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... )
They were and they weren’t. Different. Because Ed couldn’t seem to make his mind up, and David, for his part, quickly realised that he wouldn’t - couldn’t - force him.
His mother asked him one week if he and Ed had argued, and when he shook his head she sat with him, and told him that she’d feel so much happier once she’d seen them both settled.
“What if I don’t?” He asked, quietly, and she put a hand over his own and said,
“I just want you to be happy.”
He wasn’t, and that was the problem. It was his own fault he thought as he watched Ed pull his shirt back on. Ed had told him because he looking for support, because he wanted David to be strong for both of them.
David wasn’t strong enough even for himself.
“Ed,” he said at the door, and put a hand on his arm, “You do know that I love you?”
Ed’s expression twisted, like he was in pain, and then he was gone and the only thing left was silence.
-
Things started to change then, because the party was back in power, and Ed kissed him soundly one night before telling him that they couldn’t do this anymore, because it was bound to get out eventually, and it would be the worst scandal.
They led completely different lives for the first time ever, and he tried to be normal, and to fit in with the rest of society. Ed had an easier time of it, as ever, and David couldn’t help but be petty and ring him when he found a girlfriend, because he wanted Ed to know, and he wanted Ed to be jealous.
-
“Do you love her?” Ed asked, after he’d described to their mother what he was planning to do for their wedding anniversary. David thinned his lips, looked down at the contents of his teacup rather than at his brother’s face.
He still loved Ed, desperately. But it was a dangerous love, all consuming. What he had now was safe and warm and secure. Furthermore it was legal.
“What does it matter to you?”He answered, voice too tight and too tense. Ed touched him then, soft fingers against his hand, so that David couldn’t help but look at him.
“Can I see you later?”
David knew he should say no, because he was supposed to be packing. To be finalising the room booking. Instead he found himself saying,
“Where to, Ed?”
-
“I can’t live like this,” Ed told him, pacing the floor of his new flat’s living room. “I thought I could - but I can’t, David.”
It made his chest hurt, to see Ed suffering, but when he made to stand up and go to him, Ed held a hand out, gesturing for him to stay put. He did so, reluctantly, and Ed ran a hand through his hair. David could see that it was shaking.
“Do you want me?” He asked then, demanding. “Do you love me?”
His gut turned with shame, though his pulse was racing. “You know I do,” he said. “I’d do anything for you.”
Ed nodded, then held out his hand, looking lost, and said,
“Come with me.”
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“I think of you constantly,” Ed murmured, lips against his jaw, and then lower, against his throat, just above the skin of his shirt collar. “Do you think about me?”
“Yes,” he groaned, and it sounded like the word had been wrenched from him.
“You like it when I touch you, don’t you?” Ed said, fingers making short work of his tie and his shirt buttons. “You want this. You want me.”
He just nodded, over and over, and gasped as Ed pressed kisses all over him, let his hands wander. “Tell me how much you want it,” Ed demanded, braced over him. “Come on, David. Tell me.”
It seemed obvious then, that this was what Ed needed. Ed needed him to take the burden of guilt from him. To convince him that what they were doing was okay, that Ed wouldn’t be blamed for it. And he did so, eagerly.
“Please, Ed,” he whined, writhing under him. “Touch me. Please, please, touch me.”
Ed sucked a brand onto his neck, worked his fingers into him. He clutched at Ed’s back, and pushed back into his touch, wanton. Ed maintained eye contact, and David felt like his skin was burning, even as he watched the flush spread across his brother’s cheeks.
They were damaged, both of them, but at least this way they could be damaged together.
“How am I supposed to resist you, David?” Ed whispered, hoarsely, when he pulled his fingers free, and spread David’s legs, positioned himself between them.
“You aren’t,” he answered, limbs quivering, already, just at the thought of it. Ed moved then, the curses falling from his lips almost indecipherable, and David pretended that everything was going to be fine, and that he wasn’t supposed to be on a train to France with his wife in less than twelve hours.
-
And so it started, all over again, and he was powerless to do anything about it. Ed called the shots, and reduced to him a wreck, and then walked away like nothing had happened, though he insisted that he did it because he loved him.
David anguished over it, ceaselessly. He tried to be a better man. To refuse it. But Ed’s touch was too persuasive.
Ed was too persuasive.
When he was alone with Ed he wasn’t an MP, or a government minister. He was just the desperately awkward young man he had once been, lonely and in need of reassurance from his brother. He wondered what Ed got out of it. Why Ed had begun it.
But still he couldn’t push for an answer. Couldn’t take anything Ed wasn’t happy to offer him.
“I’d never judge you,” he told Ed once, as he fretted as he stood for election. “If you wanted to confide in me.”
Ed just smiled at him, wistfully, and said,
“Thank you, David. I know you wouldn’t mean to.”
-
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..And just as I typed that, "Love will tear us apart" came on the iPod's shuffle function. Good grief.
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There had been so many opportunities for them to put a stop to it. So many chances for them to be acceptable and to be normal. He had got married, and Ed had found another girlfriend.
But still they always chose the second path, the path to ruin, because they couldn’t live without each other.
The wine was bitter, which felt fitting, so he drank another glass, and then another one. It made his stomach roil, even as he felt lightheaded. It was guilt he thought, vile and heavy, shrouding him. He just took from Ed, constantly, because he was too cowardly to make Ed confront his demons. To make Ed see that the world wouldn’t end if he let David touch him.
It was still on his mind when he went back to his room, and he switched on his laptop, spent an hour composing an email. It was half filth, half badly written sonnet, and it went on for pages, describing to Ed in detail what he’d like to do him.
He’d lay him out before him, and touch him everywhere. He’d read once, in a copy of Cosmopolitan left on his desk to embarrass him, about food play and it had fascinated him. He’d use Ed like a canvass, until his skin was covered and sticky. And then he’d lick him clean, slow and careful, until he reached the real taste of him.
It was hard to find the words to say all that, and he drank the rest of the bottle he’d brought up from the bar with him. It made his fingers feel numb, and his limbs feel heavy, and he sent it to Ed, without so much as proofreading.
His head spun the next day, and he felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t understand how he could have been so stupid, and he was so frightened he felt freezing on the flight home, because everything he did was under surveillance, and who knew who might have read it.
There was a message on his phone when he got off the plane, so he knew that, at the very least, it had reached his intended recipient. It was short, and to the point, stating simply,
“David, I need to see you.”
He conceded, the instant he was able, and Ed shook his head, blackberry in his hand, and said,
“What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” he answered, truthfully. When Ed said nothing more he went on, “I’m sorry. Really sorry. I was drunk; I shouldn’t have sent it.”
Ed looked at him then, strangely, and said, “How far would you go to make it up to me?”
He felt uneasy, even as “anything” fell from his lips, and Ed bit down into his lip before saying, authoritatively,
“Strip.”
Ed didn’t touch him. Just stood and watched and directed him. And David obeyed, ran his own hands over himself until he felt sure he’d go mad, but forced himself to put his arms at his sides at the last moment, because that was what Ed wanted him to do.
“Oh God,” Ed croaked, when he’d been told to stop for a third time. David twisted his fingers in the duvet beneath him, fighting for control, and Ed dropped onto the bed beside him, so that David could see that his eyes looked feverish. “Do you have any idea what you look like? Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
He watched, shivering, as Ed fought with his own belt buckle, shucked his underwear and wrapped a hand around himself. The ache between his own legs didn’t seem quite so important then, because Ed was here, in front of him, and his voice wasn’t steady as he said,
“Please, Ed, let me.”
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I've basically started to idealize Milicest as the epitome of fated love, and it's all thanks to you. ;)
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It's so not obvious that I love doomed, tragic romance where the only respite is death, is it?
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Ed is genuinely kind of terrifying here and it's awesome. ♥
-OP
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It didn’t stop him, though in retrospect it would seem obvious that continuing could only make things between them worse, and he left off the shirt only to move lower.
He’d wanted to do it for years, and he held Ed’s hips steady, kissed at his thighs before swiping at the gathering precome. Ed must want it too, he thought. He let his hands wander then, reverent, worked his tongue against the head, over and over until Ed was gasping and shifting up to meet him.
Ed was getting close, he could tell and, were their positions reversed, this would be the point where Ed would pull back, or squeeze too tightly, or do something to ensure he was inches away from losing his mind, and would tell Ed anything to make him put his mouth back on him. Ed needed to hear it, he supposed; to be reassured that David loved him.
He didn’t need the reassurance; it was there in every agonised moment they spent together. In the way Ed couldn’t even meet his gaze sometimes, crippled with shame by what he wanted.
So he redoubled his efforts, and it wasn’t difficult because he wanted to get as close to Ed as possible. It was the first time he’d ever tasted Ed like this - he wanted to experience all of it. Ed’s fingers flew to his hair as he stiffened still further, scrabbling in the short strands for purchase.
“D- Ah, David,” Ed whined, and he didn’t know if it was supposed to be praise or a warning. He swallowed, stroked at Ed’s thighs to calm their trembling, and kissed his hip bone as he slid back up the bed.
The room was spinning, a mixture of the hangover, jetlag and his still insistent arousal. He tried to kiss Ed’s mouth, but Ed turned his head, so he settled for the skin just under his jaw bone, rocking into Ed’s overheated skin, the friction of his chest against Ed’s shirt making everything feel still more frantic.
It wasn’t until he came off, so hard he felt weak limbed, that he realised Ed was crying. It felt like chills, running through him, the sight of it.
“It’s alright,” he whispered, holding Ed like he hadn’t since they were children and Ed had been afraid of the things that went bump in the dark. “I’ve got you, it’s alright.”
Ed just looked at him, eyes over bright, and said, “Don’t you understand, David? This is never going to end. Not until I do something about it.”
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“I was thinking,” Ed started, busying himself with gathering mugs from the cupboard, “about the election.”
Ed had been put in charge of the manifesto. David had sent him a card, to let him know how proud he was of him. So he nodded, trying to understand, and passed Ed the milk without him asking for it.
“If we lose, the party will need someone fresh to lead.” Ed didn’t look up. “It can’t be a Blairite.”
It took a moment for Ed’s words to sink in, and then he couldn’t speak because his mouth wouldn’t work. He just stood there, gaping. Ed finally looked at him then, and his jaw was set, determined like David had never seen him.
“We shouldn’t rely on each other so much,” he said, calmly. “If one of us were to win, the other should bow out gracefully. Don’t you think?”
“Are you saying that if you win, I should stand down?” The words lodged in his throat, came out sounding strange and distant.
Ed touched his arm then, too familiar.
“It’s never been about me, David. It’s about what you want.”
And, then, the touch was gone and Ed was making tea, acting like everything was normal. David stayed where he was, leaning heavily against the kitchen worktop. The air was thick with tension, and he only breathed easily again when Ed disappeared from the room.
He’d once thought that everything was easy and straightforward with Ed around. But it wasn’t Ed’s fault, he thought, even as the cold reality of it clawed at his insides.
Ed had spent their whole lives trying to tell him. He just hadn’t been listening.
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Awesome take on the prompt, I'm so happy it got filled.
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Ed touched his arm then, too familiar.
“It’s never been about me, David. It’s about what you want.”
lfdghjfkghfkjhg fuck, Ed in this.
It's all so very brutal. Love it.
Thank you so much for writing this, as ever.
~OP
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