8 - upwards to infinity
Welcome to our eighth prompt post.
As ususal, here are a few things to keep in mind:
1) All fills for prompts of the earlier prompt posts go in the post the prompt was posted in. No re-posting or splitting up prompts and fills.
2) Self-prompt when you post unprompted fic. (This means posting what the fill is about in a first comment, like a real ( Read more... )
As ususal, here are a few things to keep in mind:
1) All fills for prompts of the earlier prompt posts go in the post the prompt was posted in. No re-posting or splitting up prompts and fills.
2) Self-prompt when you post unprompted fic. (This means posting what the fill is about in a first comment, like a real ( Read more... )
The world spun this, because he hadn’t wanted her to know, and she had to put a steadying hand on his arm, and tell him soothingly over and over that it was alright, and that she didn’t think any less of him.
David found him afterwards, and they sat side by side on the step in the garden. “I’m still here for you,” David said, “whenever you’re ready to talk to me.” He couldn’t answer, past the lump in his throat, and David sighed and wrapped his arms around him. “It’s only you who expects you to be perfect, Ed,” he whispered, close enough to his ear that Ed shivered, “but you’re only human, like the rest of us.”
He fled as soon as he could, and things happened that night, things that he wasn’t proud of. He took the initiative, for the first time behind closed doors, and when it was too soft and too slow he begged Colin to speed up and be brutal. Because he wanted it to hurt. Because it felt like punishment.
It was David’s name on his lips at the end, and neither of them looked at each other in the aftermath. They couldn’t bear to. His body ached all over the next day, and within hours he’d started sorting out a teaching post and had drafted a letter of resignation.
“Make it a sabbatical,” Gordon told him, brusquely. “Get your head straight.”
He couldn’t argue, and made all the arrangements. David told him he had news so he brushed Colin off, though his messages were getting desperate, and he sat stone silent instead while David told him that they were going to adopt. Ed told him that he was happy for him, which he was. What he didn’t say was that he was also angry, because the idea that by not speaking he was letting David have a family was the only thought that had ever been comforting.
It didn’t seem to matter then, that he was running half way across the world, and he tried his very best with his students, and hoped that his dad would have been proud of him.
He thought sometimes that, though he missed home, he might stay there. Because it was safe and he barely knew anyone. David rang him though, near daily, and when he picked up to hear David’s voice roughened with sleep, his treacherous mind conjuring up filthy images from David’s admission that he was alone in a hotel room, thinking about him, Ed wanted to cry with how badly he wished he was there with him.
“I wish you were here,” David said, as if he could read his mind. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” he managed, choked.
“Come home,” David said quietly at the end of the call. “Please, Ed.”
He couldn’t say no, because David needed him, and he clung to his brother at the airport, so tight that David laughed and asked if he was trying to suffocate him. He let go, and it was David who pulled him back to him, looked him in the eye and ruffled his hair, and then clung to him again like he was afraid that if he didn’t Ed might disappear again.
“Mum is so excited,” David told him, “Anybody’d think you’d been to Mars, not America.”
“I’m so happy to be back with you,” he said in answer and, though David frowned at his odd choice of words, he didn’t say anything.
There was scarcely time to get back into the swing of things, because Gordon wanted him to hit the ground running, and told him that the party had a safe seat free, and that they wanted him to stand for it. He put everything he had into it, because it felt like atonement. Personally, he might be a mess, but he could do this. He could help make things better for the country.
“I’m so proud of you,” David told him, even as he should have been proud of himself, and for the first time, when he looked in the mirror, he wasn’t repulsed by what he saw.
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He blushed, because he was trailing his elbow in something, and because there was only one Cabinet Minister his mind went to, and that was the foreign secretary.
David, as always, was oblivious, and it was Ed’s turn to ring him now, and listen to David explain in his clear, lucid tones about the politics of whatever country he happened to be visiting. He was sat one night, alone in his flat, feeling lonely and useless in spite of everything when his mobile flashed up with David’s number.
He was drunk, Ed could tell, because he kept laughing, and his words kept merging into each other. “I like speaking to you,” he slurred, “you always make me feel happy.”
Ed swallowed, thickly, and wondered what on earth David had been doing.
“Do you like me?” David asked, and there was a lot of the noise on the other end of the line, like David was trying and failing to stay still long enough to get his shoes off. David wouldn’t remember what he said, he thought, morosely, so he cradled the phone against his ear and said,
“David, I love you.”
Neither of them mentioned it, when David got back, and David’s family grew again and Mandelson returned to power. They met again, in the lift, and Mandelson smiled at his smoothly and told him he was doing well for himself. Ed snorted at that, involuntarily, because he wouldn’t wish his life on anybody.
Mandelson handed him a card as he left, and when Ed flinched at the touch he regarded him coolly and said, “Try that, you need it.”
It wasn’t a number but a web address, and when he googled it he stared at the screen in horror, because he hadn’t known places like that existed.
“Have you tried it yet?” Mandelson asked the next time their paths crossed. “They’re very discreet. Not like ex-boyfriends.”
His blood ran cold then, because there was only one thing the older man could be referring to.
“Don’t worry, my dear boy,” Mandelson said, one long fingered hand landing on his shoulder. “Your secret’s safe with me.” It wasn’t until the visit was over, and they were going home, that Mandelson leant in too close and whispered, “Or is it?”
He worried about it until he felt sick with sleep deprivation and, somehow, he let himself be talked into attending. Into sinking to his knees and letting a stranger flog him, while Mandelson watched and murmured words of encouragement.
“You did very well,” Mandelson told him afterwards, and he stumbled into the cold night air, and pressed his forehead against the wall, trying to block out the fact that he had enjoyed it. He wandered then, unsteadily, and found himself at David’s door, with his finger on the buzzer.
“Ed!” David exclaimed, shocked, upon seeing him, and Ed let himself be pulled inside, and settled on the sofa. David’s fingers touched his cheek, which was the first hint that he had been crying, and David held him when he started sobbing in earnest.
“Why am I like this?” He asked, breath hitching, “Why can’t I be normal?”
Louise was about somewhere, he supposed, but he didn’t care and just clung tighter. David kissed his forehead, and stroked at his back, and repeated over and over again, “It’s going to be alright, Ed. Trust me.” He fell asleep crushed against David’s chest on the too narrow sofa, and he woke up still wrapped around him.
David smiled at him, impossibly beautiful, and Ed stayed where he was as long as possible, chest aching with how much he loved him.
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He put an end to it though, forcefully, and instead concentrated on the manifesto. His mother fussed over him, whenever he visited, and she’d smile at him sadly before he left, and say,
“Ed, I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy.”
He’d smile back, brittley, and wish that he could be, and that his every waking moment didn’t have to be consumed with thoughts of David.
It felt like a personal failure, when they lost the election, and the only way he knew to vindicate himself was to stand on his own platform, unconstrained by Gordon’s baggage. He wanted to take it back though, after it started, because he’d never meant to hurt David but he could see that he’d done so. Badly.
“I’m sorry, Ed,” David told him, after yet another interview, “I should be so proud of you, but I’m selfish. I’m afraid that you’ll beat me.”
“It’s unlikely,” Ed assured, because the odds were stacked high against him.
David smiled, and touched his face, because David was like that with his affections, “Don’t put yourself down. You’ve always been full of surprises.”
And it was a surprise, truly, when they read his name out. David hugged him, though his eyes were damp with his own disappointment, and Ed spent too long staring at him, until Balls came over and clapped him on the shoulder, because it was making everybody else uncomfortable.
“I’m going to make you proud of me,” he promised, and David smiled, though it was watery, and said,
“Of course you will. You always have done.”
It wasn’t that easy though, because he barely had a mandate and David retreated to the backbenches. The media speculated, constantly, about the meaning of the lack of a ring on his finger, and Cameron bested him at PMQs, repeatedly.
Within weeks he was exhausted and miserable, and David came around unannounced and told him they were going to talk, and that he was going to make sure he ate something. Neither of them were accomplished in the kitchen, because they took after their father, and so David ordered a takeaway, and let Ed lean against him as they ate it.
“You have to be more forceful, Ed,” David said. “You have to show Cameron that you mean business.”
“I’m trying,” he protested, and it came out snappish because it made him feel worse than ever, to think that David was disappointed in him. David didn’t get upset, just regarded him curiously for a moment.
“I know you are,” he said eventually. “I wasn’t criticising.”
He took it to heart all the same, and the following week the tide finally started to turn in his favour. Cameron was fuming, he could tell, and he grinned to himself once it was over, and let Sadiq talk him into eating dinner at a proper table, rather than his desk, to celebrate.
He managed to keep the momentum up, for a second, and then a third week running, and he was almost feeling smug when he rounded a corner and walked, almost literally, into David Cameron. “I thought we could have a chat,” he said, carefully, and when Ed made to make his excuses his tone changed and he added, “I’ve been having a very interesting conversation with Lord Mandelson.”
There was nothing he could do, he knew, to delay the inevitable, so he followed Cameron, though he felt numb all over. It was surreal, he thought, and he pinched himself when they entered Cameron’s office, just in case he might be dreaming.
“We can’t do anything here - cameras,” Cameron said, inclining his head towards the ceiling, “which is a pity. But I can lay the terms out for you, and I’m fairly certain you won’t be disagreeing.”
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The fear that he might do was more than enough though, and he turned up at the appointed time and the appointed place, and Cameron pushed him to his knees and said, unfeelingly, “Imagine my good fortune. A Leader of the Opposition who loves to play the submissive. I wonder what your constituents would say, if they knew where you’ve been spending your wages?”
He felt limp with relief, even as his hands were tied behind his back, and his head was forced down with a hissed, “Did I say you could look at me?”
It hurt, his pride more than anything, and Cameron left bruises where nobody would see them, as a reminder.
“Why?” Ed asked afterwards, because he felt lost and shaken.
Cameron looked at him then, bewildered. “Because I can, Miliband. Why else would we be here?”
It continued, and Ed suspected that there was a reason he didn’t put a stop to it. He liked to be punished, and to be told that he was worthless. When he did badly at the dispatch box, Cameron was almost tender, and then it was too much because, whenever he closed his eyes, he was with another David. So he tried always to do better, so Cameron would hurt him, and it had an added bonus because David always made a point of congratulating him, and telling him he was proud of him.
They lived their strange double life for months, until they hit a Wednesday where all the papers agreed he had been awful, and Cameron touched him, considerately, like a lover. It was how it was in his imagination, when he lay alone and dreamed of David’s hands on him, and he couldn’t keep quiet, couldn’t stop himself from calling for his brother.
“I didn’t think we were on first name terms,” Cameron laughed afterwards, and Ed bit at his lip and said,
“We can’t do this again. I’ve as much on you as you have on me now.”
He went home and scrubbed himself until his skin was raw and weeping, and the blood stained the bath towel and the bed sheets.
He couldn’t sleep, and spent the night tossing and turning. In the morning he looked like death warmed up, so he avoided the mirror, and just pulled his clothes on and left without eating any breakfast.
David came to see him, at lunchtime, and it must have been worse than he thought because David gasped and said, “Ed, you’re bleeding!”
He touched his fingers to the back of his shirt, to see that David was right, and David made him put his coat on, and gather his things, then took him home, pausing only to tell Ed’s secretary to cancel his appointments.
“I want to understand,” David said when they were inside, and he was ignoring Ed’s protests to strip him of his shirt, peeling it away gently. “Whatever it is, I wish you would tell me.”
“You don’t,” Ed told him, shaking his head. “You’d be disgusted.”
David’s careful fingers touched his back and, when Ed hissed, he pressed a kiss to his temple. “Why don’t you try me?”
He stayed silent, still, as David fetched hot water and antiseptic, and even though it stung, it was David touching him so it felt amazing. “It hurts me to see you in pain,” David murmured, when he was almost finished, “I wish there was some way I could help you.” His voice choked up then, in a way David succumbed to only rarely, “Maybe if I’d been a better brother. If I’d listened to what you were trying to tell me.”
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I loved DCam being tender when he'd done poorly, giving him an incentive to fight - brilliant!
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“You did try and tell me, didn’t you?” David asked, and they both knew the answer. Ed thought of it, often, because it was the first time David had kissed him, albeit chastely, on the cheek, because they were brothers. “I didn’t realise then,” David went on, “I couldn’t see how you were struggling.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ed said, and took David’s hand, because he couldn’t look at him.
There was silence, for a moment, then David asked, quietly, “What happened last night, Ed? Please tell me.”
It was the plea which did it, and even as he screwed his eyes tight shut, wracked with embarrassment, he knew he couldn’t deny it. Half the story tumbled from his lips, awkwardly, the part about Mandelson, and the pain, and Cameron, and, lastly, how he liked it.
He didn’t realise until the grip grew suddenly tighter, that their hands were still linked, and he looked at David then, startled. “You like it when they hurt you?” David asked, and his voice was small and confused, and because he wasn’t thinking he said, instantly,
“But you don’t understand, David. I deserve it.”
David’s free hand was touched to the raw patches of skin he’d been treating, and his expression was carefully neutral. “Why do you think you deserve it?”
He could have lied, he could have said anything, just to keep David from realising. But he felt tired, exhausted, from the effort of constantly pretending, and he could see, this close, that all it was doing was upsetting David. It would be better, he reasoned, for David to hate him, than for David to blame himself for the state he was in.
“Because I love you,” he whispered. “I love you.”
David didn’t flinch away, or hit him. He didn’t even laugh, or ask him if he was joking. “Was that as bad as you imagined?” he asked instead, all hushed tones, “Do you wish you hadn’t told me?”
He was confused, because it wasn’t any of the reactions he had been expecting, and he opened his mouth, unable to reign in the childish stammer, “D-David?” David was biting down at his lip, regarding him seriously.
“All this time, Ed,” he said, and he shook his head. “All this time and I was the problem.”
He couldn’t let that slip, because it wasn’t David’s fault. None of it. “It’s my problem,” he countered, “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Do you want me to hurt you?” David asked then, and his face was pale.
“No,” he answered, instantly. He couldn’t bear the thought of David sneering at him, forcing his head down as he told him he was a disgrace, and that he was ashamed of him. But might it be worth it, he thought, if it meant that David would touch him? “Unless-“ he ventured, stomach churning, “unless you want to.”
David looked stricken. “Of course not. I couldn’t.”
He was going to cry, he knew it, just to complete his humiliation. His throat ached and his eyes stung, and every time he moved the rest of him hurt, as if in sympathy. He reached for his shirt, suddenly desperately aware of his nakedness, but David’s hand on his arm stopped him, the touch scorching, so that Ed had to look at him.
David’s gaze was dark and intense, and Ed’s heart skipped a beat, the room suddenly seeming bereft of oxygen.
“I can help you,” David whispered. “If you let me.”
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David didn’t break eye contact, and just the feel of his breath against his skin was enough to make him desperate. He was shivering, trembling, and when David touched their lips together it made him ache for more from him.
It was soft and careful, the way it had really never been, and David’s hands wandered his bared torso, until he gasped with pain and David pulled away, to murmur apologies. Ed didn’t know what to say, how he could get David to continue, but David seemed to come to a decision then and pulled him to his feet, leading him from the sitting room to his bedroom.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, when David lowered them to the mattress, and David nipped at his ear, playfully, and said,
“I’m not a girl, Ed. Can’t you pick a more suitable adjective?”
He couldn’t, because there wasn’t one, and David seemed to realise how sincerely he meant it then because he kissed him again, deeper, until their tongues were slicking against each other. It was so good, too good, and he reached for David’s shirt buttons, his skin on fire from the way David was gasping into his mouth, and the way he was pressed against him.
“It’s not you,” David told him, breathless, when Ed pushed his shirt from his shoulders. “It’s both of us. I didn’t know, Ed, that it was real. When I saw you looking at me, I thought I had to be imagining it.”
It made him feel cold and hot at the same time, when David’s words registered, but David’s fingers were urgent now, trying to get rid of the barriers between them.
“I should have seen,” David said, “I should have been there for you.”
He’d never wanted David to be upset, had spent most of his life going out of his way to prevent it, so he touched David in return, gingerly. David’s cheeks were flushed, and his mouth fell open, and wished that he had more experience, so that it would be better for David.
David seemed less concerned, pushing into his hand and whining, “Don’t stop, Ed. Please don’t stop.”
It made him more confident, and he slid the fingers of his other hand around the back of David’s neck, pulling him closer so he could kiss him. David braced himself then, on one forearm, and touched him in return, kissing him and kissing him before breaking away to suck at his neck, wetly.
It felt like electricity, running through him, and he arched his neck back, in encouragement. David didn’t waste any time, raising a mark of his own, branding him. The idea made him still more excited, and he clutched at David’s back, wanting it to last forever, but desperate for it to be over, because it was too much, especially when David’s fingers swiped lower.
He pushed back, wanting, and David pulled back, to ask him if he had anything. He nodded, embarrassed, at the dresser, and David kissed him again, reassuring. David took his time, proceeding only desperately slowly, until he was frantic, begging,
“Please, David. Just do it.”
David shut his eyes, but worked his fingers out of him. David groaned his name, brushed his hair back from his face and kissed him, even as he moved, inching himself further inside him. Ed pushed himself back, just to see the agonised ecstasy across David’s face.
It couldn’t last, because it had been too long coming, and the entire mess of his adult life culminated in a single moment, entwined with David.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered later, when David was wrapped around him, because he had dragged them both past the point of return when, no matter what David said, it should have remained his own burden.
“There’s only one thing I’m sorry for,” David told him, stubbornly, breath against his cheek in the darkness. “That I didn’t realise sooner.”
Apologies to the world, but I can’t help but love overwrought woobie angst!
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dear God, don't apologize. That was .. perfect.
I can't find other words for it. Just.. better than I could ever have imagined it. Heartbreaking, tears shedding, perfect.
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Amazing fill!
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