Fic: Primavera, 11/11
The end of this marks the start of my Pinto-writing hiatus. You guys have been so welcoming and supportive, thanks to all.
Title: Primavera, chapter 11/11
Pairing: Pinto
Rating:
Word Count: 8000 out of a total 67000
Summary: AU - Teenage Chris went to live with the Quinto family when his mom got sick
A/N: For halfbreedchild , who knows why ♥
A big thank you to:
emmessann for her contribution to this series
nolikereally , ewinfic , illname_me_joan and all my other Twitter cheerleaders
Everyone who has commented so far: ~~THANK YOU~~
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10
He haunts me here. A short, skinny fourteen, face pinched with fear as he toes his sneakers off at the door. Fifteen, feet and shoulders too big for his height, sitting hunched over his plate at the dinner table, his eyes lighting up every time he notices he's managed to get under my skin. Sixteen: he laughs at me across a party and marks himself indelibly inside of me, and he doesn't even realize. Seventeen and he's sitting across the table from me, gazing in wonder at his girlfriend next to him who is trying to impress Mom. I go upstairs afterwards and jack off, imagining him looking up at me like that, on his knees, my dick laying against his mouth and chin. Here in my bedroom now, lying across my bed with his stomach showing, the line of his cock visible through his underwear, eighteen and the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. He haunts my heart and I'm beginning to figure out that I like it that way.
Maybe it's everything that Mom said, about us being stuck together, or maybe it's being here, surrounded in memories of Chris and of us, how I've always returned to him like I'd never really been apart from him in the first place. Whatever it is, it almost feels good. The leaden feeling in my chest that's there, all the time, when I wake or when I eat or do dishes or talk a walk, it's like I'm carrying us with me wherever I go. He's a part of me, he has been all along. It's not like I'm going to be able to forget about Chris. We're too tied up in each other, family, work, history, all of it. Too many memories, bad and good. He's always going to be there in me, I understand it now and maybe that means I can move on, meet someone else, someone who doesn't make me look at them and hate that they're not him.
“Have you spoken to him? At all?”
“He's not answering his phone. At least not to me, I tried calling him when you'd turned off your phone the other night.”
“Then drive over. Go see him.”
I can almost hear Joe pull a face at me over the phone. “You go see him, you're the one fucking him.”
“Hardly.”
“I don't know what to tell you, kid. I can't help you with this one.”
“Can't or won't?”
“Don't take your shitty mood out on me. Go take a walk or something, I'll call if I hear anything from Chris.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I know. You told Mom yet?”
I look over to where I can see her through the kitchen door tidying away dinner even though I said I'd do it. “Not everything.” I lower my voice. “Not who.”
“Are you going to?”
“Not if I can help it. I don't know, what do you think?”
“Hell if I know. This is all - I don't know, Zach. Do whatever feels right.”
“I guess.”
“That's all any of us can ever do. Hey, I should go. Take it easy, little dude.”
“You too. Love to Margey.”
I grab my jacket, stuffing my feet into the broken-out old sneakers I found in the back of my closet, sticking my head into the kitchen. “Mom? I'm going outside to smoke.”
“How many's that today?”
I manage not to sigh at her like a sulky teen. “This is only my third.”
“I suppose I can't stop you, but I don't like it.” I walk over and press my mouth to the top of her head and she smiles up at me. “What was that for?”
“For worrying about me.”
The stoop's cold under my ass in these old sweatpants but it's a nice day out, the air warming through with a pale sun, four different types of cloud muddying a pale blue sky along with criss-crossing contrails, an airplane flying across now at high altitude with a distant roar. I wonder where it's heading, thinking maybe that's what I should do for a couple of weeks, take off somewhere by myself. Quit leaning on everyone else around me and just go. My eyes keep straying to the road beyond the yard, like maybe if I sit here and watch, a car will appear and drive up to the house, and he'll get out, walk up to me without saying a word and I'll put my arms around him as violins swell in the background. Is that what I'm doing here, waiting on Chris? I thought I had this whole 'retreating into my cave to lick my wounds' thing going on but I watch the road and know that I'm hoping beyond hope that he'll drive up. I finish my smoke and know I need to leave here. I have no idea where I'll go because I've got the same issue at home, but I'm done waiting on Chris. I toy with the idea of going to him, turning up at his place and telling him everything, how I've felt all along. Tell him Mom's glue theory. But I look down the street and know he's not coming, and know there's no point. He said he can't love me more and I'm done waiting for him to try. I take a drag, exhale and watch the smoke from my cigarette lift on the air, a miniature cloud carried on the wind of my breath, not feeling as heartsick as perhaps I should.
“Zach? I'm off to Patty's.”
I jog down the stairs towards her. “I don't know, staying out all hours drinking and carousing. That Patty is a bad influence. Tell her I said hi.”
“Call me if you need me. You promise me, I can always take a cab home and pick the car up tomorrow.”
“I promise but I'm good, Ma. Go have fun.”
“I'll see you in the morning, then.” She reaches up to cup my face, rubbing the ball of her thumb over my cheekbone, no smile, a strange expression that makes me wonder if she's still upset I'll be leaving so soon. “I love you. It's been so wonderful having you home, even for a little while.”
Seems like it. “Love you too. Drive carefully.”
She looks me over one more time, I'm about to ask her what's wrong but she pats my arm and leaves with a softly-spoken Good night.
I've just got upstairs digging through my old dresser for something clean to wear to bed when she comes back in again, I'm guessing because she's forgotten something for Patty, the front door closing with a solid thud. But then there's this sound that's so evocative that my heart about stops as I look in my dresser mirror into my own panicky eyes, knowing I can't possibly be right. But there it is, a herd of baby elephants pounding up the stairs and there's only one person in the world who made those stairs quite so his own. I had a shower earlier and didn't bother with my hair after and it's gone all semi-Spock, fluffy and flat to my head and I'm an idiot for frantically trying to make it look even halfway decent and worrying that I'm still wearing sweatpants and, worse, an old t-shirt of his that I'd pulled on in a fit of sentimentality earlier, hanging out in his room. I count the rest of his steps towards my door. Then he pauses outside and I hold my breath as I wait for his knock, but it never comes and I stare at the door in bewilderment for a second, wondering if I've finally gone over the edge and am imagining all this. Then instinct overtakes and I move to open it myself.
I don't know what I expected. Perhaps a teenage him, skinny and laughing with that obnoxious goatee and gelled-up hair, his eyes flickering over my body, the same guy who has been following me around the house over the last two weeks. I didn't expect this Chris, still bulked out for the movie, his shoulders as broad as the doorway in a plaid shirt that looks old and worn-soft. His eyes are dark, shadowed and red-rimmed, his face pale and guarded as he looks at me, mouth open a scant inch as he stares at me without speaking, his eyebrows drawn together as he looks at my face like he's searching for something. None of the golden, glowing youth he was last time we were in my room together, and more beautiful than he ever was. We stand and look at each other like we can't stop. Then he swallows and looks down, and I try to smooth my bangs back again and break the silence.
“You took your sweet time.”
A reluctant grin and he shoves his hands in his pocket and shrugs. “I wouldn't even be here at all if your mom hadn't threatened me with bodily harm. She said she'd spank my bottom if I didn't come fix things.”
Oh. “You're only here because my mother called?”
“Shit.” Chris pulls his hands out of his pockets and covers his face, wheeling away from the door. “I did it again, didn't I? See, this is why I can't be allowed to be around you.” His hands drop away, his face drawn and tired as he leans back against the hallway wall and looks at me. “That's not what I meant. Stuff always comes out wrong around you, it's like you short out my brain.”
“Chris, you just said -”
“I know what I said! Fuck. I knew this was a bad idea.”
“My mother said what, precisely, when she called?”
He flushes, winces a little. “She railed on me for half an hour because you're unhappy and I'm doing nothing to help fix it, and I tried to play dumb and act like maybe I could talk to you as a friend and see if I could help. But she called me on it. Told me she's sick of watching you break your heart over me and that I need to 'man up', no less.”
“She said what?”
“Then I got mad at you for telling her about us and said some stuff that perhaps I shouldn't have, which is when I figured out that you hadn't told her at all.”
“No, I hadn't. So Mom knows. I thought she might but I didn't want to ask.”
“Yeah, she knows.” He hangs his head, hands back in his jeans pockets and the urge to reach out to him and to pull him against me is overpowering, a physical burn in my muscles. I hug myself instead.
“We're going to talk all this out now, right? All of it?”
“If I can somehow magic the ability to articulate myself around you without making everything worse, sure, that's the idea.”
“Then we need booze.”
His smile is small, instant, lopsided with relief. “Hell yeah, we do.”
My skin prickles, every nerve on alert as he follows me down the stairs and I order him to sit on the couch, which he does, meekly and without question. I visit the kitchen and hand him a beer from the fridge, opening my own and sitting down across from him on the loveseat, legs folded up under my ass, not wanting his nearness to scramble my mind any more than it is already. I feel vulnerable like this, my brows a whole mess, floppy unstyled hair and crappy old clothes, as lame as I ever was but it feels almost defiant, Look at me and want me like this, I dare you. But he doesn't look at me. He looks at his hand on his knee, and around the room, and the label on his beer, and the flowering plant on the side table next to him. I remind myself that I'm not waiting on him any more. “Why are you here? Apart from Mom.”
“You want to know why I broke up with Beau?”
“I thought you said she dumped you.”
He shoots me a sour look. “Yeah, thanks. Do you want to know?”
“Not particularly, no.” It's the truth, I don't want to hear it, how he sucks at relationships, how he's never able to commit. I don't need that particular point driven home any more than it has been already.
“It'll help make sense of stuff. The last month or so.”
I sigh, shrug. “Sure, go for it.”
“She figured me out. It was after Zoe's pre-wrap party, that one with the meze?”
“Right, okay.” I have no idea where he's going with this. It was a fun dinner. Everyone got drunk and I don't remember much more about it than that.
“I had the worst hangover the next day and she wasn't speaking to me, and I actually liked that because I got some peace. I know, I know, I do . . .” as I snort into my beer at him. “I didn't figure out she was mad at me till we were eating later, and she just blurts it out. 'You're in love with Zach'. Long story short, we had a fight, I called her a crazy bitch and she walked out.”
“But you're not in love with me.”
“That's what I said. Over and over. First to her and she'd laugh and say I was in denial, and that it was clear to everyone. Then I kept saying it to myself once she'd gone. 'I'm not in love with Zach.' It sounded convincing, at first.”
My stomach clenches and I set my jaw, remind myself internally that there's no way he's come here to tell me he's in love with me. That's a fantasy, an indulgence I won't allow any more. “You're not in love with me, Chris. Or you can't be, or something. You said it yourself, at Karl's party.”
It's like I've not spoken as he looks into the middle distance and continues, his thumb swiping back and forth over his beer. “It went round and round in my head, 'I'm not in love with Zach'. I went to my parents to get away from it and tried to tell myself that I was getting over her, that I was missing her. That I was aching for her, nobody else. Then I look down at you, walking along the path to me completely oblivious to everything around, talking to the dog, your head in the clouds like it always is, just being all Zach like you always are, like you always have been. It made me think about how you're there, in the back of my mind, all the time. Being so totally yourself.”
I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about and I don't dare try to figure it out. “Okay.”
“I realized that I love you, right there. But it was way too big and, I don't know, all such a mess that I refused to examine it any closer than that. I decided that I love you because, y'know, everything we've been through together, and our families, and that we were finally starting to be friends, good friends, like I'd always wanted. That seemed like a safe, good kind of love. Because the stuff I feel about you has never been safe. It's always too much, and I don't like all the big emotional stuff.”
“Because of your mom's sickness. You don't like to need people too much in case they might leave.”
He closes his eyes, groans. “Oh, God. You've been watching The View with your mom, haven't you? This has nothing to do with my mother.”
“It totally does, I've had many years to think about you and your muddled little psyche, Christopher.” I waggle the neck of my beer bottle at him. “Fear of commitment is basically a fear of desertion.”
“Fuck off, you girl.”
“Whatever.” I relax back with a smile, knowing I'm right. “The truth stings.”
Chris narrows his eyes at me, his fingers stretching out on his thigh, his gaze dropping to watch them. “Moving on from that undoubtedly valuable point -”
“Saying that doesn't make it not true.”
“- Maybe I shouldn't have said anything at Karl's party. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you, but I wanted you to know I felt something, at least, that it was never just sex for me. I thought you knew that, I thought it was blatantly obvious that it wasn't just sex and it seemed so important at that moment, that I made sure you knew it. And, being me, I fucked that up like I fuck everything up with you, and I say totally the wrong thing and your face, you looked like I'd got up and punched you in the face but you took it and told me you loved me anyway and right there, right that very second -” He rubs his finger on his knee, meeting my eyes briefly before looking back down. “It's all stripped away. Everything I ever tried to keep you out falls away and I realized that Beau was right.”
Silence settles over us both as Chris plays with his beer bottle and chews at his bottom lip, and I stare at him, everything aching again, all the hurt returning in a rush from wherever I'd managed to bury it, imagining to myself all these last two weeks that I was getting better at this crap when it was all waiting to come swamp me again. I can't speak. I can barely think. Then his cellphone rings suddenly, abrupt in the heavy silence and we both start as he curses and tries to find it, managing to dig it out of a pocket just as the ringing ends, echoing endlessly in my ears as the silence returns. He switches it off, tossing it down beside him.
“Sorry about that.”
“It's okay. So.”
“Yeah.”
“You know how I feel about you?”
He shrugs and I want so bad to go over there and grab at him, kiss him, push my hands under his shirt. “You have to understand -” He looks up at me, eyes blazing and hot. “- The reason I didn't come here, the whole reason why I didn't chase you here and tell you all this before was because I know how I've screwed things up with us, over and over. All I've ever done is fuck you over, I know that, I hate myself for it and you can tell me it's not true as much as you want, but that's bullshit. It's been my fault, all along. Every time was always going to be the last time, then I'd see you and want you so bad that everything else would fade out to nothing in comparison.”
“You're not entirely alone in that, Chris.”
“That's not the point. I don't want to fuck you over again, and that's what's going to happen. I suck at this, I suck at being with people and I've hurt you so many times already that I figured I lost my chance. It's why I couldn't follow you here.” He's picking at his nails, not looking at me and I can't tear my eyes off him for a moment. “I'll only fuck things up worse if I get another chance with you and I can't handle the idea of that. Screwing you up makes me hate myself. Imagine if it was ever more than a quick fuck between us? Imagine if we were in love and together, and I get all me and, you know . . .”
His voice trails off like he can't bear it, his eyes are wet, desperate and it's a physical pain to look at him like this, broken up over me. All the times I've wanted to punish him for hurting me disappear. It's not even forgiveness, I don't know what it is. I don't want him to hurt like I have.
“I promised your mom I'd come and make things right, even though I don't know if I can ever make that happen but I figured being honest with you, and making it clear that I don't expect anything from you, might be a start.”
A pause as I look at him and he looks at my chest, avoiding my eyes.
“That's bullshit.” Chris huffs out a shocked laugh at me, putting his beer down on the table and rubbing at his eyes as I carry on. “You don't come here and pour out your heart like that without expecting something in return.”
“That's precisely what I did! I'm trying to be noble here.”
“Is that what this is?”
“You're not going to make any of this easy on me, are you?”
“Not if I can help it.” But he's grinning at me, one arm folded across his torso, the knuckles of his other hand pressed against his mouth and I'm smiling right back at him. “I'm always way too easy on you, Chris.”
“Now that's bullshit.”
“You know I love you, right?” He nods, shrugs, looks at the ceiling and blinks a lot. “I'm in love with you, I have been forever. Mom's got this whole theory, it sounds stupid but it made a lot of sense once I'd thought about it, at least from my point of view -”
“You're in love with me?” His voice cracks and he coughs, clears his throat, frowns once more. “No, Zach.”
“No what? No, I'm not in love with you? I'm telling you that I am.”
“We can't do this. Don't you get that?”
“Of course I don't.”
“You were right, that night at my old place when you went all Tyson on me. I'm poison. I always have been.”
“That was how many years ago? So you were a douche. Everyone is at that age. Consider tonight a start-over.”
“It's too late for that.”
He's doing it again. I'd laugh at how routine it's becoming but it's dawning on me slowly that he's pushing me away again, and I'm too shell-shocked to manage more than a low croak. “Please don't do this.”
“I have to.”
“No, you don't.”
Chris ignores me, gets up off the couch, grabbing his phone as he goes and shoving it back in his pocket, walking away from me and through to the entrance hall, grabbing his jacket off the bottom of the stair rail and I'm so frustrated I could shake his head off his damn body.
“That's right, run away.” I follow him through, fold my arms, lean against the living room door as I check out his ass to make my point. “It's not like I don't enjoy the view when you do.”
“I'm not running away, not this time, you have to be able to see that.” He touches me for the first time, his hand gripping my elbows, his skin on mine, a sense of urgency pouring off him. “I'm not running from you, Zach. I'm protecting us both.”
I clench my hands into fists, unsure if I can keep myself from grabbing at him. “Don't go.”
“I have to. You'll get that, one day.” He moves in fast, kisses me gently and draws away before I have a chance to kiss him back. “I'll see you around, okay?”
It all feels like this is happening to someone else, an out of body experience like I'm dying and floating somewhere on the ceiling watching this happen. Like I'm watching a really shitty play. I can't believe he's doing this again. My voice is so firm, so sure that I know it's true this time. “If you go now, it has to be it with us. Outside of work we're through, because I can't keep opening myself up to this. Either stay and say it out loud, that you're in love with me without hiding behind stuff that your ex-girlfriend said, or leave me be. Man up, or fuck off.”
His face reacts, his mouth falling open before he nods and closes it, his body moving a step back already as he reaches for the door handle. “I'm sorry.”
“Me too.” I wait till the door closes, latching it with steady fingers.
A clear sky at night's still just cold enough to bite at my bare feet and arms as I go outside after having sat on the couch and stared at the opposite wall for twenty minutes after he left. There's too much glare, from the streetlights and from town, from the porch light itself as I sit on the stoop and smoke, trying to see if there's any constellations I recognize out tonight. I'm just trying to remember which is the one that some distant memory insists Dad told me looks like a big X shape, when a voice comes out of the darkness along with a plume of cigarette smoke that's not mine, surprising me up off the step and back towards the door before I figure out it's Chris.
“I couldn't leave.” He flicks his cigarette butt off down the driveway.
“Apparently not.” I sit down suddenly, my legs weak. “God, I can't take this. I need a vacation. A proper one, away from you.”
“I'm in love with you, Zach. I thought I'd said it.”
“No. You didn't.”
“I do, I am. And I want - everything. All of it. I want you. I want us.”
I look out at the road, a breeze making the heads of Mom's spring bulbs dance in silhouette along the edge of the front yard against the street beyond, lit up brighter than the porch. He sits down next to me, his hip against mine, his shoulder, his knee.
“I'm glad you didn't go.”
“Me too.”
I grind out my cigarette and tuck the stub into the little dish I've got by the door. Chris leans on my shoulder, his hair sticking up my nose when I turn my face towards his without thinking. I don't mean to kiss him, to do anything at all but he lifts his face, his mouth meeting my lips as I lean into him, and we wrap around each other tight and kiss on my mother's stoop. His arms are warm where mine are cold, my feet numb and my heart lifting into the cloudless black sky as he whispers that he loves me one more time against my mouth, his tongue wet as it slides against mine. I don't know how long we sit there, pressing up against each other, slowly exploring each other's mouths like there's no rush any more. It's not about sex this time, even though I'm hard as hell and aching for more, but the kiss is too good, his mouth on mine, the way he strokes over my face in gratitude, a kind of awe, I know that's what it is because I'm doing the same with him. He rests his head against mine and we sit there, breathing together, shifting a little in something that's not quite enough to be a nuzzle, just the slightest movement of skin on skin.
“Zach.”
“Mhmm.”
“We can really do this?”
“What else can we do? We've tried being apart. Doesn't work.”
Chris sighs, his breath smoky against my face, a hint of beer. “I'm scared, of course I am. You're terrifying, you always were, right from when we were kids.”
“Me? Get out, I was not.” My mouth against his hair as I close my eyes and breathe him in, unable to stop.
“Are you kidding? You were so tall and you knew all this cool stuff and had this awesome room and excellent brother who loved you and everyone always talked about how talented you were, how Zach's one of a kind, even my parents did, they still do, it drives me crazy. And you were so bitchy and could curse like nobody else, and you smoked pot, and got into car crashes and went to concerts and the theater and partied and you were gay and didn't even care if you got shit over it, I mean, how cool was that? I had the worst case of hero worship over you.”
“You did not.” He nods against my jaw.
“Yep.”
“Trust me, you hid it well. ”
He turns against me, his nose rubbing beneath my ear. “I had to, you'd have crucified me if I hadn't. You were everything I wasn't.”
“Chris, I was a geek. I still am.”
“Are you kidding? You're not a geek, you're the hottest thing on the goddamn planet, look at you.” Stroking his fingers over my face, into my hair, his thumbs on my neck before hugging into me again like he can't bear any distance. “I want to be with you, you have to know that but it's not going to be easy, not with me. I am what I am, I know that.”
“You're quoting Popeye at me?”
“Oh, fuck off.” He rubs his nose in my ear. “See? It's hopeless. We're too, whatever we are. We're screwed before we even start.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Turning my head to press my cheek against his. “Won't know unless we try.”
“But what if -”
“Will you just grow a pair? So we might break up. This is us, all that means is we'll wait a year before jumping on each other again. It's never really over with us and God knows I've hoped it would be enough times.” I slide my hand along his jaw, gently guiding his face until he's looking at me, his eyes bright in the porch light as they gaze into mine. “Being with other people was always too easy because I didn't give a damn. I don't for a minute believe that this'll be easy. I don't think it's supposed to be.”
We sit there, hugging into each other, the breeze carrying a scrap of old paper up from the driveway to play around the step below. It feels like I could hold onto him forever.
“You're shaking.”
“I'm freezing my ass off out here.”
“Yeah?” His eyes twinkle, that same old piss and fire, mischievous like he's just unearthed my secret porn stash. “We'd better get you warmed up, then.”
Chris pulls me to my feet, his hands sliding easily under my sweats to palm my ass through my shorts, his hands warm, easily covering each cheek. I purse my lips at him and he grins, squeezes.
“It's always about the sex with you.”
“Not always.” I give him a skeptical look and he laughs. “Okay. Mostly, but not always.”
“I never told you how pissed I was when you got it back together with Matt. I didn't even know how I felt about you then but, man, I was seriously peeved.”
I pause in rubbing over his dick in his jeans as he struggles out of his belt and with his fly. “Is now really the time to discuss my ex?”
“Not even if it's me being cute and jealous and stuff?”
“God, no. Will you just get your -”
“I'm getting to it, wait a sec.” Chris shimmies out of his jeans and shorts, and tosses them into the corner of my room, where we've finally made it after ten minutes of dry humping on the stairs. I look at him, reaching out to run my hands over his beautiful body, solid muscle under soft skin that I've memorized over the years, every mole, freckle, birthmark, every tone and texture, every hair one by one. He lies down on top of me, one leg between mine, my thigh between his as I rub against his furry balls, his dick hard at my hip as we kiss like we're trying to devour each other, loud and wet. Then he pulls away a couple of inches, his damp mouth open just above mine, his eyes a little dazed.
“I get to wake up with you tomorrow.”
“You do.”
“And the next day, if we want.”
“Sounds like a plan's forming.” I push up to kiss him again, hands in his hair cupping his whole head as we rock together. I reach down to start stroking him and he gasps against my mouth,
“I think I like our plan.”
“Me too.” I bite over his chin, his stubble scraping my teeth and tongue, suck at his neck. “I want to fuck you again.”
A low chuckle as he plays with my nipple, rubbing over it with his thumb, playing with the hairs there. “Way to get straight to the point, Zach.”
“What, you don't want me to?”
“Fuck yeah, I do.”
“Then quit giving me a hard time and turn over.”
He's lying next to me on his side as we rub together slowly, looking into each other's eyes, and he strokes my cheekbone with his thumb, thrusts against me and leans in to lick over my bottom lip. “There's something I want.”
“Chris, I'm sorry but I don't bottom. Not even for you. I don't think. Maybe? Not tonight.” But he's laughing, burying his face in my neck and the laugh turns into a moan as I rub my thumb around the crest of his cock.
“No, that's not what I want. Although . . .”
“No.”
“You totally want me to.”
“This is my 'I don't want you to fuck me' face.”
“I didn't even want to fuck you till you brought it up.”
“Well that's okay, then, because you're not going to.” I can't stop laughing, like I'm high, Chris's head on my shoulder because he can't stop either.
“Be serious. I'm asking something serious.”
“Right.” I make a serious face then my lips crumple and I'm laughing again and he rolls away.
“That's it, no more sex for you.”
“I'm okay, I'm calm, I can do this.”
“I want you to fuck me, Zach. Just you and me, your dick in my ass, no rubber.”
I've never been further from laughing in my life. “You're serious.” I can tell from his face that he is, his eyes dark and deep, the way he looks at me, a work of art, a Greek sculpture made flesh and everything I've ever wanted.
“I want to feel you shoot inside me. I just thought it might be - I don't know, I want that. Tonight.” Chris squints like he's regretting saying anything. “I grossed you out.”
“No, but I never did that. I'm, like, safety guy.”
“Which is great, because it means you're -”
“Oh, I am.”
“- and you know I am, you can trust that I'm . . . you know. Clean.”
It's like he's lit a fire under my nuts, the urge to hold him down and shove into him and fuck him hard building all over me like something primal. I've never come in anyone before and the idea, fucking him, filling him up, marking him inside as mine - I'm so turned on I can barely breathe. I nod. Keep nodding, covering his body with my own, licking over his neck. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, hell yeah.”
No more time for talk and I shove my tongue into his mouth hard, licking around his teeth and his tongue as he pushes up against me like he can't get enough of his skin against mine. I start to work my way down him, sucking at his nipples one by one as I finger his balls lightly, threading my fingers through his soft bush, brushing my thumb down the length of his cock. He sighs out my name, twisting beneath me to dig around in the drawer of my nightstand as I bite over his stomach and hipbone, my fingers tracing his buttcrack.
“Got any lube in here?”
“Should be.” There's an almost new bottle that I bought second day I was here, and I keep to myself that I've been jacking off all week thinking about him like this, naked beneath me, my tongue tracing the lines of his muscles. Thinking about fucking him. I pump out a fingertip of lube, tell Chris to spread his legs and he does it, lying back against my bed, his hands moving over himself, reaching down to touch his dick as I start rubbing over his asshole. He's so built at the moment, skin taut over his flushed chest, his thighs thickly muscled as I push a finger into him and he spreads his legs wider with a moan. I watch him writhe on my childhood bed with my finger plugged deeply in his ass, and I'm so turned on I can feel my dick dripping against the sheets, sixteen-year-old me looking over my shoulder unable to believe there's any way I could ever get a guy so fine and perfect spread out under me like this.
“More.”
“Yeah?” Two fingers in him and he closes around me, hot and wet, gripping my fingers as I work them inside of his ass making him squirm. I hunch down to bite and kiss his inner thighs, his pucker tightening on me each time and I start to fingerfuck him, making him curse and pull his knees up to his chest.
“I'm going to get so into you fucking me. I'm going to want it all the time, I'm going to be, like, a big ol' slut for it.”
“I'm sure I'll deal.”
“Heh, I bet. That feels so, fuck, more, I want more. I want you, come on, put your dick in me.”
A whiny hint of need touches his voice and I lift my head from where I'm soaking his nuts with my tongue. “Patience, Christopher.”
“Don't call me that when you've got your fingers ahhfuck no, God, yes.” He grabs a pillow and holds it over his face briefly, cursing into it, his pucker squeezing on my hand and my dick jumps, aching to get inside. I look at him, face hidden from view, his cock flexing across his flat, tight belly spreading a sticky mess that darkens and smears the fine hairs of his treasure trail, and I can't wait any longer. I grit my teeth against the pulsing, coursing need deep in my balls, coat myself with more lube and grab his legs, pulling them up against me. Chris reappears from under the pillow, flushed in the face and grinning as he mashes the pillow under his hips and strokes my shoulder with the roughened flat of his foot. “Don't make me wait. Stick it in.”
“'Stick it in'?” I line up, rub the head of my dick over him a couple of times before beginning to push with my hips.
“I'm sorry.” Chris bites his lip, frowns as I press harder. Deepens his voice to a purr, his eyes slitty with lust when he looks up at me. “Make love to me, Zachary.”
I answer with a snort and a thrust, breaching his hole and his whole body jerks, his legs clamping down around my neck as I start to push in further. “Fuuuck, I'd forgotten how big you feel.”
“I'm not so big. You're just really tight.” My voice is gruff with my tenuous grip on control, fingers gripping his thighs as I sink into him slowly, his hot chute opening up to take me in, tight and wet and warm, gripping and caressing every inch of my naked dick as I press in deeper still. I push until I can't get in any deeper, so totally connected with Chris, looking down at him sweating and gasping and trying to get used to me, and nothing's ever felt as good as this. I can feel everything, every tiny movement of his gut around me, his heat, the way his whole body encloses me perfectly like he was built that way for this purpose alone.
“Still hurts.”
“I'll have to fuck you a couple of times a day until you find it easier.”
“You'd do that for me? Aww.” I raise an eyebrow at him and flex my dick inside of him and he shivers, grins. Gasps as I pull out a little and slowly slide back in, wanting to watch him but he's so tight on me, so hot and being inside him without a rubber on is so intense that I have to close my eyes and breathe slow. Pull out once more, further this time, his hot little ring tight on me and pulling every drop of blood in my dick into the tip, which throbs heavily as I drip inside of him.
“I can't wait.” It's almost a growl and Chris looks up at me, mouth open, a slight frown.
“Then don't. Fuck me. Come in me.”
“Oh, Jesus.” I grab at his hips and shove into him hard, and he curses, starting to beat off fast as I start to fuck him, pounding my way in fast, finding a rhythm then having to slow because I'm already getting close. I turn my head to kiss his leg, his ankle, slowing to a stop and pausing to breathe as Chris keeps jerking off, his asshole clenching and squeezing around me tight.
“Don't stop now.”
“I'm too close, it's too much, I'm going to come too soon.”
“Me too, God, you're going to come in me, you're going to shoot your load, fuck, fuck, come on, please.” He's gaspy and tightening on me, and I give into it, his wet heat, slamming into him again, faster now, clawing at his hips as a climax builds in my balls, the base of my spine, the head of my dick pounding its way through his hot little hole. Chris's eyes are closed, his face screwed up as he jacks off, yanking hard at his dick as he whispers it over and over again, 'Come in me, come in me, fuck, do it, come inside me'. I start to shout before I'm even coming, the pressure building too high, a loud buzz overtaking me, my body singing with every atom, every heartbeart, every thrust and there is nothing in the whole world but my dick in his ass as I shove in hard and shoot into the depths of his gut.
He curses, loud, feeling the wet splash of my jizz coating his insides as I keep fucking through an orgasm that thunders through my body like a stampede, shaking me down to my bones. Chris thrusts up off the bed against me and shoots all over his stomach and chest with a wail, his butthole clenching on me hard, milking my dick and I whimper as I feel my dick pulse one last time, too much, way too much, like I've been cracked open and turned inside out. Chris's eyes open, his hand slowing on his dick, his body shaking as he gasps for breath and looks at me with recognition, like he's close to tears. I thrust into him one more time then have to pull out and collapse on top of him, no choice in it at all, a puppet with its strings cut.
His fingers are shaking as they splay out over my head, playing in my sweat-damp hair. “You need to move.”
“Can't.”
“You're too heavy.”
“Whatever. Can't move.”
His low laugh turns into a moan. “I can feel - your cum is dripping out of me. How the fuck is that even hot?”
“Don't give a fuck. Sleepy time.”
“Zach -”
“Shhh.”
I'm like a dead person only sweatier and messier as he wrestles his way out from under me and out of the bed. “You want the sheet over you? Or not? I'm going to go clean up, if I can still walk. Oh God, it's running down my leg now.”
“Hmmrm.”
“Hey. I love you.”
“Uh-huh.” I'm slipping further into the dark tunnel of sleep, the bed beneath my face warm and welcoming, and I'm aware at some level that Chris leans down to kiss my shoulder before he walks off towards the bathroom and I'm gone.
It's past eleven by the time Mom finally makes it home from Patty's place, calling out to me first and I reply as I pull my hand out of Chris's underwear from where we're necking at the sink in the process of filling the coffee pot, both of us scooting into chairs and tight to the table as she comes into the kitchen and finds us both unable to stop smiling at each other, Chris flushing as red as Mom's purse all over his face and naked chest. She lays her purse and keys on the table, tucking her coat over the back of another chair without a word, and Chris big-eyes at me as I eyebrow back at him and barely repress a laugh. She picks up the discarded coffee pot, filling it in the sink as she gazes out the window into the backyard.
“Nice to see you disregarded my reminder that this is a Christian household when I asked you to visit Zach, Chris.”
“Mrs. Q, Zach and I, we, uh -”
She holds up a finger and he hushes instantly while I hide an ever-wider grin behind a hand. “Please don't compound it by lying to me, I'm not an idiot.” She fills the machine, switching it on and then she finally turns to us, leaning back against the counter, arms clasped across her stomach. “Am I to assume we have a . . . conciliation?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“And that there'll be no more conciliating under my roof?”
“Yes. No. Yes.” I glare at him for kicking my leg under the table. “What?”
“I'm sorry, Mrs. Q. I'll make sure he takes this seriously.”
“You always were a good kid. Not like this one.” She kisses the top of my head, stroking the growing Spock bangs forward into place before I frown and brush them back again. “I'm going to go shower. I expect there to be a little more clothing in place around here and some coffee waiting for me once I'm done.”
“Sure thing, Mom.” I touch her arm. “Thank you.”
“You can't fight the glue, sweetheart. Any time.”
She leaves the room, his grin widening at me, white and completely heart-stopping. I've pulled Chris out of his chair and against me before she's halfway up the stairs, kissing his stomach and sliding my hands up the backs of his thighs under the legs of his shorts to stroke over the underside of his asscheeks. He holds my face gently, thumbs stroking over my brow stubble, looking at me with an intense expression that's not really a smile but feels like it could be.
“I love you so much.”
I turn my face into his hand and kiss his palm, murmuring 'I love you too' there, wrapping my arms around his waist. Chris leans down to kiss me and, with his lips on mine, the quiet miracle of his tongue curling into my mouth and the heavy, solid warmth of his body in my arms, I know I've come home.
Title: Primavera, chapter 11/11
Pairing: Pinto
Rating:
Word Count: 8000 out of a total 67000
Summary: AU - Teenage Chris went to live with the Quinto family when his mom got sick
A/N: For halfbreedchild , who knows why ♥
A big thank you to:
emmessann for her contribution to this series
nolikereally , ewinfic , illname_me_joan and all my other Twitter cheerleaders
Everyone who has commented so far: ~~THANK YOU~~
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10
He haunts me here. A short, skinny fourteen, face pinched with fear as he toes his sneakers off at the door. Fifteen, feet and shoulders too big for his height, sitting hunched over his plate at the dinner table, his eyes lighting up every time he notices he's managed to get under my skin. Sixteen: he laughs at me across a party and marks himself indelibly inside of me, and he doesn't even realize. Seventeen and he's sitting across the table from me, gazing in wonder at his girlfriend next to him who is trying to impress Mom. I go upstairs afterwards and jack off, imagining him looking up at me like that, on his knees, my dick laying against his mouth and chin. Here in my bedroom now, lying across my bed with his stomach showing, the line of his cock visible through his underwear, eighteen and the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. He haunts my heart and I'm beginning to figure out that I like it that way.
Maybe it's everything that Mom said, about us being stuck together, or maybe it's being here, surrounded in memories of Chris and of us, how I've always returned to him like I'd never really been apart from him in the first place. Whatever it is, it almost feels good. The leaden feeling in my chest that's there, all the time, when I wake or when I eat or do dishes or talk a walk, it's like I'm carrying us with me wherever I go. He's a part of me, he has been all along. It's not like I'm going to be able to forget about Chris. We're too tied up in each other, family, work, history, all of it. Too many memories, bad and good. He's always going to be there in me, I understand it now and maybe that means I can move on, meet someone else, someone who doesn't make me look at them and hate that they're not him.
“Have you spoken to him? At all?”
“He's not answering his phone. At least not to me, I tried calling him when you'd turned off your phone the other night.”
“Then drive over. Go see him.”
I can almost hear Joe pull a face at me over the phone. “You go see him, you're the one fucking him.”
“Hardly.”
“I don't know what to tell you, kid. I can't help you with this one.”
“Can't or won't?”
“Don't take your shitty mood out on me. Go take a walk or something, I'll call if I hear anything from Chris.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I know. You told Mom yet?”
I look over to where I can see her through the kitchen door tidying away dinner even though I said I'd do it. “Not everything.” I lower my voice. “Not who.”
“Are you going to?”
“Not if I can help it. I don't know, what do you think?”
“Hell if I know. This is all - I don't know, Zach. Do whatever feels right.”
“I guess.”
“That's all any of us can ever do. Hey, I should go. Take it easy, little dude.”
“You too. Love to Margey.”
I grab my jacket, stuffing my feet into the broken-out old sneakers I found in the back of my closet, sticking my head into the kitchen. “Mom? I'm going outside to smoke.”
“How many's that today?”
I manage not to sigh at her like a sulky teen. “This is only my third.”
“I suppose I can't stop you, but I don't like it.” I walk over and press my mouth to the top of her head and she smiles up at me. “What was that for?”
“For worrying about me.”
The stoop's cold under my ass in these old sweatpants but it's a nice day out, the air warming through with a pale sun, four different types of cloud muddying a pale blue sky along with criss-crossing contrails, an airplane flying across now at high altitude with a distant roar. I wonder where it's heading, thinking maybe that's what I should do for a couple of weeks, take off somewhere by myself. Quit leaning on everyone else around me and just go. My eyes keep straying to the road beyond the yard, like maybe if I sit here and watch, a car will appear and drive up to the house, and he'll get out, walk up to me without saying a word and I'll put my arms around him as violins swell in the background. Is that what I'm doing here, waiting on Chris? I thought I had this whole 'retreating into my cave to lick my wounds' thing going on but I watch the road and know that I'm hoping beyond hope that he'll drive up. I finish my smoke and know I need to leave here. I have no idea where I'll go because I've got the same issue at home, but I'm done waiting on Chris. I toy with the idea of going to him, turning up at his place and telling him everything, how I've felt all along. Tell him Mom's glue theory. But I look down the street and know he's not coming, and know there's no point. He said he can't love me more and I'm done waiting for him to try. I take a drag, exhale and watch the smoke from my cigarette lift on the air, a miniature cloud carried on the wind of my breath, not feeling as heartsick as perhaps I should.
“Zach? I'm off to Patty's.”
I jog down the stairs towards her. “I don't know, staying out all hours drinking and carousing. That Patty is a bad influence. Tell her I said hi.”
“Call me if you need me. You promise me, I can always take a cab home and pick the car up tomorrow.”
“I promise but I'm good, Ma. Go have fun.”
“I'll see you in the morning, then.” She reaches up to cup my face, rubbing the ball of her thumb over my cheekbone, no smile, a strange expression that makes me wonder if she's still upset I'll be leaving so soon. “I love you. It's been so wonderful having you home, even for a little while.”
Seems like it. “Love you too. Drive carefully.”
She looks me over one more time, I'm about to ask her what's wrong but she pats my arm and leaves with a softly-spoken Good night.
I've just got upstairs digging through my old dresser for something clean to wear to bed when she comes back in again, I'm guessing because she's forgotten something for Patty, the front door closing with a solid thud. But then there's this sound that's so evocative that my heart about stops as I look in my dresser mirror into my own panicky eyes, knowing I can't possibly be right. But there it is, a herd of baby elephants pounding up the stairs and there's only one person in the world who made those stairs quite so his own. I had a shower earlier and didn't bother with my hair after and it's gone all semi-Spock, fluffy and flat to my head and I'm an idiot for frantically trying to make it look even halfway decent and worrying that I'm still wearing sweatpants and, worse, an old t-shirt of his that I'd pulled on in a fit of sentimentality earlier, hanging out in his room. I count the rest of his steps towards my door. Then he pauses outside and I hold my breath as I wait for his knock, but it never comes and I stare at the door in bewilderment for a second, wondering if I've finally gone over the edge and am imagining all this. Then instinct overtakes and I move to open it myself.
I don't know what I expected. Perhaps a teenage him, skinny and laughing with that obnoxious goatee and gelled-up hair, his eyes flickering over my body, the same guy who has been following me around the house over the last two weeks. I didn't expect this Chris, still bulked out for the movie, his shoulders as broad as the doorway in a plaid shirt that looks old and worn-soft. His eyes are dark, shadowed and red-rimmed, his face pale and guarded as he looks at me, mouth open a scant inch as he stares at me without speaking, his eyebrows drawn together as he looks at my face like he's searching for something. None of the golden, glowing youth he was last time we were in my room together, and more beautiful than he ever was. We stand and look at each other like we can't stop. Then he swallows and looks down, and I try to smooth my bangs back again and break the silence.
“You took your sweet time.”
A reluctant grin and he shoves his hands in his pocket and shrugs. “I wouldn't even be here at all if your mom hadn't threatened me with bodily harm. She said she'd spank my bottom if I didn't come fix things.”
Oh. “You're only here because my mother called?”
“Shit.” Chris pulls his hands out of his pockets and covers his face, wheeling away from the door. “I did it again, didn't I? See, this is why I can't be allowed to be around you.” His hands drop away, his face drawn and tired as he leans back against the hallway wall and looks at me. “That's not what I meant. Stuff always comes out wrong around you, it's like you short out my brain.”
“Chris, you just said -”
“I know what I said! Fuck. I knew this was a bad idea.”
“My mother said what, precisely, when she called?”
He flushes, winces a little. “She railed on me for half an hour because you're unhappy and I'm doing nothing to help fix it, and I tried to play dumb and act like maybe I could talk to you as a friend and see if I could help. But she called me on it. Told me she's sick of watching you break your heart over me and that I need to 'man up', no less.”
“She said what?”
“Then I got mad at you for telling her about us and said some stuff that perhaps I shouldn't have, which is when I figured out that you hadn't told her at all.”
“No, I hadn't. So Mom knows. I thought she might but I didn't want to ask.”
“Yeah, she knows.” He hangs his head, hands back in his jeans pockets and the urge to reach out to him and to pull him against me is overpowering, a physical burn in my muscles. I hug myself instead.
“We're going to talk all this out now, right? All of it?”
“If I can somehow magic the ability to articulate myself around you without making everything worse, sure, that's the idea.”
“Then we need booze.”
His smile is small, instant, lopsided with relief. “Hell yeah, we do.”
My skin prickles, every nerve on alert as he follows me down the stairs and I order him to sit on the couch, which he does, meekly and without question. I visit the kitchen and hand him a beer from the fridge, opening my own and sitting down across from him on the loveseat, legs folded up under my ass, not wanting his nearness to scramble my mind any more than it is already. I feel vulnerable like this, my brows a whole mess, floppy unstyled hair and crappy old clothes, as lame as I ever was but it feels almost defiant, Look at me and want me like this, I dare you. But he doesn't look at me. He looks at his hand on his knee, and around the room, and the label on his beer, and the flowering plant on the side table next to him. I remind myself that I'm not waiting on him any more. “Why are you here? Apart from Mom.”
“You want to know why I broke up with Beau?”
“I thought you said she dumped you.”
He shoots me a sour look. “Yeah, thanks. Do you want to know?”
“Not particularly, no.” It's the truth, I don't want to hear it, how he sucks at relationships, how he's never able to commit. I don't need that particular point driven home any more than it has been already.
“It'll help make sense of stuff. The last month or so.”
I sigh, shrug. “Sure, go for it.”
“She figured me out. It was after Zoe's pre-wrap party, that one with the meze?”
“Right, okay.” I have no idea where he's going with this. It was a fun dinner. Everyone got drunk and I don't remember much more about it than that.
“I had the worst hangover the next day and she wasn't speaking to me, and I actually liked that because I got some peace. I know, I know, I do . . .” as I snort into my beer at him. “I didn't figure out she was mad at me till we were eating later, and she just blurts it out. 'You're in love with Zach'. Long story short, we had a fight, I called her a crazy bitch and she walked out.”
“But you're not in love with me.”
“That's what I said. Over and over. First to her and she'd laugh and say I was in denial, and that it was clear to everyone. Then I kept saying it to myself once she'd gone. 'I'm not in love with Zach.' It sounded convincing, at first.”
My stomach clenches and I set my jaw, remind myself internally that there's no way he's come here to tell me he's in love with me. That's a fantasy, an indulgence I won't allow any more. “You're not in love with me, Chris. Or you can't be, or something. You said it yourself, at Karl's party.”
It's like I've not spoken as he looks into the middle distance and continues, his thumb swiping back and forth over his beer. “It went round and round in my head, 'I'm not in love with Zach'. I went to my parents to get away from it and tried to tell myself that I was getting over her, that I was missing her. That I was aching for her, nobody else. Then I look down at you, walking along the path to me completely oblivious to everything around, talking to the dog, your head in the clouds like it always is, just being all Zach like you always are, like you always have been. It made me think about how you're there, in the back of my mind, all the time. Being so totally yourself.”
I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about and I don't dare try to figure it out. “Okay.”
“I realized that I love you, right there. But it was way too big and, I don't know, all such a mess that I refused to examine it any closer than that. I decided that I love you because, y'know, everything we've been through together, and our families, and that we were finally starting to be friends, good friends, like I'd always wanted. That seemed like a safe, good kind of love. Because the stuff I feel about you has never been safe. It's always too much, and I don't like all the big emotional stuff.”
“Because of your mom's sickness. You don't like to need people too much in case they might leave.”
He closes his eyes, groans. “Oh, God. You've been watching The View with your mom, haven't you? This has nothing to do with my mother.”
“It totally does, I've had many years to think about you and your muddled little psyche, Christopher.” I waggle the neck of my beer bottle at him. “Fear of commitment is basically a fear of desertion.”
“Fuck off, you girl.”
“Whatever.” I relax back with a smile, knowing I'm right. “The truth stings.”
Chris narrows his eyes at me, his fingers stretching out on his thigh, his gaze dropping to watch them. “Moving on from that undoubtedly valuable point -”
“Saying that doesn't make it not true.”
“- Maybe I shouldn't have said anything at Karl's party. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you, but I wanted you to know I felt something, at least, that it was never just sex for me. I thought you knew that, I thought it was blatantly obvious that it wasn't just sex and it seemed so important at that moment, that I made sure you knew it. And, being me, I fucked that up like I fuck everything up with you, and I say totally the wrong thing and your face, you looked like I'd got up and punched you in the face but you took it and told me you loved me anyway and right there, right that very second -” He rubs his finger on his knee, meeting my eyes briefly before looking back down. “It's all stripped away. Everything I ever tried to keep you out falls away and I realized that Beau was right.”
Silence settles over us both as Chris plays with his beer bottle and chews at his bottom lip, and I stare at him, everything aching again, all the hurt returning in a rush from wherever I'd managed to bury it, imagining to myself all these last two weeks that I was getting better at this crap when it was all waiting to come swamp me again. I can't speak. I can barely think. Then his cellphone rings suddenly, abrupt in the heavy silence and we both start as he curses and tries to find it, managing to dig it out of a pocket just as the ringing ends, echoing endlessly in my ears as the silence returns. He switches it off, tossing it down beside him.
“Sorry about that.”
“It's okay. So.”
“Yeah.”
“You know how I feel about you?”
He shrugs and I want so bad to go over there and grab at him, kiss him, push my hands under his shirt. “You have to understand -” He looks up at me, eyes blazing and hot. “- The reason I didn't come here, the whole reason why I didn't chase you here and tell you all this before was because I know how I've screwed things up with us, over and over. All I've ever done is fuck you over, I know that, I hate myself for it and you can tell me it's not true as much as you want, but that's bullshit. It's been my fault, all along. Every time was always going to be the last time, then I'd see you and want you so bad that everything else would fade out to nothing in comparison.”
“You're not entirely alone in that, Chris.”
“That's not the point. I don't want to fuck you over again, and that's what's going to happen. I suck at this, I suck at being with people and I've hurt you so many times already that I figured I lost my chance. It's why I couldn't follow you here.” He's picking at his nails, not looking at me and I can't tear my eyes off him for a moment. “I'll only fuck things up worse if I get another chance with you and I can't handle the idea of that. Screwing you up makes me hate myself. Imagine if it was ever more than a quick fuck between us? Imagine if we were in love and together, and I get all me and, you know . . .”
His voice trails off like he can't bear it, his eyes are wet, desperate and it's a physical pain to look at him like this, broken up over me. All the times I've wanted to punish him for hurting me disappear. It's not even forgiveness, I don't know what it is. I don't want him to hurt like I have.
“I promised your mom I'd come and make things right, even though I don't know if I can ever make that happen but I figured being honest with you, and making it clear that I don't expect anything from you, might be a start.”
A pause as I look at him and he looks at my chest, avoiding my eyes.
“That's bullshit.” Chris huffs out a shocked laugh at me, putting his beer down on the table and rubbing at his eyes as I carry on. “You don't come here and pour out your heart like that without expecting something in return.”
“That's precisely what I did! I'm trying to be noble here.”
“Is that what this is?”
“You're not going to make any of this easy on me, are you?”
“Not if I can help it.” But he's grinning at me, one arm folded across his torso, the knuckles of his other hand pressed against his mouth and I'm smiling right back at him. “I'm always way too easy on you, Chris.”
“Now that's bullshit.”
“You know I love you, right?” He nods, shrugs, looks at the ceiling and blinks a lot. “I'm in love with you, I have been forever. Mom's got this whole theory, it sounds stupid but it made a lot of sense once I'd thought about it, at least from my point of view -”
“You're in love with me?” His voice cracks and he coughs, clears his throat, frowns once more. “No, Zach.”
“No what? No, I'm not in love with you? I'm telling you that I am.”
“We can't do this. Don't you get that?”
“Of course I don't.”
“You were right, that night at my old place when you went all Tyson on me. I'm poison. I always have been.”
“That was how many years ago? So you were a douche. Everyone is at that age. Consider tonight a start-over.”
“It's too late for that.”
He's doing it again. I'd laugh at how routine it's becoming but it's dawning on me slowly that he's pushing me away again, and I'm too shell-shocked to manage more than a low croak. “Please don't do this.”
“I have to.”
“No, you don't.”
Chris ignores me, gets up off the couch, grabbing his phone as he goes and shoving it back in his pocket, walking away from me and through to the entrance hall, grabbing his jacket off the bottom of the stair rail and I'm so frustrated I could shake his head off his damn body.
“That's right, run away.” I follow him through, fold my arms, lean against the living room door as I check out his ass to make my point. “It's not like I don't enjoy the view when you do.”
“I'm not running away, not this time, you have to be able to see that.” He touches me for the first time, his hand gripping my elbows, his skin on mine, a sense of urgency pouring off him. “I'm not running from you, Zach. I'm protecting us both.”
I clench my hands into fists, unsure if I can keep myself from grabbing at him. “Don't go.”
“I have to. You'll get that, one day.” He moves in fast, kisses me gently and draws away before I have a chance to kiss him back. “I'll see you around, okay?”
It all feels like this is happening to someone else, an out of body experience like I'm dying and floating somewhere on the ceiling watching this happen. Like I'm watching a really shitty play. I can't believe he's doing this again. My voice is so firm, so sure that I know it's true this time. “If you go now, it has to be it with us. Outside of work we're through, because I can't keep opening myself up to this. Either stay and say it out loud, that you're in love with me without hiding behind stuff that your ex-girlfriend said, or leave me be. Man up, or fuck off.”
His face reacts, his mouth falling open before he nods and closes it, his body moving a step back already as he reaches for the door handle. “I'm sorry.”
“Me too.” I wait till the door closes, latching it with steady fingers.
A clear sky at night's still just cold enough to bite at my bare feet and arms as I go outside after having sat on the couch and stared at the opposite wall for twenty minutes after he left. There's too much glare, from the streetlights and from town, from the porch light itself as I sit on the stoop and smoke, trying to see if there's any constellations I recognize out tonight. I'm just trying to remember which is the one that some distant memory insists Dad told me looks like a big X shape, when a voice comes out of the darkness along with a plume of cigarette smoke that's not mine, surprising me up off the step and back towards the door before I figure out it's Chris.
“I couldn't leave.” He flicks his cigarette butt off down the driveway.
“Apparently not.” I sit down suddenly, my legs weak. “God, I can't take this. I need a vacation. A proper one, away from you.”
“I'm in love with you, Zach. I thought I'd said it.”
“No. You didn't.”
“I do, I am. And I want - everything. All of it. I want you. I want us.”
I look out at the road, a breeze making the heads of Mom's spring bulbs dance in silhouette along the edge of the front yard against the street beyond, lit up brighter than the porch. He sits down next to me, his hip against mine, his shoulder, his knee.
“I'm glad you didn't go.”
“Me too.”
I grind out my cigarette and tuck the stub into the little dish I've got by the door. Chris leans on my shoulder, his hair sticking up my nose when I turn my face towards his without thinking. I don't mean to kiss him, to do anything at all but he lifts his face, his mouth meeting my lips as I lean into him, and we wrap around each other tight and kiss on my mother's stoop. His arms are warm where mine are cold, my feet numb and my heart lifting into the cloudless black sky as he whispers that he loves me one more time against my mouth, his tongue wet as it slides against mine. I don't know how long we sit there, pressing up against each other, slowly exploring each other's mouths like there's no rush any more. It's not about sex this time, even though I'm hard as hell and aching for more, but the kiss is too good, his mouth on mine, the way he strokes over my face in gratitude, a kind of awe, I know that's what it is because I'm doing the same with him. He rests his head against mine and we sit there, breathing together, shifting a little in something that's not quite enough to be a nuzzle, just the slightest movement of skin on skin.
“Zach.”
“Mhmm.”
“We can really do this?”
“What else can we do? We've tried being apart. Doesn't work.”
Chris sighs, his breath smoky against my face, a hint of beer. “I'm scared, of course I am. You're terrifying, you always were, right from when we were kids.”
“Me? Get out, I was not.” My mouth against his hair as I close my eyes and breathe him in, unable to stop.
“Are you kidding? You were so tall and you knew all this cool stuff and had this awesome room and excellent brother who loved you and everyone always talked about how talented you were, how Zach's one of a kind, even my parents did, they still do, it drives me crazy. And you were so bitchy and could curse like nobody else, and you smoked pot, and got into car crashes and went to concerts and the theater and partied and you were gay and didn't even care if you got shit over it, I mean, how cool was that? I had the worst case of hero worship over you.”
“You did not.” He nods against my jaw.
“Yep.”
“Trust me, you hid it well. ”
He turns against me, his nose rubbing beneath my ear. “I had to, you'd have crucified me if I hadn't. You were everything I wasn't.”
“Chris, I was a geek. I still am.”
“Are you kidding? You're not a geek, you're the hottest thing on the goddamn planet, look at you.” Stroking his fingers over my face, into my hair, his thumbs on my neck before hugging into me again like he can't bear any distance. “I want to be with you, you have to know that but it's not going to be easy, not with me. I am what I am, I know that.”
“You're quoting Popeye at me?”
“Oh, fuck off.” He rubs his nose in my ear. “See? It's hopeless. We're too, whatever we are. We're screwed before we even start.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Turning my head to press my cheek against his. “Won't know unless we try.”
“But what if -”
“Will you just grow a pair? So we might break up. This is us, all that means is we'll wait a year before jumping on each other again. It's never really over with us and God knows I've hoped it would be enough times.” I slide my hand along his jaw, gently guiding his face until he's looking at me, his eyes bright in the porch light as they gaze into mine. “Being with other people was always too easy because I didn't give a damn. I don't for a minute believe that this'll be easy. I don't think it's supposed to be.”
We sit there, hugging into each other, the breeze carrying a scrap of old paper up from the driveway to play around the step below. It feels like I could hold onto him forever.
“You're shaking.”
“I'm freezing my ass off out here.”
“Yeah?” His eyes twinkle, that same old piss and fire, mischievous like he's just unearthed my secret porn stash. “We'd better get you warmed up, then.”
Chris pulls me to my feet, his hands sliding easily under my sweats to palm my ass through my shorts, his hands warm, easily covering each cheek. I purse my lips at him and he grins, squeezes.
“It's always about the sex with you.”
“Not always.” I give him a skeptical look and he laughs. “Okay. Mostly, but not always.”
“I never told you how pissed I was when you got it back together with Matt. I didn't even know how I felt about you then but, man, I was seriously peeved.”
I pause in rubbing over his dick in his jeans as he struggles out of his belt and with his fly. “Is now really the time to discuss my ex?”
“Not even if it's me being cute and jealous and stuff?”
“God, no. Will you just get your -”
“I'm getting to it, wait a sec.” Chris shimmies out of his jeans and shorts, and tosses them into the corner of my room, where we've finally made it after ten minutes of dry humping on the stairs. I look at him, reaching out to run my hands over his beautiful body, solid muscle under soft skin that I've memorized over the years, every mole, freckle, birthmark, every tone and texture, every hair one by one. He lies down on top of me, one leg between mine, my thigh between his as I rub against his furry balls, his dick hard at my hip as we kiss like we're trying to devour each other, loud and wet. Then he pulls away a couple of inches, his damp mouth open just above mine, his eyes a little dazed.
“I get to wake up with you tomorrow.”
“You do.”
“And the next day, if we want.”
“Sounds like a plan's forming.” I push up to kiss him again, hands in his hair cupping his whole head as we rock together. I reach down to start stroking him and he gasps against my mouth,
“I think I like our plan.”
“Me too.” I bite over his chin, his stubble scraping my teeth and tongue, suck at his neck. “I want to fuck you again.”
A low chuckle as he plays with my nipple, rubbing over it with his thumb, playing with the hairs there. “Way to get straight to the point, Zach.”
“What, you don't want me to?”
“Fuck yeah, I do.”
“Then quit giving me a hard time and turn over.”
He's lying next to me on his side as we rub together slowly, looking into each other's eyes, and he strokes my cheekbone with his thumb, thrusts against me and leans in to lick over my bottom lip. “There's something I want.”
“Chris, I'm sorry but I don't bottom. Not even for you. I don't think. Maybe? Not tonight.” But he's laughing, burying his face in my neck and the laugh turns into a moan as I rub my thumb around the crest of his cock.
“No, that's not what I want. Although . . .”
“No.”
“You totally want me to.”
“This is my 'I don't want you to fuck me' face.”
“I didn't even want to fuck you till you brought it up.”
“Well that's okay, then, because you're not going to.” I can't stop laughing, like I'm high, Chris's head on my shoulder because he can't stop either.
“Be serious. I'm asking something serious.”
“Right.” I make a serious face then my lips crumple and I'm laughing again and he rolls away.
“That's it, no more sex for you.”
“I'm okay, I'm calm, I can do this.”
“I want you to fuck me, Zach. Just you and me, your dick in my ass, no rubber.”
I've never been further from laughing in my life. “You're serious.” I can tell from his face that he is, his eyes dark and deep, the way he looks at me, a work of art, a Greek sculpture made flesh and everything I've ever wanted.
“I want to feel you shoot inside me. I just thought it might be - I don't know, I want that. Tonight.” Chris squints like he's regretting saying anything. “I grossed you out.”
“No, but I never did that. I'm, like, safety guy.”
“Which is great, because it means you're -”
“Oh, I am.”
“- and you know I am, you can trust that I'm . . . you know. Clean.”
It's like he's lit a fire under my nuts, the urge to hold him down and shove into him and fuck him hard building all over me like something primal. I've never come in anyone before and the idea, fucking him, filling him up, marking him inside as mine - I'm so turned on I can barely breathe. I nod. Keep nodding, covering his body with my own, licking over his neck. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, hell yeah.”
No more time for talk and I shove my tongue into his mouth hard, licking around his teeth and his tongue as he pushes up against me like he can't get enough of his skin against mine. I start to work my way down him, sucking at his nipples one by one as I finger his balls lightly, threading my fingers through his soft bush, brushing my thumb down the length of his cock. He sighs out my name, twisting beneath me to dig around in the drawer of my nightstand as I bite over his stomach and hipbone, my fingers tracing his buttcrack.
“Got any lube in here?”
“Should be.” There's an almost new bottle that I bought second day I was here, and I keep to myself that I've been jacking off all week thinking about him like this, naked beneath me, my tongue tracing the lines of his muscles. Thinking about fucking him. I pump out a fingertip of lube, tell Chris to spread his legs and he does it, lying back against my bed, his hands moving over himself, reaching down to touch his dick as I start rubbing over his asshole. He's so built at the moment, skin taut over his flushed chest, his thighs thickly muscled as I push a finger into him and he spreads his legs wider with a moan. I watch him writhe on my childhood bed with my finger plugged deeply in his ass, and I'm so turned on I can feel my dick dripping against the sheets, sixteen-year-old me looking over my shoulder unable to believe there's any way I could ever get a guy so fine and perfect spread out under me like this.
“More.”
“Yeah?” Two fingers in him and he closes around me, hot and wet, gripping my fingers as I work them inside of his ass making him squirm. I hunch down to bite and kiss his inner thighs, his pucker tightening on me each time and I start to fingerfuck him, making him curse and pull his knees up to his chest.
“I'm going to get so into you fucking me. I'm going to want it all the time, I'm going to be, like, a big ol' slut for it.”
“I'm sure I'll deal.”
“Heh, I bet. That feels so, fuck, more, I want more. I want you, come on, put your dick in me.”
A whiny hint of need touches his voice and I lift my head from where I'm soaking his nuts with my tongue. “Patience, Christopher.”
“Don't call me that when you've got your fingers ahhfuck no, God, yes.” He grabs a pillow and holds it over his face briefly, cursing into it, his pucker squeezing on my hand and my dick jumps, aching to get inside. I look at him, face hidden from view, his cock flexing across his flat, tight belly spreading a sticky mess that darkens and smears the fine hairs of his treasure trail, and I can't wait any longer. I grit my teeth against the pulsing, coursing need deep in my balls, coat myself with more lube and grab his legs, pulling them up against me. Chris reappears from under the pillow, flushed in the face and grinning as he mashes the pillow under his hips and strokes my shoulder with the roughened flat of his foot. “Don't make me wait. Stick it in.”
“'Stick it in'?” I line up, rub the head of my dick over him a couple of times before beginning to push with my hips.
“I'm sorry.” Chris bites his lip, frowns as I press harder. Deepens his voice to a purr, his eyes slitty with lust when he looks up at me. “Make love to me, Zachary.”
I answer with a snort and a thrust, breaching his hole and his whole body jerks, his legs clamping down around my neck as I start to push in further. “Fuuuck, I'd forgotten how big you feel.”
“I'm not so big. You're just really tight.” My voice is gruff with my tenuous grip on control, fingers gripping his thighs as I sink into him slowly, his hot chute opening up to take me in, tight and wet and warm, gripping and caressing every inch of my naked dick as I press in deeper still. I push until I can't get in any deeper, so totally connected with Chris, looking down at him sweating and gasping and trying to get used to me, and nothing's ever felt as good as this. I can feel everything, every tiny movement of his gut around me, his heat, the way his whole body encloses me perfectly like he was built that way for this purpose alone.
“Still hurts.”
“I'll have to fuck you a couple of times a day until you find it easier.”
“You'd do that for me? Aww.” I raise an eyebrow at him and flex my dick inside of him and he shivers, grins. Gasps as I pull out a little and slowly slide back in, wanting to watch him but he's so tight on me, so hot and being inside him without a rubber on is so intense that I have to close my eyes and breathe slow. Pull out once more, further this time, his hot little ring tight on me and pulling every drop of blood in my dick into the tip, which throbs heavily as I drip inside of him.
“I can't wait.” It's almost a growl and Chris looks up at me, mouth open, a slight frown.
“Then don't. Fuck me. Come in me.”
“Oh, Jesus.” I grab at his hips and shove into him hard, and he curses, starting to beat off fast as I start to fuck him, pounding my way in fast, finding a rhythm then having to slow because I'm already getting close. I turn my head to kiss his leg, his ankle, slowing to a stop and pausing to breathe as Chris keeps jerking off, his asshole clenching and squeezing around me tight.
“Don't stop now.”
“I'm too close, it's too much, I'm going to come too soon.”
“Me too, God, you're going to come in me, you're going to shoot your load, fuck, fuck, come on, please.” He's gaspy and tightening on me, and I give into it, his wet heat, slamming into him again, faster now, clawing at his hips as a climax builds in my balls, the base of my spine, the head of my dick pounding its way through his hot little hole. Chris's eyes are closed, his face screwed up as he jacks off, yanking hard at his dick as he whispers it over and over again, 'Come in me, come in me, fuck, do it, come inside me'. I start to shout before I'm even coming, the pressure building too high, a loud buzz overtaking me, my body singing with every atom, every heartbeart, every thrust and there is nothing in the whole world but my dick in his ass as I shove in hard and shoot into the depths of his gut.
He curses, loud, feeling the wet splash of my jizz coating his insides as I keep fucking through an orgasm that thunders through my body like a stampede, shaking me down to my bones. Chris thrusts up off the bed against me and shoots all over his stomach and chest with a wail, his butthole clenching on me hard, milking my dick and I whimper as I feel my dick pulse one last time, too much, way too much, like I've been cracked open and turned inside out. Chris's eyes open, his hand slowing on his dick, his body shaking as he gasps for breath and looks at me with recognition, like he's close to tears. I thrust into him one more time then have to pull out and collapse on top of him, no choice in it at all, a puppet with its strings cut.
His fingers are shaking as they splay out over my head, playing in my sweat-damp hair. “You need to move.”
“Can't.”
“You're too heavy.”
“Whatever. Can't move.”
His low laugh turns into a moan. “I can feel - your cum is dripping out of me. How the fuck is that even hot?”
“Don't give a fuck. Sleepy time.”
“Zach -”
“Shhh.”
I'm like a dead person only sweatier and messier as he wrestles his way out from under me and out of the bed. “You want the sheet over you? Or not? I'm going to go clean up, if I can still walk. Oh God, it's running down my leg now.”
“Hmmrm.”
“Hey. I love you.”
“Uh-huh.” I'm slipping further into the dark tunnel of sleep, the bed beneath my face warm and welcoming, and I'm aware at some level that Chris leans down to kiss my shoulder before he walks off towards the bathroom and I'm gone.
It's past eleven by the time Mom finally makes it home from Patty's place, calling out to me first and I reply as I pull my hand out of Chris's underwear from where we're necking at the sink in the process of filling the coffee pot, both of us scooting into chairs and tight to the table as she comes into the kitchen and finds us both unable to stop smiling at each other, Chris flushing as red as Mom's purse all over his face and naked chest. She lays her purse and keys on the table, tucking her coat over the back of another chair without a word, and Chris big-eyes at me as I eyebrow back at him and barely repress a laugh. She picks up the discarded coffee pot, filling it in the sink as she gazes out the window into the backyard.
“Nice to see you disregarded my reminder that this is a Christian household when I asked you to visit Zach, Chris.”
“Mrs. Q, Zach and I, we, uh -”
She holds up a finger and he hushes instantly while I hide an ever-wider grin behind a hand. “Please don't compound it by lying to me, I'm not an idiot.” She fills the machine, switching it on and then she finally turns to us, leaning back against the counter, arms clasped across her stomach. “Am I to assume we have a . . . conciliation?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“And that there'll be no more conciliating under my roof?”
“Yes. No. Yes.” I glare at him for kicking my leg under the table. “What?”
“I'm sorry, Mrs. Q. I'll make sure he takes this seriously.”
“You always were a good kid. Not like this one.” She kisses the top of my head, stroking the growing Spock bangs forward into place before I frown and brush them back again. “I'm going to go shower. I expect there to be a little more clothing in place around here and some coffee waiting for me once I'm done.”
“Sure thing, Mom.” I touch her arm. “Thank you.”
“You can't fight the glue, sweetheart. Any time.”
She leaves the room, his grin widening at me, white and completely heart-stopping. I've pulled Chris out of his chair and against me before she's halfway up the stairs, kissing his stomach and sliding my hands up the backs of his thighs under the legs of his shorts to stroke over the underside of his asscheeks. He holds my face gently, thumbs stroking over my brow stubble, looking at me with an intense expression that's not really a smile but feels like it could be.
“I love you so much.”
I turn my face into his hand and kiss his palm, murmuring 'I love you too' there, wrapping my arms around his waist. Chris leans down to kiss me and, with his lips on mine, the quiet miracle of his tongue curling into my mouth and the heavy, solid warmth of his body in my arms, I know I've come home.