this hasn't been a dream, and he will, he can, but first he pushes back a little to just look.
Matt is a slow-eyed, naked mess. He slips his hand out of the sleeve of his shirt and tosses it away, blushing under Wes' scrutiny. He's marked with bruises, scrapes and bites, wrists lined red, claimed and signed and sealed, and he pushes a hand through his sweaty tangle of air and opens his arms out to Wes. "Well?" He asks.
Wes crawls across the bed to him, pecks him on the forehead, on the nose. "Thank you," he says to Matt's grin, fingers against his lips. "Thank you."
Matt tugs him in, hand in the curve of his side. He slides a finger along the edge of Wes' jaw, turning his head gently so he can murmur in his ear, "I love you."
Wes closes his eyes.
"I love you," Matt says again. "So much, so goddamn much, Wes." Wes can feel his fingers trail down his throat and he swallows against them. Matt takes a breath. "I know I did a lot to, to break your trust in me. And I know - it might take a while for that to come back. But I'm not going anywhere. I'll wait, hell, I'll wait forever if that's what you want, I'll be here even if you told me right now that you could never trust me again, because. I'm yours, Wes." His hands slips lower, to Wes' chest, five points of heat in a circle around his heart. "I've made my choice, and I'm yours."
Wes opens his mouth wetly, can't, won't open his eyes or he'll start crying. It isn't until Matt whispers, pleading and insecure, "Look at me," that he lifts his eyelids.
Tentatively, Matt smiles at him, and it's a real smile, tinged not with bitterness or second thoughts or even guilty, just...Matt. Smiling.
Wes swallows. "God," he breathes, and reaches forward, tracing fingers over Matt's face. "I'm so glad," he says, and glad is such a bland, awful word, such an ill-fitting word for the enormous wellspring of joy and relief inside him, "I'm so fucking - I just - I don't think I could love like this ever again."
"It's a good thing we're forever," Matt says, a note to his voice like he's joking, like he's testing the words out, but Wes can hear the honesty in it anyway and now there are tears on his cheeks. Matt's lips part in dismay, like he can't imagine why Wes is crying, and then he smiles again, reaching forward to wipe at Wes' tears. "Stop it," he admonishes gently. "Stop it, we're done with that."
Wes laughs, blushing, and scrubs the back of his hand over his face. "I got a lot stored up in me," he chokes out. "Might have to get used to this."
There's a flash of guilt in Matt's eyes and his smile fades. He drops his eyes and Wes frowns. "Now that," he says, fingers lifting Matt's chin, "we're really done with."
Matt licks his lips. "Got about as much of that as you have tears, I bet," he says ruefully.
Wes sighs, shaking his head, a smile twitching again at the edges of his lips. "I guess we're just going to have to deal."
Matt raises his eyebrows. "Not perfect?" He asks with a grin.
"Not perfect," Wes agrees, and tangles their fingers together. "But mine."
**
Wes wakes up aching, but for the first time in two and a half months it's an ache that's entirely physical, muscles complaining but his heart light. He smooths a hand over Matt's hair and Matt sighs into his chest.
His phone buzzes from the pocket of his jeans, in their pile across the room. He ignores it, closing his eyes and pressing his lips soft to Matt's harline.
"Wesley Taylor, open your goddamned door," Lauren calls from outside, and Wes rolls his eyes open with a sigh.
He extricates himself as well as he can, trying not to wake Matt, and his boyfriend rolls over, pulling Wes' pillow to his chest, a tiny frown between his eyebrows. Wes can't help the tiny smile that twitches across his mouth, but pulls himself away, shimmying into his jeans and shirt and opening the door.
Lauren steps just enough inside the door to see the sleeping - and naked - form in Wes' bed, and stops. She opens her mouth to question, or possibly scream, it's kind of impossible to tell with Lauren.
"Shhh," Wes admonishes, slapping two fingers against her lips and backing her into the hall. He pulls the door almost closed behind him, remembering just in time that he doesn't have his keycard on him.
He takes his hand away and Lauren stares at him. "Either you went crazy and bought a high-class hooker to literally sleep with you, or that was Matt," she says, excitement in her voice echoed by the growing smile in her eyes, and Wes can't help it, he can't, he beams back, catching her up in a spinning hug.
"I knew it, I knew it - " Lauren's squealing into his shoulder, and he puts her down but doesn't let go.
"Thank you," he says, soft and sincere. "Thank you, for. For being here for me and for bringing Matt and." He lets out a shaky, crazy, happy breath. "For knowing."
Lauren pulls back, grinning wide. "I'm Sherlock Holmes, remember?" She says. "I'm never wrong."
Wes chuckles, and then smooths his face into something he hopes looks threatening. "That said, if you keep insisting on interrupting my morning-snuggles with my boyfriend, I will kill you."
"Ha!" Lauren laughs, contemptuous. "I'll just recruit Krysta to back me up, and we all know how that fight'll go down."
Wes grimaces. "She told you about that, huh?"
"Called me right after she left here, freaking out because she thought you were going to hate her." Lauren shakes her head. "I told her, with all the things I put Wes through on a daily basis, you'll be lucky if he even remembers a punch in the face by this time next week." She pauses. "After I told her that if she hadn't have a good reason for hitting you I would knock her teeth out."
"She did, though." Wes says a little guiltily, and leans against the wall. "She kind of kept me sane through this whole thing, Lauren. What'd I do to deserve you guys?"
"I don't know," Lauren says, sliding a hand up his arm, "but I'm glad you did it." She pulls him into another hug. "Now go snuggle. I've got to go let everyone know you're alive."
"Thank you," he says again, and watches her bounce down the hall, phone already flipped open in hand. He shakes his head and slips back inside, fully intending to climb back into bed with his boyfriend (his boyfriend) and sleep until at least noon.
Matt's already up, though, standing in the door to Wes' bathroom, yawning. He turns when he hears Wes, his smile making his eyes bright.
Wes closes the door behind him. "You're wearing my shirt."
Matt glances down at himself, cheeks flushed slightly. "Oh," he says. "Yeah."
Wes pads across to him, and pulls him into his chest. It's completely still in the hotel room, but when Matt wraps his arms around him Wes finds himself remembering a night when the everything had been dizzying and dancing, a night that feels like it was a million years ago, when Wesley Taylor leaned up and kissed Matthew Doyle for the first time.
"I missed you so much," he mutters into Matt's hair, and Matt's hands tighten in his shirt.
They have breakfast at a little cafe that Wes has never been to before and spend the day wandering Chicago. Wes shows Matt what he knows and where he knows and Matt shows Wes all the beauty in those places that somehow he'd missed before, all the little things, bird's nests in the crooks of suspension bridges, rainbow graffiti on the undersides of mailboxes, things Wes has looked at but not cared to see. He leaves Matt with Lauren and goes off to act and sing in front of an enthusiastic audience with one of his best friends in the world and meets Matt again two blocks from the stage door and thinks, I could get used to this.
Matt and Lauren leave the next day, because Matt has a reading and Lauren's got a show, and Wes kisses Lauren goodbye on the cheek and kisses Matt goodbye like he's trying to leave enough of himself against Matt's mouth to last until they see each other again. Matt mutters a shaky, "Tease," against his ear and then they're off.
Krysta leans an elbow on his shoulder, other hand on her hip, as he watches them go. "You going to be okay?" she asks.
Wes smiles. "Yeah," he says, and means it. "I am."
Epilogue