Rise Again

by L. J. Hamlin

  "I'm verse, but with my arm, some positions are out." Cade sighs.

  "Same with me and my knee. I'd kind of like you to fuck me. I was thinking a good position for both of us could be on our sides, kind of spooning," Arkady suggests.

  "I'd like that. Let me get some lube and a condom. You stay here. I don't want you hurting your leg," Cade says softly, giving him a quick kiss before gets up and he heads off and through a door that Arkady assumes is his bathroom.

  When Cade comes back, he puts his supplies down on the coffee table, close to hand. Arkady rolls onto his side, facing the couch cushions, taking his time to get comfortable, making sure his bad knee isn't pressing against his good knee or bearing any weight. Arkady feels Cade get on the couch behind him and press against his back.

  Arkady twists his head around so he can kiss Cade. They kiss deep and slow, bodies moving together, hands exploring, and Arkady can feel them both growing hard. Arkady arches back into Cade's touch, pressing his ass into Cade's groin, and hears him moan.

  He's not sure how long it is before he feels the slick feel of lube trickling between his ass cheeks and fingers massaging it into his hole. He just knows he's more than ready. Cade works him open slowly, gradually adding fingers and loosening Arkady. He feels relaxed and turned on. He really likes Cade. He's wanted to do this since they met. When Cade murmurs to ask if he's ready, Arkady nods.

  Cade gets a condom. Arkady listens to the faint sounds of Cade putting on the rubber, and then he uses his hand to guide his cock to Arkady's entrance. Cade pushes in slowly, and it feels good, but not just good. It feels like it did the last time he was penetrated, before he became disabled. Arkady knows it seems stupid, but he'd been worried sex would feel different, not as pleasurable now that his body's in pain all the time.

  And maybe in the beginning his sex drive wasn't the same. He hadn't jacked off much, but Arkady thinks that was more the depression he had sunk into. He hadn't wanted to do anything, let alone get off.

  But now, as Cade presses into him, moving slowly, Arkady can feel pleasure buzzing under his skin, his face and chest flushing a little hot. Cade puts his arm around Arkady's waist, holding him close and tight. It feels good to be so close to Cade, and Cade gets it. He's careful of Arkady's knee, but he doesn't treat him like he's fragile, and Arkady likes that.

  Arkady leans back for a kiss, crushing his lips to Cade's while they move together, Cade's hips moving firmly. Arkady arches so he can take Cade deeper. The arm around his waist moves a little, and Cade's hand cups over his groin, stroking Arkady's dick along with his thrusting. It's the best feeling, the dual pleasure, and Arkady gets lost in it.

  His sweat slicked skin sticks and slides against the leather, and he can hear nothing but the sounds they make together, their breath panting out, their skin slapping as it meets. Every sound and feeling is erotic, and only adds to the pleasure building inside of Arkady. He'd taken pain meds before the galley event, and they last pretty well, so the pain in his knee isn't distracting him too much.

  Cade nuzzles his neck, and it sends shivers down Arkady's spine. He can feel Cade's breath on his neck, and he's shaking when his orgasm hits him out of nowhere. He doesn't even get to call out a warning, but Cade doesn't seem to mind. He just keeps thrusting and strokes Arkady through his orgasm.

  Arkady is on an endorphin high, and he holds on tight to the arm around his waist while Cade keeps thrusting, fast and hard. Arkady isn't sure how much time passes before Cade lets out a muffled groan against his shoulder. They both slowly wind down in each other's arms, and Arkady still feels boneless when Cade pulls out and gets up. He comes back with a damp wash cloth and without a condom.

  Cade leans over him, cleaning the come from his body and the lube from his ass before ditching cloth on the coffee table. Then Cade gets back on the couch, grabbing a blanket from the back of it and throwing it over both of them.

  They cuddle up, naked under the blanket. Arkady hates to be the guy who falls asleep right after sex, but it's been a long day, and a lot has happened, so he lets his eyes drift closed. He thinks Cade says something, but he doesn't hear what.

  Chapter Nine

  It takes all of Arkady's control not to slam the front door of his parents' house. After a lovely morning waking up in Cade's arms and having breakfast with him, he'd gone to the police station at their request. They'd done a lineup, and Arkady had identified James Lee as the man who'd been in the alleyway and who had attacked him.

  Prisha had also arrived while he was there and positively identified James as well. The police had seemed useful at first, offering to get him a restraining order against James, but they'd said, "Mr. Lee has a very good lawyer," and therefore they were going to need a lot more evidence to make anything stick.

  He'd thought maybe this nightmare would be over today, that he'd be safe, but he's not. Prisha had offered to call in to work so she could stay with him, but Arkady hadn't wanted to cause trouble or to mess with another patient's treatment. His parents are at work, so Arkady has come back to an almost empty house.

  Lou comes to greet him, though, tail wagging, fussing around Arkady. He whines a little, so Arkady leads the way to the kitchen to feed him. He's tossing the empty can of wet food when the doorbell rings. Arkady's heart leaps, but he goes to see who it is anyway. It's probably just a package for his parents.

  Arkady walks to the door, making sure that when Lou follows he doesn't knock Arkady's stick. It's not a package, or for his parents. It's Cade and Prisha, with bags of something.

  "We brought snacks and movies," Prisha says cheerfully.

  "But you have work, and Cade, aren't you supposed to be painting?" Arkady asks, stepping aside to let them in and holding on to Lou's collar so that he doesn't jump all over Cade and Prisha. He's met them both before, but he can be over friendly.

  "I decided my friend was more important." Prisha shrugs as she shuts the door behind her.

  "Painting can wait. My boyfriend having a shitty day and needing cheering up can't." Cade smiles.

  "Well, thank you. Thank you both. Come through here." Arkady leads the way to the TV room, and before he knows it, he has Cade on one side, Prisha on the other, and Lou pretending he's a little lap dog, even though he's a huge pit bull, with a movie on the big TV and bowls of snacks in front of them.

  They spend a lazy afternoon watching movies, and Prisha doesn't even make fun when Cade falls asleep on Arkady's shoulder. Prisha falls asleep next, curled up like a cat. Arkady watches them both fondly, his heart filled with love for them. They've been so good to him. He only hopes he can work to deserve their kindness.

  Arkady eventually falls asleep, too. He's not sure for how long, but he wakes up when he hears Lou growling. He opens his eyes, and James Lee is standing in his parents' TV room with a gun. The TV is still playing, some comedy with a laugh track, which seems so out of place for the situation.

  "James," Arkady says, and Cade stirs beside him. Cade swears, Prisha gasps, and Arkady half wishes they had stayed asleep; maybe that would have kept them from getting hurt. The other part of Arkady is glad not to be facing this alone.

  "I was surprised when the police asked to talk to me. I thought you wouldn't remember me. You always seemed so wrapped up in your own world, in being the star," James says, pointing the gun at them.

  "This is crazy. My parents have a security system. The cops will be here soon. You won't get away. Right now the police have nothing on you. Just walk away from this. Forget about me," Arkady replies. James could shoot all three of them before anyone arrived. He'd probably be caught, but that wouldn't make them any less dead.

  "Don't call me crazy," James growls.

  "He didn't," Cade snapped.

  "You should have died when I cut the ropes at that damn photo shoot. The shoot should have been mine in the first place, but no, they choose you, the golden boy," James spits out. He's shaking, and it looks like maybe he's building up the courage to kill three people, face to face, t
o commit an act that can't be declared an accident or suicide.

  "So it was you." Arkady is still a little stunned. James was so jealous of him that he tried to kill him, leaving him with a lifelong injury. Arkady feels Prisha's trembling hand close over his.

  "You're like a damn cat with nine lives. I won't leave it to chance this time," James says, stepping closer. All Arkady can think of is losing the people with him, and his parents coming home to their bodies, not knowing what had happened because he'd never told them about James Lee.

  Lou, who's been growling steadily till now, leaps off Arkady's lap when James steps forward, slamming into James chest. The gun hits the floor. Arkady's good leg is asleep and his bad leg too weak for him to get up quickly, but Prisha is fast as lightning. She grabs the gun and holds it on James.

  "Can you get Lou? I don't want him to get shot," Arkady asks Cade, rubbing his knee, cursing himself for over doing it and not taking meds with him last night, since he hadn't planned not to be home in the morning.

  Cade goes and grabs Lou's collar, kicking James's hand away when he tries to grab for them. He leads Lou back to the couch, where he seems happy to jump back up on the couch to guard Arkady.

  "I'll call the police." Cade grabs his cell phone and dials.

  "Would you really kill for him? He doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about people, about anything," James says to Prisha.

  "I'd kill for either of them and myself. You'd have killed us all. And you're wrong about him. Arkady isn't the man you think he is. He cares deeply. Maybe he never cared about you, but maybe that's because you always envied him," Prisha says, sounding pretty calm for someone holding a gun pointed at a man who'd planned to use it to kill three people.

  "I didn't envy him. I was better than him. I'm still better than him. I'm the best," James spits.

  "You were never the best, not before you stole dance from me and not after." Arkady knows dozens of dancers who work harder than James, who dance better, and certainly have better attitudes.

  "The police are on their way," Cade says.

  "I thought your life would be over after that first time. When you didn't die, when you crawled back, everyone still loved you." James is crying now, and it's pitiful to see. Arkady doesn't respond to that, doesn't tell James about all the people who turned away from him once he couldn't dance, how low it had brought him.

  "You didn't just break into my apartment in case I remembered you cutting the ropes. You did it because you couldn't stand to see me happy. You hated that my disability didn't destroy me," Arkady says.

  "How can you be happy? I crippled you," James says through tears, and the growl Arkady hears comes from Cade, not Lou, but is just as fierce.

  "My leg might be broken, but I'm not. You didn't break me. You will never break me," Arkady says firmly, and there's heavy knocking on the door. Cade goes to answer it, and then police flood his parents' TV room. They take the gun from Prisha and put James in handcuffs.

  Arkady goes to Cade and Prisha and wraps his arms around them both. He can feel Lou rubbing against all of their legs.

  "I'm so sorry I put you in danger," Arkady says as he steps back.

  "Don't be silly. You can't help what other people do. I'm so sorry he hurt you," Prisha says softly.

  "He put us in danger, not you," Cade says, kissing him on the cheek.

  They're still being interviewed by the police when his parents come home, and Arkady feels awful when he sees their worried and then relieved faces. He's less surprised than he once would have been when they come over and hug him tightly, speaking in low Russian.

  "Mom, dad, you've met Cade and Prisha," Arkady introduces, and he finds himself in the weird situation of making small talk with his parents while the police talk to them in turn.

  When Arkady and Cade tell his parents how brave Prisha was, she blushes as they all praise her. It seems they're not the only ones impressed with Prisha, because they all see when the detective from the other night, Ana, gives Prisha her card and writes down her personal number on it.

  "Going to call her?" Arkady asks, glad that his parents haven't even batted an eyelash at Prisha being lesbian.

  "I don't know." Prisha sighs.

  "Come on, Prisha. You're brave enough to hold a gun on a guy; you can try going on one date," Cade says.

  "You've always told me to be brave, to try things, and thanks to you, I met Cade. I don't think anyone needs to date, but I'd like you to have the option of that kind of happiness," Arkady adds with a soft smile.

  "I don't mean to butt in, as I know little about you, but I know you, along with Cade, have made my son happy. You're a good person. I would like you to know the happiness I have with my husband. But at the same time, I have single friends just as happy as I am. So I guess I'm saying do whatever feels right for you," Veronika says kindly, and Arkady's glad that his mother likes his friend.

  "Would you all like to stay for dinner?" Vsevolod offers, and everyone agrees.

  Arkady finds himself having a pleasant night with his friends and family, something he never saw happening, but he's glad it has, and he's glad he no longer has to be afraid, he can live his life.

  Epilogue

  "And one more, legs high, and okay, you can go change now, guys," Arkady says, dismissing his class.

  He's been teaching his own dance classes for a month now. It'd taken him almost a year to get all the qualifications he'd needed, and then to find a private dance school that was looking for a teacher and didn't mind that he was gay and disabled.

  It had taken work, but finally, he found the right place, and now he teaches nine to eleven year olds three days a week, and a day of more advanced class for twelve to fifteen year olds. He's really enjoying it. It's been worth the hard work to get to this point, and he's had a lot of encouragement along the way.

  Arkady says goodbye to all his students and tidies up, smiling when he sees Cade coming through the door to the studio in the mirror he's by. They've been together for almost a year now, and Arkady still can't help smiling every time he sees Cade.

  "Hi, Cade." Arkady straightens up, and using his stick, he walks over to Cade, who puts an arm around him and kisses him.

  "I know we're going to dinner tonight, and I was going to wait till then, but I want to do this now," Cade says, and he takes something out of his pocket: a key.

  "I want you to move into my place. I want it to be our home. You already keep some of yours and Lou's stuff at my place. You spend most of your time there, and it's closer to your work. And I think we're ready to take this step. I want something to show how committed I am to you, and it seems a little early to pop the question, so please, come and live with me," Cade says in a rush, showing his nerves.

  "Yes, of course. I'd love to live with you. We can walk Lou together every day in that park you found instead of just when I bring him over. I get to wake up with you every day. Of course," Arkady says, and he kisses Cade passionately.

  "I'm so glad you said yes. Are you ready for dinner?" Cade asks.

  "One second. Let me grab a few things, and I'll meet you outside," Arkady says, taking the key from Cade's hand and putting it in his pocket.

  "Okay, don't be long. I'll miss you," Cade replies with a grin.

  Cade leaves, and Arkady cleans up a last few things before stopping at the bars used for dancing. He touches them with the hand not holding his stick and strokes them fondly. He can't say he doesn't miss dancing, and that at times he doesn't envy his students when he sees them dancing, but he's seen what envy did to James, and he never wants to end up that twisted.

  So, patting the bar, he turns away and heads for the door.

  Fin

  About the Author

  LJ is a disabled queer writer in her late twenties, she loves writing all kinds of different books with a romance twist and has been writing all her life. Writing can often be hard due to pain but can also often be an escape from it and it’ll always be part of her life.

&n
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