Fic: Accepting You
Title: Accepting You (A part of the Pretty Men Series)
Author: Tragictales
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None save for cussing.
Feedback: Always welcomed and always appreciated
Pairings: EB/KU, EM/JL
Summary: Eric assesses Karl’s good and bad sides…meanwhile…Sean is back. (sequel to Sunday Morning)
A/N: Sorry I haven’t updated in a week or so I’ve been struck by school projects and writers block. Beta'd by eviea and also never been to Australia therefore a lot of places will be Americanized. Banner made by Causette!
Eric glanced at the clock for the umpteenth time since he’d finished his work that Tuesday morning. It was twelve thirty on the nose, and his lunch hour was at one. He was anxious to find out how his Kiwi had fared during his final meeting with his client. He hadn’t seen him since Sunday, and though he wanted him to be in the right frame of mind for his meeting, the short absence was killing him. This wasn’t a win-win situation for Eric. If Karl didn’t get the account he was leaving and if he did get the account he was still leaving! The fact that on Friday, Karl would be boarding a plane back to the UK, was just too real for Eric to grasp though he knew he had to do it quickly.
Though Karl had said he would be coming back to visit him often Eric couldn’t shake the fear that things would go downhill. He didn’t want them to. Not only was he getting older, he had come to really like Karl, especially because just being around him made the Australian man happy. It was strange. He didn’t have to be someone else around Karl and was in fact even more relaxed than he was around other people. This was exactly why he hated not being able to take Karl home with him.
On Sunday Karl had suggested that they had used a bed the next time they had sex. Eric had so wanted to just tell him they could go back to his apartment, lie in his bed beneath the cool sheets and just exist for a while, but knew it was a bad idea. Since Sunday he had received a few more calls from Sean, and with each one he was growing more worried that Sean would actually show up on his doorstep. Perhaps he could convince Karl that they could just go back to his expensive hotel room instead. Eric glanced at the clock again and turned quickly at the sound of the door opening. His shoulders slumped when he discovered a still groggy Heath Ledger and an all too perky Orlando.
“Eric, tell your brother it’s not possible to be this happy at * this * time of the day!” Heath said in an irritated fashion. Orlando practically skipped in the door after him, toning down his sunshine a bit when he noticed there were a few customers in the Gym, and wrapped his long arms around Heath’s shoulders.
“Heath, if you had Viggo in the morning you’d be this happy as well,” Orlando purred causing both Eric and Heath to roll their eyes.
“Let go of me you crazy Brit!” Heath groaned and Orlando let him go careful to aim a light kick to the arse, which earned him a mischievous glare from his friend.
“Morning Sunshine,” Orlando said giving Eric a hug. The two hadn’t seen each other except for when working for about a week. Truly both of them had been distracted, Eric with Karl and Orlando with Viggo.
“Hey, Orli,” Eric replied letting the man go retrieve coffee from the small coffee maker set up behind the desk.
“I guess there’s no point in asking how Viggo is,” Eric said with a smirk. Orlando rolled his eyes. “Well if you must know, he’s on his way to work presumably with a large smile on his face.”
“That’s good to hear,” Eric said looking towards the clock again.
“How’s Karl?” Orlando asked.
“Nervous.”
“Oh yeah, today’s the big meeting,” Orlando said as if just remembering it was Tuesday morning. They stood there for a moment, Eric looking out the window and Orlando facing the gym watching the customers switch machines. Orlando turned his attention to Eric again and watched his friend open and close his mouth hesitantly. Raising his eyebrows he waited patiently for Eric to speak.
“Hey Orlando, I know you don’t like Karl very much but I need your advice,” Eric said. Orlando took a sip of his coffee and shrugged indifferently.
“It’s not that I don’t like him Eric, it’s more that I’ve seen you burnt once by one Corporate Raider and would prefer to not see it happen again,” Orlando said.
“What makes you think that Karl would hurt me?” Eric asked as Orlando fiddled with the stereo behind the desk trying to find a suitable station.
“I don’t know if he will or if he won’t I’m just saying that you tend to fall in love quickly and rarely take into account your lover’s faults if you can see them,” Orlando said.
“Orlando, just because they have faults doesn’t mean I need to dump them,” Eric said.
“No that means that you need to watch out, at least keep your eyes open. I saw it happen with Sean, you saw he was changing you, you saw he had to have absolute control over what you did and whom you saw and you did nothing to stop it. Sometimes I wondered if you saw it all,” Orlando replied. Eric rolled his eyes again and Orlando sighed in an exasperated manner.
“I’m just trying to look out for you big brother.”
“I know and I’m telling you, everything will be alright,” Eric said sending his younger brother a warm look.
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t know yet. All I know is that what I feel is intense and not always directed at his body or what he does to me during sex. It’s the person he is when he’s with me.”
“Think he feels the same?”
“Hopefully, I would be really sad if he doesn’t. I think he does, I just wish he weren’t so clouded about his business. It really gets to him and I can see the anxiety,” Eric said. The door chimed while Eric was talking and Eric waved at the newcomers, Jude and Ewan. They came dressed as they usually did in their gym clothes, Ewan in sweats and Jude as always looking to show off his backside in shorts almost as short as the uniformed ones Eric and Orlando were wearing.
“What anxiety?” Ewan asked earning a slap on the arse from Jude.
“Nosy Nelly,” Jude cooed when Ewan sent him a look that clearly said he’d return the favor later.
“Karl’s anxiety about his account,” Orlando answered. “Say, you and Jude know Karl a little better than all of us, save for Eric, tell us about him.”
“There’s not much to tell--” Jude started before being cut off by his lover.
“From a business stand point or personal?” Ewan asked. Eric glared at Orlando then looked back to his friends. “Both.”
“Karl’s rather shrewd when coming to business. He knows what he’s doing and knows what he wants. He also knows how to get what he wants which is probably why he’s made it this far. If you only knew him from that point you would consider him to be a bad person,” Ewan replied. Jude frowned and Eric’s eyebrows rose at this description of the man he’d been sleeping with for the past few weeks.
“He uses people,” Ewan continued. “He always has when it comes to business; it’s the price we’ve all had to pay to get where we are. It was one of the largest reasons why Jude and I made our money and left. When I came down to it, you can only count on your self. Trust doesn’t exist and friendships are overshadowed by the race to get ahead.”
“But you and Jude made it alright,” Eric said and the former corporate lawyers groaned.
“Yeah, barely,” Jude said.
“So what makes him different from everyone else?” Orlando asked actually interested.
“He doesn’t seem to want the same things as everyone else. Take Sean for example, he doesn’t want to just settle he wants to climb and climb until he reaches the top and he’ll do it by any means possible,” Ewan said. “Now for Karl that’s a different story.”
“He just wants a comfortable place in his business. One where he knows he’ll be secure at,” Eric said. “We talked about it a while back on the phone.”
“There you have it. Don’t get me wrong Eric, I adore Karl and he’s a good guy once you get to know him outside of the business scope, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed. I just don’t want to see you hurt either,” Ewan said with a solemn look on his face.
He didn’t mean to bring Eric down but after all that he and Jude had been through he had come to the conclusion that love wasn’t just enjoying the aspects of your lover’s life when they were around you but accepting everything about them from their bad habits to their deep faults in character. It wasn’t healthy to leave the rose colored glasses on and almost always resulted in heartbreak.
“The thing about it is, either you accept it or you don’t.”
Ewan moved away from the counter with Jude following closely after him. Orlando went to help an older man on one of the weight machines. He seemed to be struggling with leaving Eric alone at the counter to ponder on these new things he had learned about Karl. He thought he would have been annoyed, angry, or disgusted. At the same time he wasn’t. He agreed with Ewan about loving all sides of a person whether they are good or bad. And still nothing had changed.
His stomach still wound into knots at the thought of his lover and he had a feeling it wouldn’t change. He loved Karl’s intellect, his views, and above all his allowance for Eric to just be himself. To be that relaxed person that he just was. He didn’t try to control him.Of course this was just the beginning of their relationship and only time could bring out all of their quirks. But so far nothing had bothered him.
He wanted to find out more, he wanted to know if Karl snored when he slept, if he stole the covers or the pillows in bed, he wanted to watch his chest rise and fall while he was sleeping. All of these things and yet he still knew so little about him. Eric chewed on his lower lip, contemplating and all the while not minding everything else that was going on. He didn’t hear the door opening and closing, he didn’t see who had come in or out and could care less. The only thing that broke him from his thoughts was Mr. Gibson’s voice calling him to tell him to get some papers from his office. Eric blew out a calming breath and looked at the clock, he had about ten minutes before his break and then Karl.
Eric left his post at the desk and sauntered off down the hallway, intent on reaching Mr. Gibson’s office when he felt a sudden hand on his arm gripping him tightly and yanking him to his left. He let out a loud yelp, which was drowned out by the music Orlando had just started. Eric cursed aloud when he was tossed into the wall of lockers beside the door. He regained his balance and had a short moment of déjà vu. That moment stopped when he realized who was before him.
A toothy smile beamed back at his foggy look. Eric’s eyes followed the lightly tanned skin up a strong jaw line and around perfectly sculpted lips and an ancient nose. His eyes reached green eyes dancing in mirth and boring into his own. His breath caught in his throat and he swore again beneath his breath and immediately backed up as far as possible though there was nowhere else to go. A strong hand reached out and touched his face, thumb ghosting over his lips as if preparing them.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” the deep Yorkshire accent sent chills down Eric’s spine and he shook his head to be free of the hand.
“Sean. What are you doing here?" Eric asked, surprised himself for his sudden anger. He had waited for months to see him come back, spent endless amounts of time by the phone waiting for his calls, and as ashamed as he was to admit it, even to himself, he had cried the nights he had been unable to have him by his side. But this man chose now to come back to him, now to come and try to kiss him and hold him like he used to. Now, when Eric knew that he had nothing left inside to give him. The tingling stopped and Eric’s breathing returned to normal as Sean stepped away.
“That should be obvious, love,” Sean replied rubbing the back of his neck and flashing Eric a smile that he could not decipher.
“What’s obvious is that we’re done Sean. We have been for three months and counting,” Eric told him. Sean rolled his eyes and took a step forward.
“You’re actually telling me to believe that?”
“I am.”
“It’s not, just now you reacted to my touch just the way that you used to,” Sean said. “Things haven’t changed.”
“Maybe not fully changed but they are changing,” Eric said unable to deny or defend his reaction.
“Don’t tell me those ruddy friends of yours are feeding you this,” Sean said, sending a harsh glare at the door as if they were out there listening in.
“No, they haven’t. It’s my decision, my right to choose who to be with and as you can tell I’ve opted for a Sean-free life.”
“Only because I’ve not been here, yeah.”
“No because it isn’t good for me,” Eric answered him. “You should just leave.”
“Perhaps I don’t want to leave. I want things back to the way they used to be with you beside me, smiling and kissing me. I want my Eric back.”
“You can’t have him. Your Eric was a shell, a molding of what you wanted him to be, someone he didn’t like. Your Eric doesn’t exist,” Eric responded turning to exit the locker room. Sean reached out and grabbed his hand pulling him back around.
“You’re just upset,” he said wrapping his arms around Eric’s neck pulling him down to kiss him. “I’m sorry I left you. I had to go back and--”
Eric shook his head and forcefully removed Sean’s arms from his body. When Sean went at it again he held his wrists fast in his hands. He glared down at him from this point unable to find the words to tell him to just go. He had done it before and so he should have been able to do it again. But with Sean looking at him, as he always had before when he wanted him to do something, he was finding it more difficult with every second. They stood there anxiously awaiting the next words to be said. Sean opened his mouth again to speak and was stopped by a loud yelling from the hallway.
“Eric, Karl’s here!” Orlando shouted. “Eric?”
“I’ll be out in a minute!” Eric shouted not taking his eyes from Sean. He watched the handsome features darken and at that he found something to say.
“There is no excuse for what you did. You left me Sean; you just up and left, no phone calls, no letters not even a fucking e-mail. I can’t forgive you for that. I just can’t. And now I’ve moved on. I’ve got someone out there that I care about deeply. I’m not letting you come between that. It’s over, you might as well go back to London,” Eric said, letting go of his wrists.
With that he turned and walked out of the door forcing a smile on his face. He turned down the hallway, trying to hide his rattled nerves and entered the main part of the gym where Jude and Ewan were excitedly talking to Karl. Eric hung back watching him gesture enthusiastically and suddenly his smile widened genuinely. He didn’t bother to look back as he walked quickly to his lover’s side. His arms slid across Karl’s stomach and his fingers twined with Karl’s.
“I take it you got the account,” Eric said pressing a kiss on Karl’s cheek. The kiwi smiled brilliantly.
“That I did. With very little trouble surprisingly,” Karl replied stepping further into Eric’s embrace.
“ Then I suppose there’s to be some sort of celebration,” Eric mused teasingly. He nodded to Orlando who resumed his post at the desk. The couple walked outside[,] stepping into the afternoon heat. Karl smirked then quirked his eyebrows as Eric crossed in front of him to come around to his other side.
“Yeah that would be nice,” He answered with a mocking innocent look upon his face. He looked Eric up and down admiring the uniform he wore for work. A dirty smile danced across his lips and Eric coughed when his eyes lingered too long.
“Then I guess we should get to it,” Eric grinned. “Though how we’ll eat, celebrate, and get back here in less than an hour I don’t know.”
“We could stop at the hotel instead,” Karl suggested as they reached the car. “Hotel room, bed, room service.”
“Later, love. When I have you on a bed I want to take my time and fully enjoy you. Can’t do that in less than an hour,” Eric said dropping his voice. They stood close together and Karl had come to stop in front of him. His hands rested on Eric’s waist just as Eric placed both hands on either side of his face.
“I doubt we could,” Karl responded leaning into him not bothering to care who else was around. At that moment nothing could go wrong. He had done what he had come to Australia to do and he had found someone that was worth more than one quick shag. Someone he considered worth coming back to.
He shuddered at the feel of Eric against him and yielded at the soft force he exerted in pulling him closer for a kiss. Soon his body was responding and he was kissing him back, glad for the tenderness he felt alongside the heat. He didn’t take notice to the few stares they received from passers by, especially one familiar blonde. Nothing mattered but the lips attached to his own, the tongue invading his mouth, and the hands on his face. Nothing at all and as far as he was concerned this was how it always should be.