With Everything I Have

by Cooper, R.

  Sebastian had never before considered hope terrible but now he felt eaten alive by it, warm and then cold, bursting and then empty. He watched Peter distance himself from him and circle back. He listened to Peter talk about anything but what had occurred between them on the road and then invent reasons to keep Sebastian from leaving. Peter’s state of discombobulation was so great, he stayed in the room when Sebastian started to get undressed only to freeze when Sebastian glanced at him as he pulled his cravat free.

  Peter’s head went up. He hadn’t bothered to fully redress after his bath, and his simple white shirt was open at his throat, exposing the marks from Sebastian’s mouth that he did not seem to notice. The footmen at dinner most certainly had. Sebastian had as well. He had a difficult time looking away from them.

  Sebastian began to unbutton his waistcoat, noting the wrinkles from Peter’s desperate grip, and Peter frowned and disappeared from the bath room into one of the other rooms in his bedroom suite.

  “Hot water helps with aches and pains,” Peter commented helpfully from his ridiculous distance.

  Sebastian stopped rubbing his backside and finished removing his clothes. He slipped into the bath water before responding. “Enormous, deep, comfortable cushions,” he called out on a sigh as the hot water did indeed soothe away his discomfort. He reached for the soap then stopped when Peter reappeared in the doorway.

  “Yes, cushions,” a harried, guilty Peter told him, then looked him over before ducking out of the room. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen Sebastian nude before, although if Peter had been focused on his work Sebastian could have paraded past him naked and Peter wouldn’t have noticed.

  This, Sebastian recognized at last, was fear. This was what Peter did before meeting someone new, talking himself into and then out of the meeting at least a dozen times. Sebastian had known Peter for so long he had assumed Peter did not do the same for him. But he must, or at least, he did now, after what they had done together on that blanket.

  He took the soap and cleaned himself up quickly then got out of the water. He dried off and reluctantly donned his dusty clothes, leaving his hair the way the road and the goggles had left it. He kept his waistcoat unbuttoned and didn’t put on his coat or cravat, taking them with him into Peter’s bedroom. Peter wasn’t there. That was likely no accident although it was interesting. Peter had something he wished to say and he didn’t want it to say it in the bedroom.

  Sebastian left his coat on a chair with his shoes and put his shoulders back before heading into the outer rooms.

  Peter was on a sofa with his notepad in his lap. He was sketching or writing at a feverish pace but stopped the instant he realized Sebastian was observing him. He clenched his hand tight around his pencil then took a breath and put the pencil down. “You have never done that before,” he burst out, picking up his pencil again to toss it to the floor. He stared after it as if wishing it were once again within reach.

  Sebastian had a feeling his jaw was slack and did his best to seem less affected than he was. A bit late, considering that after they had both finished he had eased down to murmur, “Beautiful, “ into Peter’s skin as he had always wanted to do, and Peter had answered, “Bash,” just that, over and over until he had recalled himself and grown silent.

  “What?” Perhaps Sebastian could think of an answer if Peter clarified his meaning.

  Peter narrowed his eyes. He could have been angry but it was hard to say with certainty. He might have been embarrassed. “Did you… you have been with many, Sebastian. I know that from how you know how to please me. But you have never done that. Was it—?” Peter stopped himself.

  Sebastian put a hand to his chest. “We often did that when we were younger.” There had been moments, rare and precious, where Peter had dared to touch him then. Only in the beginning, and then Peter had left school and come home to his father. They had not touched each other again in that fashion until after the man’s death. Sebastian tried not to lower his voice but it was no use. “We would find each other and pull the covers up over our heads and not bother to undress. I’d kiss your mouth and you would tremble and put your hands over my arms, at my hips sometimes.” He could not seem to stop talking.

  “Do you think I don’t remember those days? I will never forget them.” Peter’s eyes went wide. Sebastian almost didn’t hear the rest of his words over the rushing in his ears. “I mean, that is not what I mean, Sebastian,” Peter hurried on. “I meant you’ve never touched me again so soon after taking me.” He spoke like someone who did not think they should have to speak, as though his words were obvious. It was a wonder to hear him mention their school days. Sebastian did not know what to make of it any more than he knew how to take Peter’s tension now.

  “Are you angry?” Sebastian considered him and took a cautious step into the room. Peter tossed his head and lost his ability to meet Sebastian’s eyes. “’Taking’ you?” Sebastian pressed. “Have you been watching romantic picture reels? I almost prefer it when you say bugger.” The jesting tone was almost habit but it granted him a tiny moment of peace from the cold fear in his chest.

  Peter straightened, the very image of discomfort. Sebastian was strangely unsympathetic. Peter had brought this up; he could go where the conversation took them. Sooner or later, whatever happened, he was going to have to accept that Sebastian loved him.

  There was a moment of silence. Then Sebastian frowned and crept closer. There was colour in Peter’s face. His ears were pink. “You have, haven’t you?” Sebastian realized out loud in something like awe. First poetry and then romantic moving pictures. Peter was researching love.

  Sebastian thought he might faint, another new experience. He sat on the other end of the sofa just before his legs gave out. He took a deep breath. “Did you mind that I touched you? Did you like touching me?”

  “You know I did. You watched me finish and then slipped your hand into my trousers to stroke me until I could take it no longer. You took some of my spunk and put it in your mouth.” Peter was reassuringly blunt about it but he had his steam now. He was so agitated that the notepad slipped to the floor. His puzzled frown seemed less like something for Sebastian to admire fondly and more something for him to answer to. “Why did you? Why did you do it this time?”

  “Swallow?” Sebastian looked away at his own evasion. “I like to sometimes.” He studied the cabinets, the gaslights and the shadows they created. Then he sighed. “Even you yield to baser passions once in a while,” he started, but Peter interrupted him.

  “That is not what I mean.” Peter kicked the notepad away in a restless gesture.

  Sebastian gauged him, wondering how much Peter would take from him right now in this mood. “You mean why did I touch you? You touched me first. I can only resist so much, Peter. Any man would want you.”

  “Now you’re lying.” Naturally, Peter did not believe others would want him. “You lie a lot, Sebastian.”

  Sebastian glanced over at him. “That’s it, pistols at dawn.”

  “I can bear the truth, Bash.” Peter scrubbed at his cheeks.

  Sebastian gave him an irritated frown. “Every time you doubt how handsome you are, how kind, how wonderful, every time you insist no one would want you, you insult me. I live in a world where my taste and intelligence are questioned every single day. It is something you have never done except for when you speak that way. Think about that before you do it again.”

  Peter sucked in a noisy breath and closed his mouth. Sebastian waited a few moments then glanced to him again.

  Peter was breathing hard. “I did not mean to hurt you.”

  “How do you feel when someone insults me? When you catch them in a sneer?” Sebastian did not feel cruel though he supposed he was. His mother would have said he was cruel to be kind.

  “I don’t like it. It upsets me, angers me,” Peter admitted, his tone subdued. “I hate it.”

  Sebastian nodded. “That is how I feel when you speak of yourself that way.” If i
t had been worth it Sebastian would have asked what had lit this fire under Peter. He did not know why Peter was experimenting with him, only that he was. Another man might have put his foot down. But this was Peter. First he had an idea, a design. Then he conducted research and then an experiment. Peter was after something important here and he was going about it the only way he knew how.

  Sebastian looked squarely into Peter’s eyes. “I only touch you when you indicate you would like me to touch you. Today you indicated that you wanted me to touch you.” It seemed fair to say it. Peter had to know what he was doing. “The other night you also indicated that you wanted me to touch you.”

  Or perhaps Peter didn’t know. His lips parted. “Did I?”

  Sebastian was fairly certain he nodded though he couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t sure of anything at the moment. Peter blinked once, twice, then shut his mouth. The line appeared between his eyes.

  Sebastian raised a hand. “Before you ask me, it’s different for some, but most indicate their willingness in similar ways.” This conversation was really happening. Sebastian was educating Peter on sexual relations after years of being intimate with him. Only Peter would require this. Only Peter would never have attempted to find the answers with anyone else.

  Sebastian felt his face start to sting with a pleased heat that was almost shameful. Peter, untouched except for him. If Peter had been experimenting with others he would have figured this out this already. Sebastian shifted closer to him. Peter’s attention was riveted to him. He no longer seemed surprised. There was the very real possibility that Peter did know some of this already, or had suspected it and had wanted to hear Sebastian confirm it, in which case Sebastian could only say that it was a talk long overdue.

  “Some of it is in how you watch me.” He did not stop though Peter gave a startled twitch that made Sebastian want to haul him close and bury his face in his neck. “It isn’t that you sit close to me the way I am sitting close to you now, although that is a part of it. Only because you do not sit so with anyone else, Peter. It makes this special, and I need you to know how much I treasure that. I would take that, if it was all you offered me. But…” A confession of his feelings was oddly easier than discussing the small ways that Peter seduced him. This was an unexpected torment. “You… you sit close.” He paused. It was hard to describe the infinitesimal changes in Peter in moments like these. “You come next to me and your breathing changes as if you are relaxed but I can see that you aren’t. You’re so tense that you shake like leaves in the wind. You turn toward me with your eyes wide. Then when I finally touch you…” He nearly stopped at how still Peter went, how carefully Peter controlled his breathing, like a man confronting his worst fear, but Peter whispered, “Yes?” so Sebastian continued, lowering his voice.

  “When I touch you, you give in. There is no other earthly way to put it.” Each and every time Sebastian could see Peter’s anxiety and how desperately Peter tried to hang on, but Peter’s attention always stayed fixed on him and he moaned so sweetly for everything Sebastian did. Peter opened up and came apart when Sebastian touched him. Sebastian shifted at the memory and glanced at Peter again. “I wouldn’t touch you if I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

  Peter turned away to stare at the floor and his abandoned notepad. He hummed like a machine in mid-process then raised his head again. “So you do not touch me when you think I don’t wish you to. When you do not bugger me for a month it is not because you don’t want me, but because I have not adequately indicated my receptiveness,” Peter summarized the situation in a startlingly cool voice but didn’t move. There was fierce colour in his face and down his neck but his stare was growing steadier by the second.

  “I can’t have this talk with you, Peter.” Sebastian objected like the liar Peter had called him then stopped. “At least not calmly.” He recalled Peter’s exact words and his heart ceased to beat. ”What did you say?”

  Peter slumped his shoulders. His expression melted into despair. “I’m such a failure it’s a wonder you tolerate me at all,” he murmured and shook his head. “Cock it up every time, don’t I?”

  “You aren’t a failure.” Sebastian scowled at him, that awful hope getting so much worse at Peter’s disappointment in himself. Peter had wanted to try. Peter had tried.

  Peter darted a look over at him, his eyes seeing more than he let on, as always. Peter opened his mouth, closed it, then gave a short wave of his hands as if he didn’t know what to do with them without a pencil or a tool to hold.

  Or Sebastian. He had held Sebastian today as well. Sebastian had never thought of himself as a troublesome auto design before but to Peter he supposed he might be. He was unsurprisingly fine with that. ”Peter, would you like to sit closer to me?”

  Peter surged forward, halting just shy of Sebastian’s space. He wet his lips. It was a mesmerizing sight when they were this close to Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian tried to focus on what Peter was saying.

  “I did not think… I did not think you wanted more. You did not ask and the first times we were just boys. You are, you are very experienced, Bash, and I am no good,” Peter paused, swallowed, then corrected himself. “I have no experience like you. It was embarrassing to try.”

  “Embarrassing?” Sebastian curled his hands fists and kept them in his lap. He thought of wanting Peter to touch him, and Peter wanting to touch him, and both of them too afraid of scaring off the other to ask. He held in a curse and closed his eyes. “I wouldn’t have minded.” He thought his tone level and the words reasonable considering the things he could have shouted instead. “I wouldn’t have minded if you tried with me.”

  “You never asked. I thought you didn’t want me to.” Peter put his head up as he seemed to notice Sebastian’s stillness. Sebastian cut a look his way and discovered Peter could be quite intimidating without being anything close to angry. “Oh,” Peter said and twisted his hands together in his lap. “Oh. Damn. You wished me to try. You have been waiting. Bugger it, I am so stup—” There he stopped himself, evidently remembering what Sebastian had told him.

  Peter clenched his hands together and lowered his head. He took one careful breath after another. “I should have known that and I am a fool, but you don’t like it when I say that. So I won’t. I will only… I will only make it up to you, if I can.” He pulled his hands apart and lifted his head before reaching out. “Would it help if I touched you first?” Peter lifted a hand to Sebastian’s collar where his fingers partly covered Sebastian’s skin. Sebastian made a noise, a queer, wounded sort of a noise he had never before heard from himself and Peter nodded. He ran his fingers back and forth along Sebastian’s skin and curled them against his beard.

  Sebastian lifted his chin and Peter rested his fingertips over his mouth, just briefly, before sucking in a breath and glancing to the side. “I find you very attractive, Sebastian, as many do, I suppose.”

  Sebastian was seeing stars. He realized he had not drawn in air for some time and did so. “Not as many as you might think,” he answered at last.

  Peter gave a tiny shake of his head. “I have seen others look at you when we are out together.”

  “That is only…” Sebastian went silent, too hot and breathless to think straight. “They do not want me exactly. Not for anything lasting.”

  “Because they do not know you.” Without turning toward him, Peter put his hand at Sebastian’s shoulder. “You are still searching for your life-long love, as you should, if you want it.” Peter finally looked back. His chin was up as if he was feeling stubborn but his gaze could not stay steady. His breathing was much too fast. “If it makes you happy, Sebastian then I will support it. But,” he bit his lip, reddening it all over again, “here I am. If you… here I am.”

  “There you are,” Sebastian echoed faintly.

  Peter didn’t seem to understand the remark. He was pressing gamely ahead with whatever it was he was trying to say. “You are a man of great passion and I have always wondered why you did not
take me more often. You should have told me to signal.”

  “Terribly sorry,” Sebastian apologised distractedly then turned toward Peter so quickly that Peter jumped. “Lie back,” Sebastian instructed. With only a small hesitation, Peter obeyed.

  Sebastian pushed his shaking hands under Peter’s shirt until he found skin. Peter, his Peter, who had been eager for this for the entire time Sebastian had pined for him, and had restrained himself, let one foot drop to the floor to give Sebastian space between his thighs. Sebastian did not have to be told twice. He settled over Peter, his mind spinning with the fact that he could have done this every day if only he had ever thought to tell Peter he wanted to. He should have known that Peter would need explicit permission. He should have known so many things. Peter was not the only one at fault. Sebastian had been too cowardly.

  It was easier to push Peter’s clothing aside this time now that he was sure in the knowledge that Peter wanted him to. He put his face to Peter’s skin and kept it there. Peter’s stomach was flat and hot, his gasps loud, his cock flushed and heavy. Sebastian moaned the moment he had it in his mouth. Peter swore above him, delightfully vulgar, as if Sebastian had never done this to him before. “Oh bollocks, Sebastian, that is not… I wanted to…” He finished none of his sentences. His hands flew to Sebastian’s back where they rested lightly until Sebastian wet his cock to the root and then slowly pulled his mouth up the length of him.

  Peter’s grip instantly tightened. It wasn’t enough, not anymore. “Touch me,” Sebastian ordered breathlessly, dipping his head suck softly at any place that struck his fancy.