Repost, because the beginning of this story is over a year old.
Title: Sleepwalking (parts one through twenty)
Author: murderofonerose Nathan/Charles
Pairing(s)/Character(s):
Summary: Nathan did it knowing that if Charles told him to stop, he would.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6298
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author Notes: Most of this was written long enough ago that I can read it as though someone else wrote it. And from that perspective, I think my favorite bit is when Nathan decides that Charles' mouth tastes like mouth. With a hint of toothpaste.
Nathan did it knowing that if Charles told him to stop, he would. Charles was the only person who could tell him no anymore.
But, one hand braced against the wall, other hand on Charles’ chest, pinning him there, Charles said nothing. The smaller man just stared at him, head tilted back slightly to make eye contact with a flat, dispassionate gaze, as if to say, ‘Whatever it is you think you’re doing, it had better be worth my time.’
Okay, Charles would probably never say that to him, but that was what he looked like.
Every detail of the man confronted Nathan and he didn’t know what to do. Well-fitted suit, expensive and exactly identical to the one Charles had worn yesterday, and the day before, and the day before… Red tie, the end of it hidden, but Nathan could see flashes of it under his hand, beneath the fingers splayed not far above the top button of the suit jacket. Glasses. Heavy frames. That scar, the one that Charles tried so hard to hide… for what, business reasons? He wasn’t allowed to look as badass as Nathan knew he was?
Nathan stepped closer, knee brushing against Charles’ leg. Leaned in, taking advantage of the tilt of his head. Slowly. Expecting to be told to stop.
It all would have been a lot less confusing if Charles had told him to stop.
Slowly, inevitably, Nathan kissed him. Light press of the lips, and to no protest or reaction. The look Charles was giving him (now at much closer range) was still calm, unflappable, unsurprised. He didn’t say stop so Nathan kissed him again.
Fuck, what the hell was he doing - besides demanding something that Charles’ lips weren’t nearly parted enough to give. This was their lawyer, their manager, their CFO. Nathan and the other guys regularly treated him like shit, throwing tantrums and automatically expecting the guy in the suit to step in and fix anything on command. He was their fucking babysitter and probably knew more about all of them than he wanted to.
Not sure what else to do, Nathan just kept kissing him.
At that moment, Charles was stoically trying to ignore the fact that he now knew Nathan’s breath tasted like beer and Cool Ranch Doritos and espresso. This was… This was so unprofessional, he could barely breathe.
Why are you doing this? he wondered, and if he could have said it out lout it would’ve come out sounding pained. You boys, you aren’t supposed to care. Especially not… like this.
Charles shivered inwardly as Nathan paused, waited for something that (couldn’t) wasn’t going to happen, and then just kissed him again, moving stubbornly ahead like a force of nature until he got what he wanted, the way he did with everything. Nathan would keep going until he got a reaction, and Charles was tired. He had given years to Dethklok, practically died - or literally, depending on who you asked - and he’d done all of that alone.
And he hadn’t said stop. He couldn’t say later that, for the record, he’d tried. Nathan had given him plenty of time to do so. Even pushed him back to the wall slowly, with one heavily muscled (if no longer well-defined) arm. Looming and scowling for some specific but all too easily forgotten reason, long black hair hanging like a partially open curtain. That presence - suddenly stifling, and Charles didn’t know why.
He felt his lips twitch and part, and he didn’t know why about that either. Just, with no warning, he was pushing back desperately. His hands moved up on their own and he grabbed handfuls of Nathan’s sleeves, just at the seams of the shoulders, pulling.
It had been so long since he’d let himself need that it washed everything else away. He almost came off the wall with the force of it but Nathan held him in place - though there was no empty space left between them. Charles melded himself against the singer’s body, kissing him desperately, learning that the taste of espresso was so much stronger than the beer that he must have at least tried to sober up a little before coming into his office. At this realization Charles clung to him even harder, shaking. Someone cared. Someone cared…
Nathan was a little worried. In his experience, people didn’t shake like this when being kissed.
Charles was holding onto him tightly - something that had happened with no warning - and clearly wasn’t about to let go or let him pull away. Before, Nathan had been pretty confident that Charles would put an end to this… whatever it was he’d started. (Why had he done this again? To make some stupid point, probably.) The Charles he was used to would’ve said stop; the Charles who quickly changed the subject back to business whenever anyone brought up porn or tits, the Charles who tended to back out of awkward personal conversations at first opportunity, the Charles who still hadn’t explained why he’d been legally dead for nine months. Instead, they were both going to end up with bruised lips.
And whose fault was that? No, really. Whose.
Nathan cupped his hands around either side of his manager’s face and pushed him back, just enough space to get a breath in. Even that was difficult, because Charles was fighting him desperately.
“Holy shit,” Nathan managed in a hoarse whisper. Just looking at Charles - wide and wild eyes, glasses askew, scar still covered but more noticeable somehow, lips red and wet and parted wantonly, breathing hard - was as powerful as being kissed by him. “Charles…?”
“Holy shit. Charles…?”
Don’t, Charles cried silently. You’ll break it. He pushed against Nathan’s hands until he found his mouth again, and this time Nathan kissed back almost as hungrily. Almost, because he didn’t have years and years of pent up feelings (of any kind, every kind) to let out in this one moment…
It was ending, all too soon. Charles could feel himself coming back, some part of him beginning to realize how serious a line he had just crossed and calculating the damage done, beginning to drag in shame and embarrassment. And guilt, for not being quite able to wish this had never happened. Selfish, he scolded himself miserably. And… masochistic.
He held on for as long as he could, as long as he dared, then slowly released his grip on Nathan’s shirt. Dropped his arms down to his sides. Guiltily relished the last brush of tongues and then cut the kiss short, accidentally grazing Nathan’s bottom lip with his teeth as he pulled away, settling back into his usual cocoon of stoicism. Or trying - he was painfully aware of how this looked. Incriminating. Unprofessional. God help him, reluctant.
“I, ah…” Charles looked away from Nathan’s panting, staring form. “I… If you would excuse me for a minute, Nathan. I need to… collect myself.”
Nathan blinked at him. “Huh?” he said, sounding dazed. “Oh. Uh… yeah. Okay.” Backed away. Looked around the office, as if trying to remember where he was. Turned to leave but kept glancing back over his shoulder every few steps. Charles tried to watch without looking like he was watching. He wasn’t sure if it would… be a good idea for Nathan to know that or not.
Back to the wall, he waited until Nathan was gone and the door closed behind him. Then he walked the few feet to his desk, sank into his chair, held his glasses in one hand and rubbed his face with the other. There was a pressure behind his eyes - not tears and not a headache - that he couldn’t explain to himself. It wasn’t even guilt, and it certainly wasn’t regret. There wasn’t any reason in it, just like there hadn’t been any moment of decision in kissing Nathan.
Don’t think about it, he told himself firmly, assess.
His hair needed to be combed, smoothed back into place. There was work he should get to. He would have to reapply the makeup to cover his scar… just in case. He hated being reminded that he was breakable.
After allowing himself another moment, he went back to work.
Why had he left the goddamn room? Why had he, why had he- Nathan walked down the hall mentally kicking himself. Because he couldn’t go back there now. He knew what “collecting” meant. It would just be the regular Charles in there now. The boring one. The robot. The one who probably did think he was better, and had a right to.
But Nathan was consistent. He’d stopped when Charles had asked him to. Shit.
He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. That parting graze of teeth over his lip - he couldn’t forget that. That intensity… Had that ever happened before? Had anyone ever seen that in Charles’ eyes, felt it in his mouth and body? Was that… new? He wanted to go back and ask Charles if it had something to do with dying. Coming back from the dead. Did that make people… hotter or whatever, somehow? Because that’d be brutal.
The only reason he didn’t turn around was because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t get an answer to that, and almost completely sure that even if he did he wouldn’t understand it. Charles always made everything so fucking complicated.
So fucking complicated. Nathan didn’t want to think about it anymore. He rubbed his hand against his bottom lip again, one more time for good measure, and firmly resolved to ignore this until it made more sense.
Charles waited, but Nathan never came back in.
It was just as well - he wouldn’t have known what to do if he had. And with that slightly uncomfortable knowledge, it was perfectly clear that everything was going to have to go on as if nothing had happened.
TWO WEEKS LATER
Charles hadn’t even avoided him. That thought - a little panicked, perhaps, and somewhere halfway between reproach and indignation - had time to flash through his mind before Nathan growled, “Don’t be a fucking robot,” and the exact same thing was happening again.
And it came rushing back at him, everything he’d been trying to forget in the past weeks. This wasn’t… This couldn’t happen. He would not be shoved against a wall. (He was already there.) He would not let Nathan move in so close. (He could already feel the singer’s body heat.)
“Nathan,” Charles tried. He’d meant to say it in a level voice, and maybe to someone who didn’t know how level usually sounded coming from Charles Foster Ofdensen that’s what it would’ve sounded like. “I have to go…”
“No,” Nathan replied, practically against his mouth.
The word ghosted over his lips, taunting him. Charles turned his head to the side and tried to duck under the arms trapping him. Nathan grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him back into place with a warning growl. Taking advantage, that’s what it was, and it wasn’t fair, and a second later he and Nathan were kissing again. Didn’t know who’d started it. Didn’t really care, just wanted to fight it - so he pushed and Nathan pushed back, and they weren’t getting anywhere but it was liberating all the same.
Charles had wanted this. For two weeks. Without taking any time to think about it, without even realizing…
Nathan had been right; it could happen again. That was good. He growled into the kiss - no, more like an argument, with mouthparts… uh, and no talking - as Charles bit him hard enough to really sting. The manager’s hands were balled up into fists against his chest, knuckles digging in.
He’d been thinking about this. Exactly this. A lot. But not in a… gay way, just… It was Charles. Being interesting, for once, and that was a big fucking deal. Starting to shake. The guy seemed so wound up underneath all that business and numbers stuff, that couldn’t be healthy… Nathan ran his hands down Charles’ arms, pinning him with the rest of his body to feel that weird combination of struggling and yielding at the same time.
None of the fans would ever be like this with him. Even that German psycho lady hadn’t done this - she’d kneed him in the fucking balls, that shit was not okay.
Charles wound his fingers through long black hair and tugged, dragging Nathan’s head down even closer. Fingers on red silk, Nathan tugged at his tie in retaliation.
They were so close - not an accident this time. What did Nathan want? Charles tried to think, tried to assess and deduce, tried to get Nathan to stop pulling on his tie so he could loosen it and maybe get a chance to breathe. Only one of those things happened, and suddenly his tie was unknotted around his neck and he felt even more exposed.
Shivering, he managed to free his mouth for a moment. “Nathan…”
He was still clinging to the man. A part of him realized that his left leg was practically wrapped around Nathan’s right, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.
“I, I…”
Nathan watched him intently. Deep green eyes that Charles wasn’t sure how to read now… but he recognized the look from concert footage, from backstage right after a show. It had just never been directed at him before…
“You what?” Nathan asked. That staring.
Charles had never felt so laid bare.
“I don’t know what you want,” he whispered. Not thinking. The weight of this wouldn’t strike him until later - and good, he thought, because he wasn’t ready to face it now. But at least it wasn’t a question. At least he was certain of his uncertainty.
Nathan shrugged. “Just, uh…” He frowned slightly down at Charles, looking confused. “Fuck, who fucking cares,” he said finally. “Are you going to tell me to stop?”
It was voiced as a challenge, and hung in the air between them. Nathan, Charles realized, was giving him - both of them - an out. Because apparently neither of them knew how to control this. Best to… Best to just end it here.
He didn’t want to. Standing there with his tie undone and Nathan warm and strong against him, Charles didn’t want to.
“I don’t know what you want…”
Well shit, Nathan had been hoping that at least one of them might know. He wasn’t really sure… what there was to want. Besides the obvious, immediate goal of Charles. Something to do with Charles, and seeing him (glasses crooked), and hearing him (quiet, accidental noises), and feeling him (being touched back, especially). Not tasting him, so much, because he just tasted like mouth (and maybe a hint of mint toothpaste). Maybe what he wanted was… was the way their legs were somehow starting to tangle together, that felt pretty good.
“Just, uh…” He trailed off, frowning. Just this is good, he’d been about to say, and what the hell? There was a panting, human Charles pressed up against him and that was about as gay as he was comfortable with. “Fuck, who the fuck cares.” If any of the guys saw this, he’d never hear the end of it. So maybe he should stop.
Or maybe not. It wasn’t like he planned on sticking his dick in anywhere, so it couldn’t be that gay…
Shit. It was Charles’ job to make decisions. That’s what they paid him for, right? It’d be easier to let him decide. Probably faster, too.
“Are you going to tell me to stop?” Nathan asked quickly.
He could feel Charles hesitate. Was that good? Bad? It was hard to tell for about a hundred reasons. Maybe a little less than a hundred…
And then, the sound of someone coming their way. Charles’ eyes didn’t widen and he didn’t frown - barely even blinked as he pushed Nathan off almost instantly, untangling. Nathan let him, because he didn’t want to kiss Charles while he was being a robot.
As soon as he let go, Charles was gone. Nathan had never seen anyone walk so fast and still manage to not seem in too much of a hurry. Maybe Charles was… reluctant to go? Fuck, Nathan didn’t know. It was so hard to tell with that guy.
He leaned against the wall with one hand, hair falling to hide his face and whatever expression happened to be on it. Was he mostly hard from what had just happened? Shit, yes. It was just making out, would never lead to anything like that, but… yes. He growled irritably under his breath.
What might Charles have said? Nathan tightened his other hand into a fist, ready to punch whoever had chosen to come down this particular hallway and prevent him from finding out.
Someone was coming.
Charles forced himself not to react, but on the inside he was panicking. (He hated panicking.) What if they were caught? What if he was caught, flushed and trembling against one of his employers, lips parted wantonly, part of him willing to take anything, offer anything… What if Nathan was caught gratifying his lawyer’s guilty pleasures?
The spike of adrenaline from just thinking about it gave him the strength to push Nathan away, but not to enjoy doing so. Without the singer’s body heat so close, the air was unpleasantly cold. (He made a mental note to look into turning the heat in the corridors up a little bit, later.)
He bolted, feeling like a coward.
It was only after he’d turned a corner that he regained the presence of mind to fix his tie, fingers shaking over the red silk as he knotted it. What was it inside him that refused to be still when he told it to? Something he thought he’d put to rest a long time ago, something far stronger than his will, that Nathan Explosion had woken up… Surely not on purpose. Charles honestly couldn’t understand why anyone would do something this terrible to a person on purpose. He couldn’t even… couldn’t…
Did it have to have been Nathan? That’s what he really wanted to ask himself, but didn’t know how to answer. Could it have been anyone who cared, even a little, to see what he was beyond his professional exterior, or was it the man himself that was doing this to him?
He ran his fingers through his hair, combing it into some semblance of normal as best he could while walking to his office. His lips, he knew, gave him away. And what would have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted?
No, don’t even think about that. It was irrelevant now.
Regardless of how he might have acted, what he had done surely had been taken as a “stop,” and regardless of what the stirring inside of him seemed to want he would just have to live with that.
TEN DAYS LATER
Nathan only made it into the elevator before the doors closed because Charles hit the door open button for him.
“Uh, thanks,” he said.
“Of course. What floor?”
“Uh… recording level. The other guys are already down there. For stuff.” He glanced at the grid of buttons by the door; that one was already lit up. Charles must have been going there too.
“Ah.”
They hadn’t been alone like this for a while. Since the last time. Nathan snuck a look over at Charles, then looked away.
Then looked again, and looked away.
Then looked again, and caught Charles sneaking a glance at him.
“What?” Nathan asked bluntly.
“Hm?” Charles’ mouth tightened fractionally and he looked away. “Nothing.”
Nathan turned to face him, eyes narrowing. What was that bullshit? Robot Charles stared straight ahead in elevators, unless he was lecturing about punching people or something. So this was like… real Charles trying to pretend to be a robot.
Impulsively, Nathan reached out and hit the stop button. The elevator lights dimmed automatically as they halted between floors, partly replaced with the red glow of emergency lighting. It made everything look blood-drenched and awesome.
They stared at each other.
“Were you, uh… going to the studio to try and talk to me about something? Or… something?
Charles took a deep breath, flustered in spite of himself and trying to stall without giving the impression of trying to stall. He considered saying, No, nothing like that, but it didn’t seem right to lie at this late stage. Something was a viable option, but then Nathan would demand that he explain.
There was nothing to explain. He had rushed through the day’s work, attacking it with a concentration and fervor he hadn’t known in years, and... gone to check on the band. His boys. Nathan. It had been a long time, he’d realized, since he had watched Nathan sing. So, acting on impulse, like a man walking in a dream, he’d headed for the elevator.
How the hell was he supposed to explain an impulse?
And now he had been stalling for far too long.
Nathan watched him, all black shadows lined with red.
Stop cornering me like this, Charles willed silently. You don’t know what you’re doing to me. Most of the time, I’m not even sure myself…
He reached out -- damn it, when had he decided to do that? -- and touched the back of Nathan’s left wrist. Just a little, just enough for the barest reassurance of physical contact. Nathan shifted, looking puzzled, and lifted his arm a bit as if he thought Charles might need it for something. But he didn’t.
Next, his fingers ended up on the big man’s chest, where black hair fell like an exclamation mark. Charles didn’t realize until a few seconds later that he’d taken a step forward without intending to. Again.
“I think,” he said with a sigh, in a flat, quiet voice, “that I might be losing it.”
“Uh... Losing what?”
Whatever part of himself that Charles couldn’t make lie still anymore convinced his mouth to relax into a tiny, helpless smile. “My mind.”
Charles was losing his mind? Nathan frowned.
He knew instantly that he didn’t like that answer. He also knew that ‘mind’ probably meant that robot part that made so much boring, smart-person sense. On one hand, he wanted that part of Charles to go fuck itself. When Charles acted like that robot part of himself, Nathan tended to want Charles to go fuck himself. But... that was still Charles, and he thought about the man a little differently these days. Only not really. Except, yeah, he did.
That was probably a little fucked up.
Remembering that he was holding his arm out, Nathan tried to decide what to do with it. In the end he just dropped it back to his side. He’d lost his momentum, or whatever it was that had prompted him to stop the elevator and ask the question.
It was a pretty simple one, though, wasn’t it? Where were you going. It wasn’t that hard. But it still hadn’t been answered...
Charles touched his face. Nathan jumped a little, then concentrated on the fingers sliding slowly but decisively across his cheek and into his hair. He had time to realize another kiss was about to happen. Good, he thought, because this time he hadn’t had to wait nearly as long as he had for the last one.
Doitdoitdoit.
Oh god.
Charles was kissing Nathan Explosion. With tongue, even. And he didn’t want to stop.
He could feel, too, that Nathan didn’t want to stop either. Nathan cared...
Suddenly a speaker crackled to life, asking why the elevator had been stopped and what the emergency was. That was standard safety procedure. Charles was pretty sure he had explained it to the boys several times, but for a moment he had forgotten it too.
He felt an angry rumble in Nathan's chest, and therefore wasn't really surprised when the big man whipped his head around, glaring at someone who wasn't there and couldn't see them. "We're just talking," he growled, and smashed the side of his fist against the panel of buttons as if to add a violent so fuck off.
The panel crumpled. It sparked a little. The emergency lighting snapped off, replaced by the regular whitish light, and the elevator started moving again.
“Fuck,” Nathan muttered. “That is not what I meant to do...”
He really did sound sorry. Charles closed his eyes.
Shouldn’t he feel disappointed? Yes, but that would come later, once they were no longer alone in an enclosed space. With a sigh, he leaned back against the wall of the elevator and opened his eyes again. From the slight distance he noticed the front of Nathan’s jeans. Uncomfortably, he knew that he had the beginnings of the same, ah, side-effect of what they’d been doing.
Suddenly his face felt very warm. He hoped he wasn’t blushing.
Nathan felt ready to kill someone. Well, he felt ready to do something, but his idea of what was vague enough that he was going to ignore it.
(Sex, maybe? Sex with Charles? As if Charles would let him. And he didn’t really know how that worked, anyway. Physically. And the thought of it was weird.)
Only a second or two had past since he’d last spoken, but they were back to not making eye contact. Nathan looked down at the toes of his boots. They were getting pretty scuffed, maybe he should get a new pair.
Fuck, he didn’t want to think about boots! But thinking about all the kissing they weren’t doing would just... make it worse.
The elevator chimed a minor chord as it pulled even with the recording level and the doors slid open.
“Uh...” He cleared his throat. “You want to come listen to us practice? Or... something?” It wasn’t like Charles would be going anywhere else in this elevator. Nathan was pretty sure from the way he’d felt it crunch that he’d totally broken the control panel.
“Later,” Charles replied in a strained voice. “I should stay and make sure this, ah, gets repaired.”
The elevator chimed again, apparently impatient for them to exit. Or maybe it was just stuck open and complaining about it. Nathan didn’t know. He was a musician, not a fucking elevator repair guy. Charles wasn’t either, but if he wanted to avoid him after this... whatever it was that kept happening, all these mixed go and stop and go and stop again signals, then fine.
Falling into a restless sulk, Nathan stomped off without replying.
Obviously, Charles thought as he watched Nathan storm off, that was the wrong thing to say. But, for the record, he had never claimed to not be awkward in... personal situations. This sort of thing always made him profoundly uncomfortable, which was why business had become his second skin. Now, it seemed that Nathan’s mere presence was enough to strip him of that.
Maybe it would be best to avoid him. Just... for a little while.
He ended up not dropping in on the rehearsal at all.
SIX DAYS LATER
Sleep had been hard to come by recently. Every time he caught sight of his own face in any reflective surface, he silently acknowledged that he looked like shit. No one had pointed this out yet and he went back and forth as to whether they didn’t want to mention it or just hadn’t noticed.
Most of the time, he was sure it was the latter. That’s part of what kept him awake every night. That, and the fact that Nathan was angry at him.
Charles crawled out of bed, acknowledging his failure to doze off by pouring himself a glass of brandy. Sometimes that helped.
The brandy warmed his mouth and throat as it went down, reminding him perversely of the way Nathan had made him feel in the elevator, and the hallway, and his office. He accepted it in the same way he accepted that everything was beginning to remind him of Nathan.
Nathan had cared. Nathan would’ve told him that he looked like shit.
And Charles shouldn’t miss that. He’d been fine without that sort of thing for years. But...
No. He was miserable. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep. He’d been catching himself misfiling things all day. This couldn’t go on. It had been a month since the first kiss, and there was probably no going back to the way things had been before, but maybe... maybe an apology would at least fix what had been going wrong for the past week.
Reluctantly, Charles put his glass down, shrugged on a robe, and left the room.
Nathan was dreaming, and pretty pissed to find himself waking up. He scowled, stubbornly trying to hold onto the the images and... really nice sensations... But that just made them pull away faster. Fuck.
By the time he opened his eyes, he was barely sure of what the dream had even been about.
Part of him wanted to let whoever was knocking wait until their knuckles were bloody from all that damn wrapping, but he got out of bed and shuffled over to the door in his underwear. Maybe he wasn’t totally awake yet, or maybe he’d never woken up in the first place, because he was sure it was Charles. It was like he could feel a familiar Charles-ness radiating through the door even though the knocking was uncertain and irregular.
He stood by the door for a minute, trying to decide if it could sound like his manager if it didn’t sound like something the man would do at all, when he realized that the knocking had stopped. Fumblingly he grabbed for the handle and peeked out into the hall.
It was exactly who he thought he it was, already walking away. But Charles turned instantly at some sound Nathan hadn’t even realized he’d made and looked straight at him.
Nathan let the door swing the rest of the way open, since he’d been spotted anyway. “Hey,” he said, forgetting for the moment that he was still pissed at Charles for ignoring him for so long. “You, uh, look like shit.”
Something in Charles’ face twitched. Nathan wasn’t really sure what or how to interpret it, but he did know that the other man was now biting his lip. “Hello, Nathan. I’d, ah... May I come in?”
Wordlessly, Nathan stood back and watched Charles enter his bedroom.
That’s when Nathan remembered he was angry. He kicked the door shut with more force than was necessary and noticed that Charles didn’t jump when it slammed, just looked more agitated.
“What?” Nathan growled. His mind kept flashing to images of Charles close-up, open-mouthed and breathing hard from a kiss, with his glasses askew. He remembered how Charles had all but asked him what he wanted, that time in the hallway. “What do you want?” And it was only as he said it that he realized -- he’d been wondering for the past month.
Charles took off his glasses, intending to clean them on his shirt to give his hands something to do. Then he remembered that he was in his robe and didn’t have a shirt on beneath it. Well, he thought, swallowing hard, that was a bit of an oversight. He blamed the lack of sleep, and put his glasses back on.
“I want to apologize,” he said slowly. Each word felt like a step in a minefield, so he was taking it slow. And he was becoming increasingly aware that he was alone in a room with a bed and a closed door and Nathan Explosion standing there in just his underwear. This is very unprofessional, Charles told himself.
He found himself admiring the way Nathan loomed when he was angry, the way hair fell around his face like a curtain parted only by the force of a piercing glare. The stubborn set of his jaw, and the way it drew attention to the sharp downturn of lips Charles had been trying so hard not to think about.
And suddenly all he could do was remember the first time. The slow push back against the wall, Nathan’s hand feeling unexpectedly warm through his tie and shirt, his head already tilted back to look up at the looming front man because what, what was happening, but under no circumstances could he allow confusion and uncertainty show through...
Now, he knew, it was plainly stamped across his face. He was tired, and he’d lost all control over himself less than a week ago, alone in an elevator with a man he wanted. Needed.
“Apologize for what?” Nathan growled.
Of course, Charles thought faintly, he wants me to be specific. With a shiver, he pulled his robe tighter around himself. Hiding. He hated to hide, hated his own uncertainty, and, briefly, he hated everything Nathan had awoken in him too.
Specific, he reminded himself, in the most businesslike way he could manage. He took a deep breath.
“I want to apologize.”
Nathan’s scowl deepened. That didn’t answer his question, just made him think of new ones. “Apologize for what?”
For a second, Nathan thought that Charles was going to apologize for not saying stop the way he’d expected him to that first time. The robot would climb back out of the man-suit, say it was sorry for the oversight, and take it all back. And then they would both forget about it, eventually. Maybe.
Nathan’s fists tightened in anticipation.
“I’m sorry... for, ah... trying to ignore you,” Charles said, sounding... uncertain? He waved vaguely at the space that separated them. “This... What’s going on, ah, between us. This... These... Over the past few days, I’ve...”
Now Nathan’s hands were loose at his sides and he was staring -- partly out of surprise and partly because Charles was actually blushing, in his face and neck and all the way down to the bit of chest that was visible above his robe.
“I haven’t been sleeping,” Charles managed. “I haven’t... been able to concentrate.” He paused, and a self-deprecating smile appeared on his face. Nathan stared at his mouth and thought that the lips were trembling a little. “I’ve inherited your eloquence.”
“Uh...” Nathan blinked. “Elo-what?”
“Your way with words. Never mind.” Charles took another deep breath, fixed his eyes on something invisible perched on Nathan’s shoulder, and said, “I think I probably need... us, you. I, I mean, we should continue what we’ve been doing. With a more solid understanding of, ah, what exactly that is.”
Nathan took a moment to absorb this. “Kissing,” he supplied helpfully. “Making out. Kissing, with tongue, and, uh, groping.”
Charles blushed a little harder. “I don’t think there’s, ah, been any actual groping.”
“Well there should have been,” Nathan retorted.
A familiar look of exasperation flitted across the other man’s face. “Nathan, please take this seriously.”
But he was. “I am,” he said, and took a few steps forward. Enough to bring them within arm’s reach. “I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying.” He took another step, testing the boundaries, and heard Charles take a sudden breath in anticipation.
Was that really what he was saying?
...Yes. And that small intake of air went a long way to making it totally worth it.
Not much was said after that, but “I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying” echoed in Charles head.
He dropped his arms when Nathan tugged on the loosely knotted belt that held his robe closed, and felt suddenly and very literally exposed. The declaration of intent had him so stunned that a hand touching his chest and then sliding around the curve of his ribs didn’t make him jump, or gasp, or try to speak. That hand was followed by another, and they slid around underneath his robe and pulled him forward.
Oh, Charles thought, but the word didn’t make it to his mouth.
“I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
Now he was pinned against Nathan’s broad chest, with those large, powerful arms tight around him. It would be so easy to shrug off his robe and let it slide down his own arms to the floor to stand there in only his pajama pants, so easy to meet the mouth hovering just above his with another kiss that would by the laws of hormonal gravity draw them towards the emperor-sized bed.
Everything in Charles wanted this. The last of his resistance had drained away with...
“I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
It was almost sentimental, as far as Nathan went. And probably true; there never seemed to be a great deal of processing that came between what went through the man’s mind and what came out of his mouth. But Charles found that he couldn’t catch that mouth, those now all too familiar lips.
Silently, Nathan just looked at him. It was a long, unexpectedly calculating look, and Charles blinked back uncertainly and with a small amount of impatience. Then the hands on his back slid down to his ass and squeezed.
“I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
No one had touched him that way in years, and he made a sound he’d been holding in that entire time, waiting for the next, long distant opportunity. Years of neglect and locking himself away to work, of denying the very memory of affectionate contact because it was a distraction that gradually became one he couldn’t afford. It took a great deal of effort not to fall to pieces as the sensation and the realization that these encounters weren’t all accidental -- Nathan cared, Nathan wanted him -- hit home.
Author: murderofonerose Nathan/Charles
Pairing(s)/Character(s):
Summary: Nathan did it knowing that if Charles told him to stop, he would.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6298
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author Notes: Most of this was written long enough ago that I can read it as though someone else wrote it. And from that perspective, I think my favorite bit is when Nathan decides that Charles' mouth tastes like mouth. With a hint of toothpaste.
Nathan did it knowing that if Charles told him to stop, he would. Charles was the only person who could tell him no anymore.
But, one hand braced against the wall, other hand on Charles’ chest, pinning him there, Charles said nothing. The smaller man just stared at him, head tilted back slightly to make eye contact with a flat, dispassionate gaze, as if to say, ‘Whatever it is you think you’re doing, it had better be worth my time.’
Okay, Charles would probably never say that to him, but that was what he looked like.
Every detail of the man confronted Nathan and he didn’t know what to do. Well-fitted suit, expensive and exactly identical to the one Charles had worn yesterday, and the day before, and the day before… Red tie, the end of it hidden, but Nathan could see flashes of it under his hand, beneath the fingers splayed not far above the top button of the suit jacket. Glasses. Heavy frames. That scar, the one that Charles tried so hard to hide… for what, business reasons? He wasn’t allowed to look as badass as Nathan knew he was?
Nathan stepped closer, knee brushing against Charles’ leg. Leaned in, taking advantage of the tilt of his head. Slowly. Expecting to be told to stop.
It all would have been a lot less confusing if Charles had told him to stop.
Slowly, inevitably, Nathan kissed him. Light press of the lips, and to no protest or reaction. The look Charles was giving him (now at much closer range) was still calm, unflappable, unsurprised. He didn’t say stop so Nathan kissed him again.
Fuck, what the hell was he doing - besides demanding something that Charles’ lips weren’t nearly parted enough to give. This was their lawyer, their manager, their CFO. Nathan and the other guys regularly treated him like shit, throwing tantrums and automatically expecting the guy in the suit to step in and fix anything on command. He was their fucking babysitter and probably knew more about all of them than he wanted to.
Not sure what else to do, Nathan just kept kissing him.
At that moment, Charles was stoically trying to ignore the fact that he now knew Nathan’s breath tasted like beer and Cool Ranch Doritos and espresso. This was… This was so unprofessional, he could barely breathe.
Why are you doing this? he wondered, and if he could have said it out lout it would’ve come out sounding pained. You boys, you aren’t supposed to care. Especially not… like this.
Charles shivered inwardly as Nathan paused, waited for something that (couldn’t) wasn’t going to happen, and then just kissed him again, moving stubbornly ahead like a force of nature until he got what he wanted, the way he did with everything. Nathan would keep going until he got a reaction, and Charles was tired. He had given years to Dethklok, practically died - or literally, depending on who you asked - and he’d done all of that alone.
And he hadn’t said stop. He couldn’t say later that, for the record, he’d tried. Nathan had given him plenty of time to do so. Even pushed him back to the wall slowly, with one heavily muscled (if no longer well-defined) arm. Looming and scowling for some specific but all too easily forgotten reason, long black hair hanging like a partially open curtain. That presence - suddenly stifling, and Charles didn’t know why.
He felt his lips twitch and part, and he didn’t know why about that either. Just, with no warning, he was pushing back desperately. His hands moved up on their own and he grabbed handfuls of Nathan’s sleeves, just at the seams of the shoulders, pulling.
It had been so long since he’d let himself need that it washed everything else away. He almost came off the wall with the force of it but Nathan held him in place - though there was no empty space left between them. Charles melded himself against the singer’s body, kissing him desperately, learning that the taste of espresso was so much stronger than the beer that he must have at least tried to sober up a little before coming into his office. At this realization Charles clung to him even harder, shaking. Someone cared. Someone cared…
Nathan was a little worried. In his experience, people didn’t shake like this when being kissed.
Charles was holding onto him tightly - something that had happened with no warning - and clearly wasn’t about to let go or let him pull away. Before, Nathan had been pretty confident that Charles would put an end to this… whatever it was he’d started. (Why had he done this again? To make some stupid point, probably.) The Charles he was used to would’ve said stop; the Charles who quickly changed the subject back to business whenever anyone brought up porn or tits, the Charles who tended to back out of awkward personal conversations at first opportunity, the Charles who still hadn’t explained why he’d been legally dead for nine months. Instead, they were both going to end up with bruised lips.
And whose fault was that? No, really. Whose.
Nathan cupped his hands around either side of his manager’s face and pushed him back, just enough space to get a breath in. Even that was difficult, because Charles was fighting him desperately.
“Holy shit,” Nathan managed in a hoarse whisper. Just looking at Charles - wide and wild eyes, glasses askew, scar still covered but more noticeable somehow, lips red and wet and parted wantonly, breathing hard - was as powerful as being kissed by him. “Charles…?”
“Holy shit. Charles…?”
Don’t, Charles cried silently. You’ll break it. He pushed against Nathan’s hands until he found his mouth again, and this time Nathan kissed back almost as hungrily. Almost, because he didn’t have years and years of pent up feelings (of any kind, every kind) to let out in this one moment…
It was ending, all too soon. Charles could feel himself coming back, some part of him beginning to realize how serious a line he had just crossed and calculating the damage done, beginning to drag in shame and embarrassment. And guilt, for not being quite able to wish this had never happened. Selfish, he scolded himself miserably. And… masochistic.
He held on for as long as he could, as long as he dared, then slowly released his grip on Nathan’s shirt. Dropped his arms down to his sides. Guiltily relished the last brush of tongues and then cut the kiss short, accidentally grazing Nathan’s bottom lip with his teeth as he pulled away, settling back into his usual cocoon of stoicism. Or trying - he was painfully aware of how this looked. Incriminating. Unprofessional. God help him, reluctant.
“I, ah…” Charles looked away from Nathan’s panting, staring form. “I… If you would excuse me for a minute, Nathan. I need to… collect myself.”
Nathan blinked at him. “Huh?” he said, sounding dazed. “Oh. Uh… yeah. Okay.” Backed away. Looked around the office, as if trying to remember where he was. Turned to leave but kept glancing back over his shoulder every few steps. Charles tried to watch without looking like he was watching. He wasn’t sure if it would… be a good idea for Nathan to know that or not.
Back to the wall, he waited until Nathan was gone and the door closed behind him. Then he walked the few feet to his desk, sank into his chair, held his glasses in one hand and rubbed his face with the other. There was a pressure behind his eyes - not tears and not a headache - that he couldn’t explain to himself. It wasn’t even guilt, and it certainly wasn’t regret. There wasn’t any reason in it, just like there hadn’t been any moment of decision in kissing Nathan.
Don’t think about it, he told himself firmly, assess.
His hair needed to be combed, smoothed back into place. There was work he should get to. He would have to reapply the makeup to cover his scar… just in case. He hated being reminded that he was breakable.
After allowing himself another moment, he went back to work.
Why had he left the goddamn room? Why had he, why had he- Nathan walked down the hall mentally kicking himself. Because he couldn’t go back there now. He knew what “collecting” meant. It would just be the regular Charles in there now. The boring one. The robot. The one who probably did think he was better, and had a right to.
But Nathan was consistent. He’d stopped when Charles had asked him to. Shit.
He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. That parting graze of teeth over his lip - he couldn’t forget that. That intensity… Had that ever happened before? Had anyone ever seen that in Charles’ eyes, felt it in his mouth and body? Was that… new? He wanted to go back and ask Charles if it had something to do with dying. Coming back from the dead. Did that make people… hotter or whatever, somehow? Because that’d be brutal.
The only reason he didn’t turn around was because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t get an answer to that, and almost completely sure that even if he did he wouldn’t understand it. Charles always made everything so fucking complicated.
So fucking complicated. Nathan didn’t want to think about it anymore. He rubbed his hand against his bottom lip again, one more time for good measure, and firmly resolved to ignore this until it made more sense.
Charles waited, but Nathan never came back in.
It was just as well - he wouldn’t have known what to do if he had. And with that slightly uncomfortable knowledge, it was perfectly clear that everything was going to have to go on as if nothing had happened.
TWO WEEKS LATER
Charles hadn’t even avoided him. That thought - a little panicked, perhaps, and somewhere halfway between reproach and indignation - had time to flash through his mind before Nathan growled, “Don’t be a fucking robot,” and the exact same thing was happening again.
And it came rushing back at him, everything he’d been trying to forget in the past weeks. This wasn’t… This couldn’t happen. He would not be shoved against a wall. (He was already there.) He would not let Nathan move in so close. (He could already feel the singer’s body heat.)
“Nathan,” Charles tried. He’d meant to say it in a level voice, and maybe to someone who didn’t know how level usually sounded coming from Charles Foster Ofdensen that’s what it would’ve sounded like. “I have to go…”
“No,” Nathan replied, practically against his mouth.
The word ghosted over his lips, taunting him. Charles turned his head to the side and tried to duck under the arms trapping him. Nathan grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him back into place with a warning growl. Taking advantage, that’s what it was, and it wasn’t fair, and a second later he and Nathan were kissing again. Didn’t know who’d started it. Didn’t really care, just wanted to fight it - so he pushed and Nathan pushed back, and they weren’t getting anywhere but it was liberating all the same.
Charles had wanted this. For two weeks. Without taking any time to think about it, without even realizing…
Nathan had been right; it could happen again. That was good. He growled into the kiss - no, more like an argument, with mouthparts… uh, and no talking - as Charles bit him hard enough to really sting. The manager’s hands were balled up into fists against his chest, knuckles digging in.
He’d been thinking about this. Exactly this. A lot. But not in a… gay way, just… It was Charles. Being interesting, for once, and that was a big fucking deal. Starting to shake. The guy seemed so wound up underneath all that business and numbers stuff, that couldn’t be healthy… Nathan ran his hands down Charles’ arms, pinning him with the rest of his body to feel that weird combination of struggling and yielding at the same time.
None of the fans would ever be like this with him. Even that German psycho lady hadn’t done this - she’d kneed him in the fucking balls, that shit was not okay.
Charles wound his fingers through long black hair and tugged, dragging Nathan’s head down even closer. Fingers on red silk, Nathan tugged at his tie in retaliation.
They were so close - not an accident this time. What did Nathan want? Charles tried to think, tried to assess and deduce, tried to get Nathan to stop pulling on his tie so he could loosen it and maybe get a chance to breathe. Only one of those things happened, and suddenly his tie was unknotted around his neck and he felt even more exposed.
Shivering, he managed to free his mouth for a moment. “Nathan…”
He was still clinging to the man. A part of him realized that his left leg was practically wrapped around Nathan’s right, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.
“I, I…”
Nathan watched him intently. Deep green eyes that Charles wasn’t sure how to read now… but he recognized the look from concert footage, from backstage right after a show. It had just never been directed at him before…
“You what?” Nathan asked. That staring.
Charles had never felt so laid bare.
“I don’t know what you want,” he whispered. Not thinking. The weight of this wouldn’t strike him until later - and good, he thought, because he wasn’t ready to face it now. But at least it wasn’t a question. At least he was certain of his uncertainty.
Nathan shrugged. “Just, uh…” He frowned slightly down at Charles, looking confused. “Fuck, who fucking cares,” he said finally. “Are you going to tell me to stop?”
It was voiced as a challenge, and hung in the air between them. Nathan, Charles realized, was giving him - both of them - an out. Because apparently neither of them knew how to control this. Best to… Best to just end it here.
He didn’t want to. Standing there with his tie undone and Nathan warm and strong against him, Charles didn’t want to.
“I don’t know what you want…”
Well shit, Nathan had been hoping that at least one of them might know. He wasn’t really sure… what there was to want. Besides the obvious, immediate goal of Charles. Something to do with Charles, and seeing him (glasses crooked), and hearing him (quiet, accidental noises), and feeling him (being touched back, especially). Not tasting him, so much, because he just tasted like mouth (and maybe a hint of mint toothpaste). Maybe what he wanted was… was the way their legs were somehow starting to tangle together, that felt pretty good.
“Just, uh…” He trailed off, frowning. Just this is good, he’d been about to say, and what the hell? There was a panting, human Charles pressed up against him and that was about as gay as he was comfortable with. “Fuck, who the fuck cares.” If any of the guys saw this, he’d never hear the end of it. So maybe he should stop.
Or maybe not. It wasn’t like he planned on sticking his dick in anywhere, so it couldn’t be that gay…
Shit. It was Charles’ job to make decisions. That’s what they paid him for, right? It’d be easier to let him decide. Probably faster, too.
“Are you going to tell me to stop?” Nathan asked quickly.
He could feel Charles hesitate. Was that good? Bad? It was hard to tell for about a hundred reasons. Maybe a little less than a hundred…
And then, the sound of someone coming their way. Charles’ eyes didn’t widen and he didn’t frown - barely even blinked as he pushed Nathan off almost instantly, untangling. Nathan let him, because he didn’t want to kiss Charles while he was being a robot.
As soon as he let go, Charles was gone. Nathan had never seen anyone walk so fast and still manage to not seem in too much of a hurry. Maybe Charles was… reluctant to go? Fuck, Nathan didn’t know. It was so hard to tell with that guy.
He leaned against the wall with one hand, hair falling to hide his face and whatever expression happened to be on it. Was he mostly hard from what had just happened? Shit, yes. It was just making out, would never lead to anything like that, but… yes. He growled irritably under his breath.
What might Charles have said? Nathan tightened his other hand into a fist, ready to punch whoever had chosen to come down this particular hallway and prevent him from finding out.
Someone was coming.
Charles forced himself not to react, but on the inside he was panicking. (He hated panicking.) What if they were caught? What if he was caught, flushed and trembling against one of his employers, lips parted wantonly, part of him willing to take anything, offer anything… What if Nathan was caught gratifying his lawyer’s guilty pleasures?
The spike of adrenaline from just thinking about it gave him the strength to push Nathan away, but not to enjoy doing so. Without the singer’s body heat so close, the air was unpleasantly cold. (He made a mental note to look into turning the heat in the corridors up a little bit, later.)
He bolted, feeling like a coward.
It was only after he’d turned a corner that he regained the presence of mind to fix his tie, fingers shaking over the red silk as he knotted it. What was it inside him that refused to be still when he told it to? Something he thought he’d put to rest a long time ago, something far stronger than his will, that Nathan Explosion had woken up… Surely not on purpose. Charles honestly couldn’t understand why anyone would do something this terrible to a person on purpose. He couldn’t even… couldn’t…
Did it have to have been Nathan? That’s what he really wanted to ask himself, but didn’t know how to answer. Could it have been anyone who cared, even a little, to see what he was beyond his professional exterior, or was it the man himself that was doing this to him?
He ran his fingers through his hair, combing it into some semblance of normal as best he could while walking to his office. His lips, he knew, gave him away. And what would have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted?
No, don’t even think about that. It was irrelevant now.
Regardless of how he might have acted, what he had done surely had been taken as a “stop,” and regardless of what the stirring inside of him seemed to want he would just have to live with that.
TEN DAYS LATER
Nathan only made it into the elevator before the doors closed because Charles hit the door open button for him.
“Uh, thanks,” he said.
“Of course. What floor?”
“Uh… recording level. The other guys are already down there. For stuff.” He glanced at the grid of buttons by the door; that one was already lit up. Charles must have been going there too.
“Ah.”
They hadn’t been alone like this for a while. Since the last time. Nathan snuck a look over at Charles, then looked away.
Then looked again, and looked away.
Then looked again, and caught Charles sneaking a glance at him.
“What?” Nathan asked bluntly.
“Hm?” Charles’ mouth tightened fractionally and he looked away. “Nothing.”
Nathan turned to face him, eyes narrowing. What was that bullshit? Robot Charles stared straight ahead in elevators, unless he was lecturing about punching people or something. So this was like… real Charles trying to pretend to be a robot.
Impulsively, Nathan reached out and hit the stop button. The elevator lights dimmed automatically as they halted between floors, partly replaced with the red glow of emergency lighting. It made everything look blood-drenched and awesome.
They stared at each other.
“Were you, uh… going to the studio to try and talk to me about something? Or… something?
Charles took a deep breath, flustered in spite of himself and trying to stall without giving the impression of trying to stall. He considered saying, No, nothing like that, but it didn’t seem right to lie at this late stage. Something was a viable option, but then Nathan would demand that he explain.
There was nothing to explain. He had rushed through the day’s work, attacking it with a concentration and fervor he hadn’t known in years, and... gone to check on the band. His boys. Nathan. It had been a long time, he’d realized, since he had watched Nathan sing. So, acting on impulse, like a man walking in a dream, he’d headed for the elevator.
How the hell was he supposed to explain an impulse?
And now he had been stalling for far too long.
Nathan watched him, all black shadows lined with red.
Stop cornering me like this, Charles willed silently. You don’t know what you’re doing to me. Most of the time, I’m not even sure myself…
He reached out -- damn it, when had he decided to do that? -- and touched the back of Nathan’s left wrist. Just a little, just enough for the barest reassurance of physical contact. Nathan shifted, looking puzzled, and lifted his arm a bit as if he thought Charles might need it for something. But he didn’t.
Next, his fingers ended up on the big man’s chest, where black hair fell like an exclamation mark. Charles didn’t realize until a few seconds later that he’d taken a step forward without intending to. Again.
“I think,” he said with a sigh, in a flat, quiet voice, “that I might be losing it.”
“Uh... Losing what?”
Whatever part of himself that Charles couldn’t make lie still anymore convinced his mouth to relax into a tiny, helpless smile. “My mind.”
Charles was losing his mind? Nathan frowned.
He knew instantly that he didn’t like that answer. He also knew that ‘mind’ probably meant that robot part that made so much boring, smart-person sense. On one hand, he wanted that part of Charles to go fuck itself. When Charles acted like that robot part of himself, Nathan tended to want Charles to go fuck himself. But... that was still Charles, and he thought about the man a little differently these days. Only not really. Except, yeah, he did.
That was probably a little fucked up.
Remembering that he was holding his arm out, Nathan tried to decide what to do with it. In the end he just dropped it back to his side. He’d lost his momentum, or whatever it was that had prompted him to stop the elevator and ask the question.
It was a pretty simple one, though, wasn’t it? Where were you going. It wasn’t that hard. But it still hadn’t been answered...
Charles touched his face. Nathan jumped a little, then concentrated on the fingers sliding slowly but decisively across his cheek and into his hair. He had time to realize another kiss was about to happen. Good, he thought, because this time he hadn’t had to wait nearly as long as he had for the last one.
Doitdoitdoit.
Oh god.
Charles was kissing Nathan Explosion. With tongue, even. And he didn’t want to stop.
He could feel, too, that Nathan didn’t want to stop either. Nathan cared...
Suddenly a speaker crackled to life, asking why the elevator had been stopped and what the emergency was. That was standard safety procedure. Charles was pretty sure he had explained it to the boys several times, but for a moment he had forgotten it too.
He felt an angry rumble in Nathan's chest, and therefore wasn't really surprised when the big man whipped his head around, glaring at someone who wasn't there and couldn't see them. "We're just talking," he growled, and smashed the side of his fist against the panel of buttons as if to add a violent so fuck off.
The panel crumpled. It sparked a little. The emergency lighting snapped off, replaced by the regular whitish light, and the elevator started moving again.
“Fuck,” Nathan muttered. “That is not what I meant to do...”
He really did sound sorry. Charles closed his eyes.
Shouldn’t he feel disappointed? Yes, but that would come later, once they were no longer alone in an enclosed space. With a sigh, he leaned back against the wall of the elevator and opened his eyes again. From the slight distance he noticed the front of Nathan’s jeans. Uncomfortably, he knew that he had the beginnings of the same, ah, side-effect of what they’d been doing.
Suddenly his face felt very warm. He hoped he wasn’t blushing.
Nathan felt ready to kill someone. Well, he felt ready to do something, but his idea of what was vague enough that he was going to ignore it.
(Sex, maybe? Sex with Charles? As if Charles would let him. And he didn’t really know how that worked, anyway. Physically. And the thought of it was weird.)
Only a second or two had past since he’d last spoken, but they were back to not making eye contact. Nathan looked down at the toes of his boots. They were getting pretty scuffed, maybe he should get a new pair.
Fuck, he didn’t want to think about boots! But thinking about all the kissing they weren’t doing would just... make it worse.
The elevator chimed a minor chord as it pulled even with the recording level and the doors slid open.
“Uh...” He cleared his throat. “You want to come listen to us practice? Or... something?” It wasn’t like Charles would be going anywhere else in this elevator. Nathan was pretty sure from the way he’d felt it crunch that he’d totally broken the control panel.
“Later,” Charles replied in a strained voice. “I should stay and make sure this, ah, gets repaired.”
The elevator chimed again, apparently impatient for them to exit. Or maybe it was just stuck open and complaining about it. Nathan didn’t know. He was a musician, not a fucking elevator repair guy. Charles wasn’t either, but if he wanted to avoid him after this... whatever it was that kept happening, all these mixed go and stop and go and stop again signals, then fine.
Falling into a restless sulk, Nathan stomped off without replying.
Obviously, Charles thought as he watched Nathan storm off, that was the wrong thing to say. But, for the record, he had never claimed to not be awkward in... personal situations. This sort of thing always made him profoundly uncomfortable, which was why business had become his second skin. Now, it seemed that Nathan’s mere presence was enough to strip him of that.
Maybe it would be best to avoid him. Just... for a little while.
He ended up not dropping in on the rehearsal at all.
SIX DAYS LATER
Sleep had been hard to come by recently. Every time he caught sight of his own face in any reflective surface, he silently acknowledged that he looked like shit. No one had pointed this out yet and he went back and forth as to whether they didn’t want to mention it or just hadn’t noticed.
Most of the time, he was sure it was the latter. That’s part of what kept him awake every night. That, and the fact that Nathan was angry at him.
Charles crawled out of bed, acknowledging his failure to doze off by pouring himself a glass of brandy. Sometimes that helped.
The brandy warmed his mouth and throat as it went down, reminding him perversely of the way Nathan had made him feel in the elevator, and the hallway, and his office. He accepted it in the same way he accepted that everything was beginning to remind him of Nathan.
Nathan had cared. Nathan would’ve told him that he looked like shit.
And Charles shouldn’t miss that. He’d been fine without that sort of thing for years. But...
No. He was miserable. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep. He’d been catching himself misfiling things all day. This couldn’t go on. It had been a month since the first kiss, and there was probably no going back to the way things had been before, but maybe... maybe an apology would at least fix what had been going wrong for the past week.
Reluctantly, Charles put his glass down, shrugged on a robe, and left the room.
Nathan was dreaming, and pretty pissed to find himself waking up. He scowled, stubbornly trying to hold onto the the images and... really nice sensations... But that just made them pull away faster. Fuck.
By the time he opened his eyes, he was barely sure of what the dream had even been about.
Part of him wanted to let whoever was knocking wait until their knuckles were bloody from all that damn wrapping, but he got out of bed and shuffled over to the door in his underwear. Maybe he wasn’t totally awake yet, or maybe he’d never woken up in the first place, because he was sure it was Charles. It was like he could feel a familiar Charles-ness radiating through the door even though the knocking was uncertain and irregular.
He stood by the door for a minute, trying to decide if it could sound like his manager if it didn’t sound like something the man would do at all, when he realized that the knocking had stopped. Fumblingly he grabbed for the handle and peeked out into the hall.
It was exactly who he thought he it was, already walking away. But Charles turned instantly at some sound Nathan hadn’t even realized he’d made and looked straight at him.
Nathan let the door swing the rest of the way open, since he’d been spotted anyway. “Hey,” he said, forgetting for the moment that he was still pissed at Charles for ignoring him for so long. “You, uh, look like shit.”
Something in Charles’ face twitched. Nathan wasn’t really sure what or how to interpret it, but he did know that the other man was now biting his lip. “Hello, Nathan. I’d, ah... May I come in?”
Wordlessly, Nathan stood back and watched Charles enter his bedroom.
That’s when Nathan remembered he was angry. He kicked the door shut with more force than was necessary and noticed that Charles didn’t jump when it slammed, just looked more agitated.
“What?” Nathan growled. His mind kept flashing to images of Charles close-up, open-mouthed and breathing hard from a kiss, with his glasses askew. He remembered how Charles had all but asked him what he wanted, that time in the hallway. “What do you want?” And it was only as he said it that he realized -- he’d been wondering for the past month.
Charles took off his glasses, intending to clean them on his shirt to give his hands something to do. Then he remembered that he was in his robe and didn’t have a shirt on beneath it. Well, he thought, swallowing hard, that was a bit of an oversight. He blamed the lack of sleep, and put his glasses back on.
“I want to apologize,” he said slowly. Each word felt like a step in a minefield, so he was taking it slow. And he was becoming increasingly aware that he was alone in a room with a bed and a closed door and Nathan Explosion standing there in just his underwear. This is very unprofessional, Charles told himself.
He found himself admiring the way Nathan loomed when he was angry, the way hair fell around his face like a curtain parted only by the force of a piercing glare. The stubborn set of his jaw, and the way it drew attention to the sharp downturn of lips Charles had been trying so hard not to think about.
And suddenly all he could do was remember the first time. The slow push back against the wall, Nathan’s hand feeling unexpectedly warm through his tie and shirt, his head already tilted back to look up at the looming front man because what, what was happening, but under no circumstances could he allow confusion and uncertainty show through...
Now, he knew, it was plainly stamped across his face. He was tired, and he’d lost all control over himself less than a week ago, alone in an elevator with a man he wanted. Needed.
“Apologize for what?” Nathan growled.
Of course, Charles thought faintly, he wants me to be specific. With a shiver, he pulled his robe tighter around himself. Hiding. He hated to hide, hated his own uncertainty, and, briefly, he hated everything Nathan had awoken in him too.
Specific, he reminded himself, in the most businesslike way he could manage. He took a deep breath.
“I want to apologize.”
Nathan’s scowl deepened. That didn’t answer his question, just made him think of new ones. “Apologize for what?”
For a second, Nathan thought that Charles was going to apologize for not saying stop the way he’d expected him to that first time. The robot would climb back out of the man-suit, say it was sorry for the oversight, and take it all back. And then they would both forget about it, eventually. Maybe.
Nathan’s fists tightened in anticipation.
“I’m sorry... for, ah... trying to ignore you,” Charles said, sounding... uncertain? He waved vaguely at the space that separated them. “This... What’s going on, ah, between us. This... These... Over the past few days, I’ve...”
Now Nathan’s hands were loose at his sides and he was staring -- partly out of surprise and partly because Charles was actually blushing, in his face and neck and all the way down to the bit of chest that was visible above his robe.
“I haven’t been sleeping,” Charles managed. “I haven’t... been able to concentrate.” He paused, and a self-deprecating smile appeared on his face. Nathan stared at his mouth and thought that the lips were trembling a little. “I’ve inherited your eloquence.”
“Uh...” Nathan blinked. “Elo-what?”
“Your way with words. Never mind.” Charles took another deep breath, fixed his eyes on something invisible perched on Nathan’s shoulder, and said, “I think I probably need... us, you. I, I mean, we should continue what we’ve been doing. With a more solid understanding of, ah, what exactly that is.”
Nathan took a moment to absorb this. “Kissing,” he supplied helpfully. “Making out. Kissing, with tongue, and, uh, groping.”
Charles blushed a little harder. “I don’t think there’s, ah, been any actual groping.”
“Well there should have been,” Nathan retorted.
A familiar look of exasperation flitted across the other man’s face. “Nathan, please take this seriously.”
But he was. “I am,” he said, and took a few steps forward. Enough to bring them within arm’s reach. “I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying.” He took another step, testing the boundaries, and heard Charles take a sudden breath in anticipation.
Was that really what he was saying?
...Yes. And that small intake of air went a long way to making it totally worth it.
Not much was said after that, but “I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying” echoed in Charles head.
He dropped his arms when Nathan tugged on the loosely knotted belt that held his robe closed, and felt suddenly and very literally exposed. The declaration of intent had him so stunned that a hand touching his chest and then sliding around the curve of his ribs didn’t make him jump, or gasp, or try to speak. That hand was followed by another, and they slid around underneath his robe and pulled him forward.
Oh, Charles thought, but the word didn’t make it to his mouth.
“I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
Now he was pinned against Nathan’s broad chest, with those large, powerful arms tight around him. It would be so easy to shrug off his robe and let it slide down his own arms to the floor to stand there in only his pajama pants, so easy to meet the mouth hovering just above his with another kiss that would by the laws of hormonal gravity draw them towards the emperor-sized bed.
Everything in Charles wanted this. The last of his resistance had drained away with...
“I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
It was almost sentimental, as far as Nathan went. And probably true; there never seemed to be a great deal of processing that came between what went through the man’s mind and what came out of his mouth. But Charles found that he couldn’t catch that mouth, those now all too familiar lips.
Silently, Nathan just looked at him. It was a long, unexpectedly calculating look, and Charles blinked back uncertainly and with a small amount of impatience. Then the hands on his back slid down to his ass and squeezed.
“I want to grope you, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
No one had touched him that way in years, and he made a sound he’d been holding in that entire time, waiting for the next, long distant opportunity. Years of neglect and locking himself away to work, of denying the very memory of affectionate contact because it was a distraction that gradually became one he couldn’t afford. It took a great deal of effort not to fall to pieces as the sensation and the realization that these encounters weren’t all accidental -- Nathan cared, Nathan wanted him -- hit home.