by Cole McCade
“You’re still you, you know,” Wally said. “A minor adjustment to your perception of your sexuality doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. It simply…is what it is.”
“It’s not that.” Joseph lingered on their hands as well…and then turned his own to cradle Wally’s, palm to palm, so he could stroke his thumb along the strange, articulated ridges of Wally’s knuckles, exploring the flowing lines of Wally’s hand one caress at a time. His skin was so smooth, like touching fine cashmere warmed by body heat. “I don’t know if I’m any good for you. For anyone. Miriam was all I ever knew. My first relationship, my first love.” And if Wally was made of softness and sweetness, Joseph was nothing but jagged, broken pieces, all rusted about the edges. “The only model of a relationship I’ve ever had was an unhealthy obsession. An unhealthy, abusive obsession, and I don’t want to hear one word about you being right. But I also don’t want to carry that over with someone new. If that’s what you’re even asking me for.”
“I’m not sure what I’m asking you for,” Wally said breathily, “but you’re making it very hard to concentrate on figuring that out.”
Joseph stilled, as he realized what he was doing: stroking his fingertips across the center of Wally’s palm, tracing in idle, thoughtless circles while his mind and heart chased each other’s tails. Wally’s lips were parted, his breaths shallow, his color high and his eyes glittering—and Joseph’s mouth dried, as he took in that lovely, hazy expression on Wally’s face. For him. Because Joseph had touched him.
God, he’d never get his fucking head on straight if he kept discovering how responsive Wally was. It only made him want to know if Wally was that sensitive to anyone’s touch.
Or if it was just Joseph’s.
He shouldn’t want so very much for it to be just him.
He cleared his throat and gently disentangled their hands, pulling back. “Sorry. I…you’re distracting.”
“That’s almost a compliment, dear boy.” Wally’s fingers curled, helpless and startled things, before his hand withdrew across the table. “Are you really so afraid you’ll ruin something new? Is that why you’ve never dated, all this time I’ve known you?”
“Part of it,” Joseph admitted. “Part of it was that stubborn hope that she would come drifting back on another summer wind. And part of it…” He fit his arm into the crutch propped against his chair and lifted it until it peeked above the table, then dropped it with a bitter snort. “Well. Who would want me?”
“Anyone,” Wally answered, low and fervent. “Me.”
Joseph’s heart turned over, twisted, knotted itself into a mess. He stared at Wally, but those dark, earnest eyes never wavered, meeting his with unflinching certainty. He didn’t—he couldn’t mean that, Wally didn’t know what it was like…
“You can’t say that,” Joseph said. “Maybe you’ve been with me for the past couple of weeks, seeing how I live, but when it’s part of your life it’s different. Some days I can’t…I can’t participate. In life. In a relationship. In the simple act of…of being. I have to check out and leave you on your own because something’s wrong with my nervous system or my medication, or I’m just tired. That’s not something most people want to deal with.”
“It’s not dealing. It’s not something to be dealt with. And I’m not most people.”
“No—no, you aren’t…but you can’t know until you experience it, Wally.”
“Then let me experience it.” Wally watched him steadily. For all that Walford was full of fluttering and mercurial shiftings, right now he was solid and quiet and firm, as if conviction had anchored him to earth and quieted the constant bright movements that made Wally Wally. “Perhaps you’re correct. Perhaps it will be too much for me, and I don’t understand the reality of it quite yet. Perhaps you are wrong, and no reality of it will change my mind about you. But why assume the answer is no without even trying, and finding out if it could indeed be yes?”
Joseph pressed his teeth to the inside of his lower lip, curling his fingers, strange tingles pricking his heart, things he hadn’t felt in so long he’d forgotten how deep they stung.
“Because,” he said. “If I let myself hope, it hurts a hell of a lot more when I’m wrong.”
“Are you afraid of hoping, or afraid of putting your faith in someone else?”
“It can’t be both?”
“It can.” Wally reached across the table, offering his hand once more, palm-up—an invitation, a promise. “I know you have no reason to trust me—”
“I have every reason to trust you. You’ve been faithful and loyal and—”
“—and a shadow in the distance for twenty-odd years. A shadow you’ve associated with nothing but betrayal and anger.”
Joseph smiled weakly. “It sounds like we’re both trying to be the problem here.”
“When if we choose so…” That hand remained, waiting, asking Joseph if he would take it. “Neither of us has to be a problem at all.”
He looked down at Wally’s hand: smooth and pale and lined across the palm with marks that would tell a fortune-teller his mysteries, but only told Joseph the long and arcing path of his life-line. Those hands had been holding him steady since Willow disappeared—stroking his back, gently tucking the bedsheets around him, ordering his life in little ways from the padding on his crutches to the neat creases in his jeans. He reached out, tentatively laid his hand in Wally’s, and was rewarded by long fingers curling around his like an anemone closing.
“I don’t want either of us to be a problem,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not complicated. I can’t even—I mean…if we pursue anything…if we get that far, what about sex? Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t, and even when I can sometimes I don’t want to. A lot of times I don’t. It’s like…whatever drove that inside me is just broken.”
“Joseph. Darling dear.” With a quietly contemplative smile, Wally lifted Joseph’s hand to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss to the center of his palm, and while much of Joseph might be damaged his heart was working quite well when it beat so hard, racing and tumbling and shuddering as if trying to wrestle out of his chest. “Sex is lovely, but I am long past the age where it is the be-all and end-all of my life and my existence. I cannot even remember the last time I did, but I suspect it was when I could count my years in the last millennium.”
“More information than I needed, Walford.”
That smiled turned subtly wicked. “Jealous?”
Joseph snorted. “A little.”
“Don’t be. It’s been nearly two decades, and yet I’ve rarely had eyes for anyone.” Another kiss, this time brushing over the backs of Joseph’s knuckles, and God Walford’s mouth was so hot, so smooth, like being kissed through satin. “Except you. Passion and intimacy are possible without sex, my dearest boy. And it is intimacy I crave with you. Not sex.”
“How…?”
“Let me show you,” Wally said, and slipped from his chair.
Joseph didn’t understand what Wally was doing, as he rounded the table without ever letting go of Joseph’s hand—until he gently nudged Joseph into pushing his chair back, making room for Wally to settle into his lap, folding as gracefully as a flower wilting and resting sideways with his long legs stretched out to the side of Joseph’s chair. He seemed so light he might float away, and instinctively Joseph settled his free hand on his waist to hold him there. Wally’s warmth burned him through his clothing, and Joseph’s pulse spun into a wild, tumbling mess, his throat tightening and his mouth drying as he looked up at the slender, elegant creature leaning over him, so close, closer than anyone had been to him in years. He didn’t know what to do when someone roused this ache inside him, this flutter in his chest, the rusty gears of his emotions trembling to life and struggling to move again.
Wally’s grip firmed, then guided Joseph’s hand around to the small of Walford’s back, before he gently disentangled their fingers and curled a pale palm to the side of Joseph’s face. “Can you ha
ndle this?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Joseph swallowed hard, his breaths shallow. Rather than pain or discomfort, Wally’s slight weight was only a soothing pressure that anchored Joseph to earth—and right now, while he had the strength, he would enjoy this before a flare-up took the capacity away from him. “Yes.”
“Then simply…let me.”
Whispered, breathy, as Wally drew closer—and then pressed his mouth to Joseph’s once more. Let me, he had said, and Joseph understood when rather than kissing him tentatively, Wally took gentle control of his lips. Took gentle control of Joseph, as he plied him with an intent and focused deliberation, languishing to taste and lick and stroke every curve and crevice of Joseph’s mouth until he flushed, simmering under his skin. Time fell away, until he knew not seconds or minutes but simply how many breaths between the next time Walford claimed his mouth and sought so deep, kissing him as though…
As though Joseph mattered.
Being kissed this way broke him open and left him exposed, his vulnerable heart naked before Walford while the lovely, slim man knew every inch of him with an intimacy that stripped him bare with nothing to hide and nothing to protect him. He’d never been kissed this way, with such complete rapt absorption—and while sensual was never a word he’d have used to describe Walford Gallifrey before, God he was everything sensuous and alluring when he curled his fingers against Joseph’s jaw and turned him electric with every soft-stealing caress of his lips, every brushing flick of his tongue, every gentle, taunting pressure of biting teeth.
“Fuck,” Joseph breathed, parting his lips further and claiming, kissing Wally harder, savoring the way the man trembled against him and melted until their bodies molded together when Joseph spread his hands and stroked them up his back, fingers tangling in Wally’s shirt and drawing it tight until every lean, long line rose stark against his touch. “Walford…fucking hell.”
Wally sighed, moving against him, so very tangled up. Joseph didn’t know what to make of this—this feeling of being with someone. He’d thought he’d known how it felt to be together, but he’d never known the depth of being truly in a moment with another person, enveloped and linked by some ineffable sense that said every sensation, every emotion was shared one and the same. And he wondered, now, if every time he’d thought he’d felt this before had been simply the filter of memories that lied to him, that told him what he wanted to remember when in truth while he’d been there for Miriam…Miriam had only been there for herself.
No. Not her. Not now.
But the poison was already in his thoughts, dimming that brief sense of brightness, of lightness, that had lifted him up on the tide of that strange, deep, heady kiss. With a groan, he brushed his mouth to Wally’s, then lifted his head, opening his eyes and looking up at him.
“Sorry.”
Walford offered a red-lipped, breathless smile that bordered on giddy, but worry dwelled deep in his eyes. “No good?”
“Too good,” Joseph admitted. “But my mind started drifting places I didn’t want it to go. But…I…that’s what you mean by intimacy?”
“It is. A kiss does not have to be a precursor to sex, darling dear. Sometimes it’s simply about being with someone…and if that’s all we ever have, I could be content.”
Joseph settled his arms loosely around Wally’s waist, just…getting used to this idea, this feeling, how Wally fit against him. “I’m really fucking confused right now, Walford. Sorting some things out for myself.”
“That’s all right. That’s natural.” Wally stroked his thumb against Joseph’s cheek, his gaze softening. “I can give you space, if need be.”
“No…no, I don’t think I want space. I’m not sure what I do want, but I do know I…I like this.”
Wally blinked, before that brilliant smile return and he ducked his head with a swift downward sweep of those long, curling lashes. “I believe I rather like it, as well.”
Joseph lingered on him—taking him in, the way he didn’t quite make eye contact, the way the longer Joseph looked at him the pinker Wally’s cheeks grew, until he was a rose in full bloom and just as delicate and articulated in smooth, lovely detail. Joseph bit back a grin, something wicked brewing inside him, and he couldn’t resist brushing his knuckles along one cheek, following the warmth of that blush, how it radiated against his skin.
“Joseph,” Wally chided, with a throaty laugh. “I do believe you are enjoying flustering me.”
“I might be.”
“You are terrible.”
“And I think you might want me this way.” He chuckled and pulled Wally closer against him. “But…I don’t know what to do now.”
“We could start with a date,” Wally offered, peeking at him through the shag of his hair. It was strange to see Wally so disarrayed, his hair spilling from its slick coif to drift into his face; Joseph doubted anyone ever saw him this way, rumpled and uncertain and undone, and it made this moment more intimate, more private, the question that slipped past Walford’s lips in a whispered secret between them. “If you would like to date me, Joseph.”
“I don’t find the idea particularly objectionable.”
Wally lifted his head, pressing his hands against Joseph’s chest and giving him a flat look. “I will put you out on the street.”
Joseph burst into laughter, so deep he thought his ribs would crack. “Yes,” he said, but Wally only continued giving him that look, practically pouting. “Yes, okay? Tonight?”
Wally sniffed—but then broke into an effusive smile. “Tonight sounds lovely. I suppose now that only leaves the question of where.”
“No. No, it doesn’t.” He pressed a finger to Wally’s lips. “Dinner and a movie. Let me get used to the idea of dating again before you overwhelm me with your Wally-isms.”
“Am I really so overwhelming?”
“Being around you is like drowning in clouds.” He traced Wally’s lower lip with the pad of his finger, then let his hand fall away. “It’s nice. But let me ease in slowly.”
“As you wish, Joseph,” Wally murmured. “Anything you wish.”
And when Wally shifted to rest his head to Joseph’s shoulder, when he slipped his arms around his neck and laced those long fingers together against Joseph’s nape…Joseph closed his eyes and breathed him in while his heart wound itself so taut it sang. Wally was everything familiar and comforting married with something sudden and shocking and new, and right now Joseph was spinning but he didn’t want to stop. If he stopped he might fall, when reality and that old, buried undercurrent of resentment reared their ugly heads and dragged him down when he asked himself what the fuck he was doing, how this was happening.
He didn’t want to fall.
And so he held fast to Wally, pressed his lips into his hair, and let his thoughts spin into nowhere.
“So what do we do for now?” he murmured against sleek salt-and-pepper strands. “Stay like this?”
“Well…” Wally mused. “I could make sandwiches for lunch, and we could see what’s on the telly.” He lifted his head enough for an exaggerated whisper in Joseph’s ear, the searing lick of breath rousing a shiver. “I recently got cable.”
Joseph snorted out a laugh. “Welcome to the twentieth century.”
“But…” A puzzled wrinkle appeared between Wally’s brows. “It’s the twenty-first.”
“He gets the joke.” With a grin, Joseph flexed his legs; they twinged briefly in a shock of protest, a tingling starting in his toes, but he pushed himself a little just to bounce Wally playfully, making the man gasp and clutch at him. “If you want to watch TV you have to let me up, weirdo.”
With an exaggerated, fluttering roll of his eyes, Wally slid out of his lap with a performer’s consummate grace. “Such a cad, you are.”
Joseph rose just as Wally turned away; he caught Walford around the waist and dragged him back, pulling him against his body and grinning up at him.
“Where are you going? Get your weird ass over here.”
Wally’s startled gasp turned into a flustered near-whimper as Joseph bent and hooked an arm under those long, lanky legs; Walford’s fingers dug into his shoulders as Joseph swept him up, lifting him against his chest. He weighed next to nothing, but his heat was tantalizing and perfect and warmed Joseph like a furnace, chasing away the warning prickles in his arms that told him he had maybe a few minutes before this became a very bad idea.
He’d take those few minutes, when Wally looked up at him with his dark eyes wide and lost and vulnerable, his lips parted and that blush Joseph was coming to crave back in his cheeks. Wally looked at him as though he saw a whole man—a whole man he desired, and Joseph was realizing, now, that he could grow addicted to being looked at that way for a very long time.
Wally’s tongue darted over his lips, leaving behind an enticing sheen. “I…oh…should you be…?”
“Like I keep telling you, let me be fine when I’m fine. I won’t always be able to do this…so let me while I can.”
Dark eyes searched him, before Wally smiled, understanding tinging the curve of his lips. “Gladly, darling dear,” he said, and laid his head to Joseph’s shoulder once more as Joseph turned to carry him toward the living room. “Gladly.”
CHAPTER NINE
WALFORD THOUGHT HE MUST BE dreaming.
Because there was no way this could be real.
He had to have imagined the afternoon he’d spent sprawled on his ratty Queen Anne sofa, draped against the back of the couch with Joseph’s head resting in his lap and that rough, broad hand curled over his knee while Wally toyed with the graying streaks in Joseph’s hair and Joseph teased him for silently mouthing along with every line of dialogue in Kiss Me, Kate.
I can’t believe you watch this kind of stuff.
I can’t believe you don’t.
You’re weird, Wally.
So you keep saying. But I love you. Does that make me weird?
More weird than anything.
And the way Joseph’s eyes had darkened, the way he’d looked at Wally, until Wally leaned down to steal a kiss and wondered how this had ever happened…
