Autumn: A Crow City Side Story

by Cole McCade

  “I won’t.”

  Wally’s chest seized. “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know yet. I just…” Joseph pressed their brows together, closing his eyes. “I don’t know. I’m a tangled mess inside. You’ve had me in freefall for weeks, and part of me wants to fall forever, and part of me is terrified of hitting bottom.”

  “And yet I’ve felt like I could fly, and never touch ground again,” Wally breathed, leaning harder into him. “Perhaps we can meet somewhere in between.”

  “Where sea and sky meet?”

  “Always,” Wally said, and pressed his mouth to Joseph’s.

  Joseph’s mouth slanted hard against his, and Wally gave himself utterly—every piece of himself, both old and newfound, all the fragments of Walford Gallifrey and Walford Wilson and everything in between, where his sea and sky met to make the man who loved Joseph with a pain stitched so deep into his heart that it held him together at the seams. His blood rolled like the tide, his heart the waves rushing beneath a scouring wind, and the burn of Joseph’s kiss was the sun washing down on him and lighting his darkest depths. He lost time. He lost all sense of self, lost everything but this: a kiss like a long, slow sigh, like the breath of pleasure settling deep into his bones.

  And when their lips parted, he rested his head to Joseph’s shoulder and was content to be in this moment, with his fingers interlaced with Joseph’s and their hands clasped over the beat of Joseph’s heart.

  But after a time, Joseph broke the stillness with a whisper, rubbing his cheek to Wally’s hair in a scratchy nuzzle. “Let me show you what I’ve been working on.”

  Wally’s eyes drifted open. “Now?”

  “I made you cry,” Joseph said. “I’d like to make you smile.” He peeled away, still holding fast to Wally’s hand, his other bracing to the wall, then the edge of a table to pull himself up. A slight tremor of his legs, there and gone so fast Wally couldn’t even start to reach for him, to stabilize him, before Joseph flashed him a smile so warm it could stop the turn of the earth. “Come on.”

  Once more Wally let Joseph lead him out into the afternoon sunlight, and yet the shape and color of the world had changed—the edges to everything crisper, the shadows longer and starker, the sullen and smothering heat thicker and the scent of dry grass soaking every breath. Yet the only thing that had changed, truly, was Wally, and he wondered if he was in shock.

  Or if knowing his roots had made him feel more real himself, and let him finally become whole enough to truly experience the world around him.

  Joseph guided him back to that tarp-draped structure he’d built, and pulled one of the coverings aside to reveal a doorway framed by wooden studs. A few cables looped down over the opening, and Joseph warned “Watch your head” as he nudged Wally inside.

  Wally ducked under the cables, looking around the darkened space with wide eyes. Inside the floor was only grass, but the interior walls had been covered over with some kind of black rigid sheeting, maybe fiberglass, with space between the exterior tarps and internal sheeting. The opaque tarps completely blocked the light from outside, only the faint sun-shafts coming from the opening highlighting strings of wires and lights. A dim square shape mounted to one of the support posts bristled with more wires and switches. Wally tilted his head, studying the peak of the roof.

  “I don’t understand…what is this?”

  “Just a second.” Joseph stepped inside; the tarp fell closed, and the entire room fell into a darkness so thick Wally’s eyes hurt, trying to pierce it. There came a faint rattling, a clanging of metal, then, “Do you know what my favorite part of autumn is?”

  He turned his head toward the sound of Joseph’s voice. “No, dearest. What’s that?”

  “The fireflies,” Joseph said, then flicked a switch.

  A light fixture at the highest peak of the roof snapped on—and tiny, thread-thin pinpoints of light burst out in a shower of green-gold sparks. Little motes that floated through the air, winking in and out as the cover on the light rotated, letting glimpses out through miniscule holes and throwing them to swirl against the black fiberglass sheeting of the walls until they danced in firefly-droplets against a pitch-black night. Wally’s eyes widened; he breathed in wonder like breathing in smoke, and he turned slowly, taking it in—but Joseph wasn’t done.

  “They come out after dark one at a time, just like the stars,” he whispered. He was only a silhouette, gray against black and showered in the glitter of firefly sparks. “Green and gold and orange, flitting through the night air.”

  Another switch flicked…and soft illumination rose behind the walls, turning misty black into radiant palettes of gradient color in deep russet and sunset rose and touches of twilight blue, outlining the dark silhouettes of tree branches behind the fiberglass, slim and naked and gracefully reaching. Christmas lights along the ceiling came alight one at a time, stars coming out against an artificial night.

  “I know they’re there in summer, too,” Joseph said. “But it’s different. Because I know that when I see them in autumn, it’ll be the last time before they die.”

  One last faint chk of a switch, and another light projector somewhere—Wally couldn’t tell where and didn’t care—blazed to life, throwing out the silhouettes of leaves onto the darkest black at the tops of the walls, glowing shapes in red and orange and yellow fire that tumbled and fell among the fireflies and the silhouetted branches, falling toward the floor only to melt into that soft glowing light. Joseph was a kaleidoscope of colors, now, painted in the shades of the autumn that he loved so much.

  “That’s what makes me love them the most,” Joseph finished. “Knowing that I’ll lose them soon, so I should cherish them while I can.”

  Wally had never seen anything like this. His heart skipped with the tumbling leaves, and he reached out, trailing his fingers through tiny rays of light and watching how they lit up his skin with colors, laughing and spinning and only wishing, wishing he could capture this memory—a glittering firefly in a jar—and keep it until its light burned out.

  “Fireflies that never die, and the fall of autumn leaves that never truly wilt.” Wally sighed with sheer pleasure, and every light was the bright flickering color of his delight. Letting himself spin to a halt, he turned to face Joseph, hardly able to breathe. “Joseph…it’s beautiful. I can’t believe you made this.”

  “It’s not anything I’ve ever done before. I’m usually working with heavy machinery, not lighting and timers. And it’s not quite done.” Joseph grinned crookedly, his eyes alight. “But it felt good to create something again. And…look. Well, listen.”

  He touched something inside the control box again, twisted—and delicate notes of music spilled from somewhere, light and ethereal. A music box, Wally realized, song fragile as crystal, and he recognized it as a rendition of some popular song from the radio but like this, it was every sweet heart note that made his pulse beat each time Joseph looked at him with that warmth, that intensity that made Wally wish that one day, one day…he might be loved.

  Joseph was looking at him that way right now, as he drifted closer. “I wanted to show you what I love about autumn, and I didn’t want to wait another month or more.”

  “Oh,” Wally breathed. “You made this…simply to show me?”

  “Yeah.”

  If Wally never knew happiness again, he would still have this instant—remembered, cherished, enough to last him for the rest of his life. He wanted to make a memory of this, a moment…and he swept Joseph a bow, then offered his hand, outstretched, wanting, needing.

  “Dance with me,” he said.

  Joseph’s hand slid into his, joining them one to one, and Wally drew him close.

  “I don’t know how to follow,” Joseph said, looking up at him with dark, hazed eyes.

  “So lead.” Wally guided Joseph’s hand to rest on his waist and clasped the other between them, smiling. “Lead me, Joseph.”

  Joseph hesitated—before his eyes darkened w
ith understanding, and he nodded. That hand on Wally’s waist slid to rest firmly on his back, pulling him in until they fit in a way that just felt right. And if that first step was awkward, if the next step and the next and the next always canted heavier on one side with Joseph’s limp…it didn’t matter. Silvery notes tumbled among the leaves and fell around them in a shimmering rain.

  And Wally had never felt more perfectly in love.

  Moving with Joseph, he stepped and turned, dipped and spun, slow and following the sway of their own bodies and the pull of their whims as much as the delicate dulcimer notes of the melody box. His feet were light as laughter, his heart as bright as sunrise, and every time their eyes met and their fingers laced, Joseph smiled at him and Wally lost himself in this breathlessness.

  And when Joseph kissed him, that, too, was part of this dance: a dance of brushing lips and teasing tongues and soft sighs, of questioning touches and hands that forgot the proper placement for a waltz and instead found skin and dark hair and the heady throb of a beating pulse against a strong, tanned throat. Deeper, then: the music forgotten for the rhythm between them, the quiet knowing of bodies that had mated and twined and melded into each other’s heat until they were part of one another and even apart, were connected at the source: two tributaries spanning back to the same river, winding and twisting and carving across the land to find a way to meet and become one once more.

  Desire crept like a thief this time, building to a breathless ember-glow, caressed to life in every graze of teeth and path of tracing fingers stealing beneath fabric to find flesh. But as hips met hips, as fire met fire, Joseph broke back with a gasp, a smile, a low and rueful laugh.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

  Walford could feel it: the tremor in his touch, the rigidity in his legs, and no matter that his arousal met Wally’s own, no matter that he could feel how much Joseph wanted…this was one of those times, then. And yet—testing, curious—Wally slipped a hand between them, gently cupped Joseph, stroked him through the denim until Joseph groaned, a rich, alluring sound, and swayed into him.

  “Not so very weak,” Wally purred, and stole that next enticingly deep groan with a kiss. “Beloved…will you allow me?”

  Joseph caught a hitching breath; his eyes widened, darkened, and a dash of red joined the soft-lit colors playing across his face. “Do…you mean…?”

  “Yes.” Wally searched those wide eyes, his touch stilling, halting, waiting. “Only if you truly wish it, beloved. Only if you feel you can…but yes.”

  And then Wally kissed Joseph—so deeply, so slowly, as if he could give Joseph a taste of how it felt to let someone else inside, to let them explore him from within and know his most intimate depths. And when Joseph went liquid against him, when he groaned and clutched at Wally’s shoulders, Wally only kissed him that much deeper, until there was no part of Joseph he hadn’t tasted, known, claimed.

  “Let me this time, love,” he whispered. “Let me.”

  Joseph hesitated. Trembled. Looked up at Wally with his gaze full of questions, of doubts, of a smoky and heady need.

  Then he took Wally’s hand in his, kissed his palm…and turned to lead him from autumn, through the bright summer day, and into the close and secret shadows of the house.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  JOSEPH’S ENTIRE WORLD NARROWED DOWN to Walford’s hand in his, through each breathless, drifting step that took them closer and closer to that second when the outside world ceased to exist. He tumbled against the bed with Wally arched over him, as graceful as a swan with its wings spreading wide and long white neck curved. Everything fell away—everything. The day outside, the walls around them, all blending into a blur of color and silence until nothing was clear but the saber-sharp line of Wally’s cheekbone, the pinstripes flowing down the trim angle of his hips, the spread of his thighs as his knees braced against the sheets in a hiss of cloth to cloth, the way the light fell over his hair and turned it to steel and shadow and threads of starlight as it fell forward.

  And that hand in his. Both hands in his, palm to palm, their fingers laced, as Wally gently pinned Joseph to the bed and bent down to kiss him.

  That tumble of salt-and-pepper hair fell around him in a curtain, cool against his cheeks, and Joseph leaned up into Wally with a gasping sigh, only to groan in protest as Wally teased him: brushing kisses like birds alighting and flitting away, taunting him, rousing him, always giving him enough to want more, never enough to ease this quiet craving that carved its channels deeper and deeper until they found the darkest depths of his heart. His nerves prickled, tingled, racing through him as if he breathed in waves of light and exhaled sheer terrified anticipation. He’d never—not like this. Not lying beneath someone else while deft, knowing hands explored him, slipping beneath his clothing and stroking over his chest and stomach in a way that made his breaths turn sharp, that made him soft and strange and vulnerable.

  When Wally lifted Joseph’s shirt over his head, coaxing his arms up to peel the cloth away and bare his chest, he had to turn his face away. As if he could hide from how dark eyes fell over him in a hot black rain, soaking into his flesh; as if he could hide from how long fingers splayed against his stomach and stroked upward one inch of skin at a time, pulling on his senses as if Wally had the power to absorb him into his palms with every searing touch.

  “Don’t look away,” Wally whispered. “Please. Don’t turn away from me.”

  Joseph tilted his head back and looked up at Wally with his arms still stretched over his head and some secret quiet part of him whispering, whispering, all dark-moving slowness and nerves and wanting. And when Wally unbuttoned Joseph’s jeans, when he drew denim and cotton down his legs, Joseph lifted his hips, and wondered if this was how it felt to be an offering, laid bare for the taking and marked for sacrifice.

  And if he was a sacrifice, Wally’s touch cut deep as a dagger piercing him on an altar as that long, pale hand wrapped around Joseph’s cock, fingertips playing through the wetness beading on the tip and slicking it until it glistened in shining threads between Wally’s fingertips. Those fingertips played him so perfectly, so attuned to his every gasp and sigh that he wasn’t sure if he guided Wally or Wally guided him but either way he writhed and twisted to every stroke that painted fire on his skin and made his vertebrae arch one at a time in successive liquid bursts of pleasure that left him limp and melting and rolling his shoulders against the pillows.

  The entire time Wally watched him, holding him pinned as much with his touch as with his gaze, saying not a word and yet in that reverent silence was…everything. Everything that tore Joseph open and left him willing and weak to this; everything that made it impossible to look away from that intense, thoughtful gaze that seemed to take all of him in and say:

  As you are. I want you as you are, not as you think you should be.

  Then those black eyes closed. That lean body curled forward. That dark head bowed.

  And that full, pretty pink mouth pressed to the tip of his cock, pricking him with a swollen sting of pleasure, only for Wally’s lips to part and take him in.

  Wet heat fell over him. Drenched him, submerging him in sensation like molten sweat soaking against his skin, enveloping him in a burn of pleasure that left him crying out roughly, choking on the sounds, lifting himself only to fall again when his body refused, gave out on him, collapsed him to the bed and rendered him helpless to do anything but feel, as Wally tormented him with languid strokes of his tongue. Smooth palms pressed to his inner thighs, pushing his legs open until the pull on his muscles drew up deep in that aching tight place below and behind his cock, centralizing in a knotted core of desperate need. Deeper Wally took him, until gripping velvety warmth wrapped around his cock head and a thrum vibrated over him in scintillating bursts and tiny caresses as Wally swallowed him into the depths of his throat.

  A slick, smoldering tension consumed him—sweeping him up in stroking, suckling
rhythm and tearing all sense and reason away. Joseph writhed, calling out Wally’s name, torn between closing his eyes to sink into the sensation or never tearing his gaze away from how lovely Wally looked, his expression lost and rapt and utterly absorbed as he teased Joseph with the tip of his tongue. Those long hands kneaded and stroked Joseph’s thighs, then moved away. He hardly knew what was happening, hardly felt what Wally was doing when slicked fingers moved against his ass; his entire world centered around that tormenting mouth, driving him mad and stripping his strength and leaving him clutching up feverish handfuls of Wally’s hair. But when a single fingertip pressed against his entrance, he tensed, bucking his hips upward, catching a hoarse, strangled cry in the back of his throat.

  Wally lifted his head, freeing Joseph’s cock to the cool wash of air and the sharper rush of his breath over wet, throbbing flesh. “Shh,” he whispered. “Relax for me, darling dear.”

  Joseph tried—he tried, panting roughly and willing his body to go loose…but as that long, sleekly oiled finger eased into him, he clenched taut until he couldn’t escape the overwhelming pressure of every inch invading him, opening him, seeking in a way he’d never known before. He didn’t recognize the deep, roughly keening voice echoing over the room until he realized it was his own, these needy calls coaxed out of him each time Wally stroked him so delicately from within, fingertip probing and teasing and sparking off crashing shocks of arousal that nearly undid him completely.

  He hadn’t known what to expect—but it was never being caught in this tug of war between the sheer electric wetness of Wally’s mouth and the tight piercing pain of first one, then two, then three fingers filling him, searching deeper one measured stroke at a time, drawing it out until each second imprinted on him, a captured photograph locking every detail into place in hyper-real intensity. Every rough slick of Wally’s tongue, every pressing glide of his lips, every gentle, teasing edge of careful teeth; every curl of his knuckles, every spread of his fingers, every stretching pull as bit by bit he made Joseph take more and more until he was so full his body screamed with the pressure building inside.