stay [part two]
Title: Stay (The Past Is Just That) [part two of two; part one in previous post]
Rating: NC-17. Um…D/s themes (though, if you’ve been following this series, not the direction this usually goes; this time, Michael has a request, and James gets to try to be on top), mention of past noncon, some use of the f-word, sex followed by emotional h/c followed by more sex.
Word Count: 8,177 total; 4,912 [this part]
Disclaimers: boys are not mine; AU in that no one’s married. Title from Eve 6’s “Friend Of Mine.”
Notes: part of that ongoing Universe of Porn; comes (heh, yeah) in between Listen and Touch.
He heard James breathe in, an unusually ragged gulp of air, and Michael tried to brace himself for another impact, for the curious new tingling that made him want to flinch away and open up and never move again and beg for more. For whatever James wanted to do next.
But abruptly there was an absence of warmth behind him, and he heard James take a step away, clumsy in a way that James, for all his normal exuberance, never was clumsy, and the thump of one leg bumping into a side table echoed around the too-small trailer.
He spun around, not waiting for a command, just in time to see James grab clothing from the floor and then back up almost to the door, shaking his head.
“James?”
“I can’t-” James didn’t look at him. Put one hand on the doorknob. The hand was shaking; that glorious voice was shaking, too. “I can’t. Please.”
“What-you were-it was good, I’m fine, everything’s fine, why-”
“No,” James said, and blinked, and Michael realized that the shine in those eyes wasn’t the artificial brightness of trailer lighting at all, but actual tears, mutely threatening to burst through panicked defensive walls.
He made it to the door in one long stride, and leaned against it, as if turning himself into a physical barricade could somehow keep James from wanting to run away.
James stared at his own hand, hovering on the doorknob, for a second, and then slowly dropped it back to his side.
“James, talk to me. I love you. I’m sorry I-did I do something wrong? Did you not want to-?”
James shook his head again. “No. You’re perfect. You-I love you, too. You didn’t do anything. I promise.”
“Then what? James, please. You-honestly, you’re scaring the hell out of me.” He hadn’t quite meant to admit that, but he’d never seen James look this way before, retreating and withdrawn and almost beaten. He never wanted to see that look again.
His own hands were trembling, terrified as the rest of him, and he forced them into stillness through sheer bloodyminded strength of will. Left them at his sides, even though he wanted to reach out, to touch those rigid shoulders. James looked as if he might break in two, if someone touched him, and he kept staring at the door like it might speak unexpectedly or spontaneously open itself or randomly burst into flame.
But the admission did get James to glance up at him, quickly. “Don’t-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you-”
All right, if that was going to work, he wasn’t above exploiting James’s desire to reassure him. “You are worrying me. Right now. Please talk to me. Please don’t leave me. I can’t-I don’t know what I did. You have to tell me. So it doesn’t happen again.”
James finally focused on him, somewhere in the middle of that frantic confusion of words. Blinked again. “I wouldn’t leave you.”
“You are.” He hadn’t realized, until then, just how badly it’d hurt, seeing James poised to run. From him.
“I’m not…” James swallowed, hard. “I love you. I swear. I-you didn’t-it’s not you. You can stop trying to hide the door behind your back; I won’t go anywhere.”
“Promise me?”
“Yes. I’ll stay. You can’t-you shouldn’t think any of this is your fault.” Another blink; this time one tear actually snuck out and plunged, suicidally, over the edge of a cheekbone. Left a small gleaming track across freckles, in its wake. Michael caught himself blinking, too. The world blurred, momentarily, around them.
“Can I touch you?”
“Maybe…”
“I’d feel better if I could touch you.”
James licked his lips. This one Michael didn’t have a number for. Uncategorized. Full of pain. “You would?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” James didn’t move, but looked at him, soundlessly waiting, and didn’t step back when Michael put both arms around him.
They stood there for an endless minute, still naked because James had let go of his hastily gathered clothing, finally, and Michael had never stopped to put any on. The fabricated bones of the trailer creaked, once, grumbling into a new position. The scattered clothes and sagging couch stayed voiceless, just letting the newborn quiet fade into the chilly afternoon air, the world warily holding its peace around them.
After an eternity, or maybe only a few seconds, Michael felt hands slide up his back, cautiously asking for more, pulling him in closer. He shut his eyes, breathed in the familiar scent of soap and sweat and apple shampoo-and a few strands of curling hair, sneaking up to tickle his mouth-and held James a little more tightly, and didn’t cry.
“I love you,” James said, barely audible, into his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“I love you, too. For what?”
“For…scaring you. For making you think that I would-I wouldn’t leave you. Not ever. I just…panicked, I think. You…” James hesitated; the trailer muttered wearily at them again.“I saw you, and that-this-” One hand crept lower. Touched the single pink reminder of what they’d just been doing, the shape of want still barely present on Michael’s skin. “I just can’t-I can’t hurt you, ever-”
“Is that what-you aren’t. You wouldn’t. I would tell you. Like you’d tell me, remember?” He tried to keep his voice gentle; James didn’t need to be shouted at.
“No.” The answer was barely above a whisper. But at least it was an answer, Michael thought; at least James was trying to explain. “No. I can’t. I know-I know you’re all right. For now. But I know-I also know what it’s like to not be all right. To be-to get hurt. From this. And I can’t do that. Not to you.”
He listened, frozen in place. The halting words crashed into his chest and broke his heart into tiny pieces. A million of them, just like that. Even more when James added, barely audible, “Does that-does that make sense?” as if he thought that Michael wouldn’t understand. As if he thought that that reason, his reason, wouldn’t be enough somehow.
“James, look at me. I’m so sorry. I didn’t-I didn’t even think about that, I swear, I just wanted to-because you enjoy-and I thought I should try-I understand, I do, I’m sorry, I’m an idiot, I love you, please shout at me now if you need to, all right?”
And James actually almost smiled, through tears, at that last offer, despite lurking pain in his voice, in his face, in the eyes like lightless trenches beneath the surface of the sea. “I’m not going to shout at you. And you’re not an idiot. I know what you were trying to do. And I wanted to, too. I thought I could. Once. One more time. With you. And it was all right, at least at the beginning…”
“Um…you know it was all right for me, too. More than all right. Incredible. Really. I-wait. One more time, you said.”
“I did, yes. Um. I-okay. Are you sure you want to know-”
“Yes. Please.” He was still working hard not to shout; restraint was surprisingly difficult. Not at James. At the nameless person who had left all those past bruises, who had dared to hurt James, ever, catastrophic gaping injuries that had, he was just now realizing, only partially healed, no matter what James tried to say.
“All right, then…when I first realized I might be interested in, um. I didn’t quite know what I wanted, and I thought, well, I must want to be on top, right, that should work better, and I was good at it, which I think maybe you noticed, just now, but that wasn’t-well, you know how much I like you being, um, the dominant one…”
“Yes…” He did know. They both liked that. Or so he’d always thought.
“So when I met someone who figured out that I didn’t want to be in control, not really, it was a-a relief, more than anything. Well, up until it wasn’t, of course.” James paused. Eyed the fog, where it tapped lazily against the window. The greyness waved drifting tendrils back at him, placid and unconcerned.
“Which is more or less why certain things happened. Because he enjoyed watching me give in, for him, because I was good at being in control. It was part of the fun, I think, for him. If that makes sense. And I didn’t know enough to say no, when he wanted things I didn’t-when it stopped being okay.” James kept watching the fog. Breathed in, once, like someone with broken ribs, unsuccessfully avoiding the presence of pain with each inhale. Michael wanted to say something, then. Couldn’t find words.
“And I can’t-you have even less experience with this than I had, or still have, I suppose, because that was it for me, until you, until I wanted to do all these things with you. And now you want-right now I could tell you what to do because obviously I’m still good at that and you wouldn’t stop me and I can’t be the one who hurts you.”
“Fuck, James.” A few sentences, a handful of cracking words, and already more detail than he’d ever gotten before. Those details filled in some of the spaces in that mental picture, and he found himself hating the shape. The air got a little more icy, and the fog, outside, more isolating.
James nearly smiled again, not quite happily. “Oh, well, that’s more or less the problem, right?”
“Don’t. Don’t make jokes about this. You-I should never have asked. You didn’t hurt me. I swear. I know you wouldn’t hurt me. And I-I’m so sorry I-please don’t hate me.” Stupid. So fucking stupid. Of course James wouldn’t be comfortable in that role. He was amazed that they’d gone even as far as they had. The broken little bits of his heart ached, and he didn’t know what he could do, or say, to make things right again.
James bit his lip at that, hard enough to leave visible marks, and Michael breathed, “Don’t do that, please, don’t,” and leaned in to kiss abused skin, instinctively, and stopped himself a millimeter away from making contact, afraid that even that might be asking too much, too soon.
But James whispered back, “It’s all right,” and maybe that meant the sex, or the kissing, or just the bruises chewed into that fragile lip, Michael couldn’t tell, and he opened his mouth to ask which one it was, and James kissed him instead, light as the touch of fog against the windowpanes, outside.
Astonished, he almost forgot to kiss back. He did, though, carefully, marveling at the feeling of warmth in those lips, wounded and wet and still present, offering wordless consolation to both of them. James still wanted to kiss him. Still wanted him.
He couldn’t tell, now, if the continuing ache came from his heart breaking more, because James was trying to comfort him, or from all the fractured pieces beginning to fit themselves together again. Because James was trying to comfort him.
James added, speaking into the kiss, “Did you really ask me not to hate you? Because you know how completely wrong that is. And I know you know I don’t hate you.”
“You might.” For asking. For every movement and sound and sight that’d brought old memories to the surface, bubbling up beneath the thin walls of scar tissue. He knew about those scars, now, more than he’d known before. And he had known they were there. He just hadn’t realized how easily fading fault lines could split apart again, under pressure. More accurately, he hadn’t even thought about it.
Probably James ought to hate him. Clearly he was a terrible person.
“Oh, you are not.”
“…what?” He hadn’t said that out loud, had he?
“You’re not a terrible person. You’re my favorite person. I love you. And you’re not superhuman, as far as I know, and you don’t have to think of everything, and to be honest this-reaction-surprised me, too; when I told you I was fine I thought I meant it. So if I didn’t expect it, then why would you?” The eyes met his, straight on, for the first time in what felt like centuries; the rainstorms had cleared away, not entirely, but mostly, leaving behind clear open blueness.
“I love you, too,” Michael said, to that look. James had to know that. Had to. “You-you always know what to say. To make me feel better. And I-if I could do that, too, I’d say the exact right thing to you. The right words. Right now. I’d change the world for you if I could. But I can’t. And it fucking kills me that I can’t. Because I never want you to be hurt, or afraid, if I can help it. Because I would be superhuman for you, if you wanted that. If you wanted a superhero. Because I love you. No matter what.”
And James stared at him, eyes wide, and said, “What do you mean if you could say the right words, those were perfect words, you’re perfect, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened in my life, you know that, and I love you, and you don’t need to change the world for me, you just need to kiss me, right now,” and Michael found himself almost laughing then, at the force with which those lips met his, eager now and unhesitating and somehow, someway, absurdly, crazily, brilliantly happy again.
And James, laughing too, ran both hands along his back and down to his waist, and then lower, resting them on his hips, and Michael abruptly felt the stirrings of interest, reawakening at all that proximity, all that irrationally beautiful amusement.
He tried to shift positions, slightly; surely James didn’t need to feel that. Wouldn’t be in the mood. But the movement got him a raised eyebrow, and then the hands wandered along his skin, curious, and Michael tried not to move or breathe or do anything that might frighten James away.
“Hmm. Still interested?”
“You-are you?”
And James smiled, slowly but with unmistakable intent, and Michael held his breath. “I might be, yes. I think…I think you should go wait for me on the couch. Legs apart.”
“Really?”
“You’re not going to make me ask twice, are you?”
“Definitely not.” He practically ran the two steps back to the ancient lump of furniture. The familiar cushions accepted his weight, calmly. Good for them. At least someone in the room could be calm.
He watched, hearing the echo of his own heart thumping, as James collected the lube from the pile of clothing on the floor, leisurely, and then paused at his side. “Not quite right, I think. Hands above your head. Holding on. And leave them there.”
He’d had his mouth open to say something, but instantly forgot what. Moved the hands, instead. Buried fingers in worn cloth. The fog, outside, clouded up the window, offering conspiratorial privacy.
James seemed to be thinking about that response, briefly. Then slid to his knees, leaned forward, and licked Michael’s cock, one long stroke of wet tongue against throbbing desire. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
“You-can you-you are going to fuck me, right? Please say yes. Um. If you want that, I mean. I do.”
“Mmm…yes. But not yet, I think. You did say you were enjoying this, right? You wanted us to try.”
“Yes. So very much yes. But you-if you aren’t-please don’t do this if you don’t want to.”
“Oh, I want to. At least this one time. Because you’re asking me for it. I think I want you to ask me for it now.”
“Please fuck me,” Michael said promptly, and James laughed. “You really are trying to make this easy for me, aren’t you? Look at you, all desperate. For me.”
He actually hadn’t been trying to make things easy. He would’ve, if he’d thought of it, but truthfully the response had just come out that way. Immediate.
James traced one finger around the base of his cock, and then lower, finding that quivering rim of muscle. Touching, far too playfully. Teasing.
“Please-”
“Please what?” The finger went away. Michael wanted to scream with frustration. “Tell me what you want, or you don’t get anything.”
Oh god, oh, god, James didn’t really mean that, did he? Michael was starting to doubt his own ability to talk, much less give directions.
“I want-you. In. In me. Please.”
“Good. Very polite, too. I like that.”
“Oh god-”
“Not as good. Did I tell you to speak when not being asked a question?” But the finger came back, and apparently James had done something with the lube when he’d been distracted, because the glide of it, inside him, felt effortless, smooth and slick and like everything he was craving. Well, almost everything. Everything would involve James telling him he could finally oh thank god come, which, when had he needed James’s approval for that, again?
James moved the finger. Glanced at his face. Did something else, and suddenly Michael’s vision practically whited out. “Jesus, James-”
“So much blasphemy. What happened to you being polite for me?” Again. And then again, and he felt himself shaking all over, waves of need and ecstasy and electric heat, and he heard himself gasping “Please, please,” as if from a distance, someone else talking, begging, in a voice utterly dizzy with need.
He did see James smile again, though. He’d always be able to find that smile.
“Better,” James murmured, and that voice went straight to his cock, and he’d lifted one hand, an inadvertent pleading motion, before his brain caught up and realized that that might be a very bad thing to do.
James raised both eyebrows at him. “Not better. Maybe I should stop. Maybe you don’t really want this, after all.”
He might’ve moaned. Those sounds certainly weren’t anywhere near actual words.
“Well, if you need to move that hand, you can put it to good use. Touch yourself. While I watch.”
He couldn’t help staring at James, at that. They’d never-of course he’d done that before, by himself, everyone had, in private, all those lonely showers while they’d been shooting on different locations, but he couldn’t-
“Yes, you can. And you will. Right now. For me.”
James could apparently read his thoughts, too. Not that there could be anything coherent left in there.
James was looking at him, all intense blue eyes and cool expectance, completely in charge, knowing that Michael would obey him. Wanted to obey him.
He moved the hand; James nodded in approval. “Very good. More.”
He could feel himself blushing-and since when had he ever blushed in bed, hell, what had James managed to do to him?-but he did as ordered. Stroking himself. Intimately. On display.
For James.
Who was evidently not done with him quite yet; a second finger joined the first, stretching him wider, more open, waiting. When the third finger nudged its way inside, Michael forgot how to talk, and then remembered, enough to gasp, “I have to-I’m going to-” He couldn’t wait; he was right there, on that edge, James inside him and his own fingers wrapped around his dripping cock, too much friction to stop now.
“No, you’re not.” Absolute command, steel under that luxurious Scottish purr; and Michael bit the inside of his cheek, hard enough to hurt, but only barely enough to drag himself back from the brink. And then just lay there trying to figure out how to get air back into his lungs.
“Excellent.” The fingers worked their way deeper inside him, and someone was panting, tiny quests for air that seemed to be in short supply all of a sudden, and the someone was him.
“What would you do,” James murmured, not stopping all the relentless motion, “if I asked you to do this, instead? To put your fingers here, to open yourself up for me, on this couch, while I watch you?”
He couldn’t help another small moan, at that. Also couldn’t help the way his legs fell a little further apart, across the comfortable old cushions. Because he would. Yes. If James asked him to.
“Oh, you like that idea? Learning some interesting things about you, today.” James met his eyes, briefly, clearly checking to see whether everything was all right. Michael looked back, as steadily as he could under the circumstances, trying to offer reassurance, trying to show James with total certainty that yes, he was fine. More than fine. Fantastic.
And he must’ve managed to project that thought well enough, because the depths of those oceans, way back behind the blue eyes, warmed at the sight. That warmth spread comfortably out between them, seeping under Michael’s own skin, too. They were both fine.
And then James smiled, suggestive and wicked, and put his free hand on Michael’s cock, over Michael’s own hand, trapping it in place, taking over the motion, controlling that, too.
“Oh, fuck-”
“More?” The hand tightened around his, more pressure, faster strokes, and he meant to answer but then James did something else that sent sparks of lightning all through his body, and the answer got lost in some sort of inarticulate high-pitched noise that was perilously close to a yelp. He’d never even known he could make noises like that.
“That isn’t a yes, as entertaining as that was. Answer me.” No room for disobedience in that tone. Not that he wanted to.
“Yes. Yes. Please.” He couldn’t come up with any other words. Speechless. Literally. “You-oh, god-James, you’re amazing, you know-”
And James broke character just long enough to grin at him. “I did tell you I was good at this.”
“You’re fucking spectacular at this-” Even that, that momentary drop back into normality, had been carefully timed, it occurred to him, just enough to push all the overwhelming intensity back a little.
The ocean-current eyes danced, at that. “I think you’re fairly spectacular, yourself. You should see what you look like. All stretched open for me, doing everything I ask you to, so desperate for me to fuck you…”
He honest-to-god whimpered, at that. Trying to imagine how he might look to James, all that trembling need, James’s fingers buried inside him, his own hand still caressing his cock because James hadn’t told him to stop, feeling himself grow wet with it, an exhibition of shameless want.
“Decadent,” James pronounced, satisfied voice proclaiming the adjective as something beyond doubt, incontrovertible. “Next time we’re doing this in front of a mirror. So you can watch.”
Next time? He wanted to ask, tried to, but then James licked his lips again, and this one he dimly registered as number four, seductively elegant flashes of tongue that caused Michael’s brain, or what was left of it, to implode. Or maybe that was from the thought of James following through on that promise. Making him watch, as James took him apart and made him beg.
He might’ve whimpered again.
“I think,” James mused, “you might be ready for me now. Do you think you are? Or would you rather I keep you here-” The fingers, inside him, flexed again. Found that spot, the one that made him shudder and jerk his hips up against the invading hand. “-like this, even longer? Tell me what you want.”
James wanted him to talk? But that one was an order; he could hear it.
“I want-I want you. In me. Please.”
“Then I think you should get what you want.” All at once, he found himself devastatingly empty, as James slid the fingers away, and used both hands to push his legs up. “You have been very good, you know. And still so polite. I think you deserve a reward.”
“Please-”
James laughed. Moved. All the way inside him, in one swift thrust that left him breathless and dizzyingly full and trembling for more, brightness like fireworks exploding under his skin. And then moved again, finding that exact angle, that precise rhythm, and there was nothing left in the world except the feeling of James there with him, inside him, pushing him closer to that edge.
And then James reached up and found his left hand, where he was still obediently holding onto the couch above his head, because he’d forgotten all about even attempting to move that one. Laced their fingers together. Squeezed. Whispered, “Michael, I want you to come for me, now.”
And he did. As commanded. Because James had told him to.
Somewhere in the middle of the exploding-star brilliance, he felt James coming, too, heat that shivered up through him from the inside out. Together.
Once he figured out that he could move again, he maneuvered them around until they were both stretched out across the couch, James more or less on top of him, mostly because he always distantly worried about being too heavy every time he ended up sleeping on top of James.
James didn’t protest. Just put his head on Michael’s shoulder, and shut his eyes. Said, after a second, very quietly, “Still good?”
“Still spectacular.” Michael reached over. Set one finger lightly next to the closest closed eye, not asking James to open them if he didn’t want to. “You?”
A nod; the hair curled up to flirt with Michael’s ear. “Yes.”
“Good.” He used the other hand to rub lazy circles across the bare expanse of James’s back, connecting all the golden freckles, tracing repetitive patterns like some sort of ritual magic, holding James there beside him. “I love you, you know.”
“I know.” James did look at him, voluntarily, this time, eyes soft and contemplative and sincere under the yellowness of the artificial overhead lighting. “I love you, too.”
“Yes. You do. I know you do. You, um. You said…next time. Did you-”
“Not immediately next time. I mean, I still want you to be the one who-who takes control, in the bedroom. I want you to tell me what to do. You know I want that. But maybe. Sometimes. On special occasions.”
“James. Seriously?”
“I think so, yes. If you want me to.”
“Oh, my god,” Michael said, and then, “I love you so damn much,” and then found himself speechless again, for an entirely different reason this time.
“Don’t do that,” James said, and turned his head to kiss Michael’s fingertip, “you’re going to make me cry, too, and I was being so proud of myself for not getting tears all over you, this time, stop that, come on…” and Michael started laughing, instead, and James, also laughing now, leaned over to kiss him on the lips, solid and sweet and yes, utterly spectacular.
And then James caught a glimpse of the clock, over his shoulder, and started looking horrified instead. “Oh, my god, we were supposed to be on set twenty minutes ago…”
“Really?” Obviously neither of them had noticed. Michael couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty about this. Not when James was laughing. Not when James could laugh again.
Because he had, somehow, said or done some sort of right thing after all, or maybe they’d done the right things together, and James was looking at him as if at least some of those scars had never existed. And still laughing.
“Yes!”
“Um…how fast can you get dressed?”
“Not that fast, I have to be able to move before I can get dressed. And….”
“What?”
“You remember how you took my pants off with your mouth…”
“I’m never going to forget that, you realize.”
“Well…me either, actually. But I don’t think I should wear these on camera. I might’ve been a bit excited at the idea.”
“I might be excited now.”
“Again? Already? When did you become insatiable, exactly?”
“When did you become some sort of sex god? Oh, wait, that was always…”
“Really not true.”
“Very true. We’re already twenty minutes late; can we make it half an hour? If you want I’ll spill the rest of your coffee on your pants and we can pretend we had a wardrobe emergency.”
“Oh…well, technically we did. Caused by your choice of accessories, this morning. Can I have you on top, this time?”
“You can have anything you want. Always.”
“I want you,” James said, “always,” and pulled him back down into the accepting old couch cushions, and the fog, outside, swirled up around the trailer, keeping them hidden, and surrounded, and secure.
Half an hour turned into almost forty minutes, in the end. Fortunately, Matthew was distracted by the continuing mistiness and consequent lighting problems, and just waved away the excuses without really listening. And still wasn’t listening when James leaned over, halfway through the scene, and whispered, “Michael?”
“Love you. What is it? Are you all right?”
“Love you. And yes, I’m fine. It’s nothing, really…just happy it’s cold today, I think.”
“You are? Why?”
In answer, James pushed up his sleeves. And black leather winked back at them, under the silky caress of the fog.