by E M Lindsey
He shifted, then swung his legs over the bed, trying to chase the restless feeling that needed conflict—something to ground him.
He closed the door with a soft click, then made his way to the kitchen for water. It was soothing against his aching throat, but it didn’t do much to soften the tsunami of cruel, ancient history that he knew he’d never fully be able to escape.
His feet carried him across the floor, into the dark room of his studio. He flicked on the soft desk lamp, his eyes scanning his work space. It had been a while since he’d been in there. His life was consumed with this new thing—this love which was brilliant and beautiful, but also terrifying and unfamiliar.
And it was a good distraction from the chaos that raged behind his newly constructed walls—until it wasn’t.
Shuffling his feet over the wood floors, Derek reached for the little dock on the table, Sam’s old iPod resting on its side. It lit up with a soft glow, and Derek hit play, not really giving a shit what blared through the speakers. They were hung now, by wire from beams which kept the sound in the air instead of vibrating along the walls and floors and disturbing Basil.
His lover had sworn he didn’t mind when Derek needed to overwhelm his senses with sound, but it was such an easy compromise, he didn’t think twice about it.
Turning the knob on the speaker, Derek closed his eyes against the rise and fall of a bass, then the whine of an electric guitar shooting through Beethoven’s scales. He had no idea where Sam had even found it, but the reckless sounds without words were one of the few things that could wrap itself around Derek and draw him away from the edges of long-dead fear.
Turning back to his canvas, he stared at the background he’d been working on weeks back. Something like a starry night with a darkly painted sky and stars just so, but it felt all wrong now. He wanted it to reflect how he felt— messy, disordered, bright, destructive. He wanted to dig under his skin and pull out all the pain he was feeling and smear it over the neatly painted sky until it was nothing like the original.
His fingers worked meticulously along the tubes of acrylic until there wasn’t a speck of white on his plastic palette. He eyed his brushes, but he knew it wasn’t going to be enough, so he dragged his hand across the surface and applied it to the canvas. The sensation wasn’t entirely pleasant, but there was something satisfying down to his very soul when the canvas scraped along his palm—rough and almost painful.
He watched the night sky disappeared in a swirl of red and blue and yellow. He swiped his hand again, and watched more colors consume the calm.
And again.
And again.
He pressed his palm against it harder each time, watching it bow against the wood frame—sometimes so far he thought it might snap. He put his whole body into it, the colors now barely more than an ugly brown as they mixed into a heap as buried as he felt.
A sob lodged in his throat, and the song changed, and somehow the volume got louder. His eyes were hot and his cheeks were wet and his jaw ached because he couldn’t stop clenching it.
And he painted.
His arms were flecked and smeared, his pajama pants another set for the ruined pile of shit from a break-down session, but he didn’t care. He didn’t fucking care.
“…worthless, waste of…don’t know why we let you live…could have ended it…pointless…”
His father’s memory had been reduced down to the ugliest syllables he’d uttered over the months before he died. Just a cacophony of hate and regret that Derek had survived infancy. And Derek had absorbed every single one of those blows—thinking those bruises would heal with time.
And they would.
But some nights, they were fresh as the day his father had laid them across his body.
Some nights they rippled up his spine and his defenses were down, and love made him vulnerable to all the pain that his previous walls had kept back.
He didn’t regret it, though. Couldn’t regret it.
He couldn’t spend a single moment thinking about the way Basil smiled—or the way his eyes crinkled in the corner, or his soft laugh, or his delicate hands moving through the air like every sentence was poetry— and feel regret. He would do it again and again and again. He’d strip himself bare and leave himself out for the birds to pick his flesh down to bone if it meant having the man in his bed stay there and never leave.
But some nights were just…
Harder.
Derek felt his breath hitch in his chest, and then he jumped half a foot when a warm palm pressed to the center of his back. It was only a second of shock, and then he sagged forward, dropping the palette on his feet and bracing himself on the wooden table in front of him. His canvas teetered, then fell onto the side, but he made no move to catch it.
He could feel Basil behind him—a ballast, a touchstone. His feet felt rooted to the floor, which was funny because he hadn’t realized he was floating away before now. Those delicate, flawless fingers crept upward into his hair, and Derek finally turned his head to look at him.
He was beautifully sleep-rumpled with heavy-lidded eyes and his mouth turned downward into a frown. His brow was furrowed with concern, and his free hand was curled at his side like he wanted to do something—say something—but he didn’t know what.
‘Hi,’ Derek mouthed.
Basil’s lip quirked, then he stepped a little closer and released him. ‘Bad night?’
The worst, he wanted to say. Everything hurts and the painting helped but it didn’t make it stop, and sometimes I feel like too much for you. But he didn’t. ‘Bad dream.’
Basil let out a sigh Derek couldn’t hear over the music, but he saw it in the rise and fall of his shoulders. Suddenly, everything in the room was too much. Too loud, too bright, too cold. The floor beneath his feet was too hard, the clothes on his back too soft, the paint on his arms too sticky.
Basil moved without Derek being aware of it. He hadn’t seen him break-down much. With years and with therapy Derek was doing better—but these nights happened enough that Basil could read him, understand what he needed without making Derek ask for it. Basil’s hands took his and carefully drew him out of the studio, across the hall, and into their bedroom.
It was warmer there, the breeze from the fan soft and low. It smelled familiar, and the sob that escaped his chest was ragged and pained. Of course Basil didn’t hear it, but his hand on Derek’s back felt it.
He froze, then pulled him in tight and let Derek hold him hard, let him bury his face in Basil’s curls, let him—for only a moment—crack.
Falling back toward the bed, Derek managed to land still sitting, and his limbs were pliant and exhausted as Basil methodically stripped him down. There was no communication between them apart from careful touch as Basil left the room, then returned with a cloth to get off the worst of the paint left behind.
Flecks of acrylic stuck to the hair on his arms, but he’d worry about that later. For now, he just breathed, and he felt his lover’s warm palms brushing careful paths over his exposed skin which brought him further and further away from the raging storm caused by the ghost of his childhood.
‘Thank you,’ he signed. His hand shook through the motion, but he managed a smile when Basil lifted his hand and kissed the inside of his wrist.
‘Lay down with me?’
Derek let the other man drag him to the bed, pull back the covers, and wrap the sheet around their waist. The light was on in the hall, and though Basil’s hands were draped in shadows, he was getting better at reading them.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
Derek shook his head, because there was nothing to say. The monster in his head—the one dead and buried—didn’t deserve the real estate. And maybe someday he’d be able to evict the old bastard, but tonight he’d settle for not giving him any more seconds than he’d already stolen.
‘Thank you,’ he signed again, more steady this time. ‘It was a bad dream.’ He knew he was repeating himself, and he knew that Basi
l understood he struggled with all forms of language when he was coming out of these episodes.
Basil’s hand hovered between them for a moment, but instead of signing more, he pushed his fingers through Derek’s hair and drew him in for a kiss. It was chaste, warm comfort and careful tongue. He tasted like soured sleep and the lingering bit of mint from rinsing his mouth before bed. It was the single most delicious thing Derek could remember, and he opened himself to it.
Basil groaned, the sound pulsing against Derek’s lips as he surged into the kiss, as his hands began to roam. He felt a sudden desperation to feel again, only this time he didn’t want it to hurt. He wanted the softness of it, the love, to remind him that this was his reality. The rest—the bullshit—was just an echo.
Basil seemed to understand. He didn’t ask, didn’t pull away. He let Derek take the lead with stiff fingers pulling at his t-shirt. It came free, dropping to the floor, his boxers next, and then he laid back and let Basil strip him down with clever hands and biting kisses—sharp teeth behind plush lips that left a trail of sensation in their wake.
Derek’s head hit the pillow as Basil’s mouth closed over his pulse point, sucking gently then moving down to flick the barbells in his nipples with the tip of his tongue. Derek groaned, and Basil’s lips parted to swallow the vibration of it, right over the beat of his heart.
‘Please,’ Derek signed, his circling hand bumping Basil on the cheek.
Basil rose up on one elbow and cupped Derek’s face with one hand, staring at him with his wide, beautiful eyes. ‘I love you,’ he mouthed.
Derek reached up and dragged the tips of his fingers over Basil’s parted lips, feeling a rush of hot, humid breath against them. “I love you.” He pulled his hand back to sign it. ‘I love you.’
Reaching past Derek’s head, Basil returned with lube, straddling Derek’s hips as he reached behind him with a slick hand. Derek braced himself for what he knew was coming next—for Basil slicking him up, then sinking down.
His head fell back with a deep-chested groan as he rolled his hips, and Derek’s fingers sank into the fleshy skin at his waist to brace himself for the first thrust upward. Basil let out a punched-out moan, then he rose on his knees and met Derek’s movement—a delicate, desperate dance between them that let Derek sink into pleasure and—for the moment—just stop thinking.
Warmth crept from his stomach, a flush rising over his chest, along his neck, burning at the tips of his ears. He curled his torso up, and urged Basil down, and their lips met in a frantic kiss as his orgasm built. Somehow, in the midst of his mindless need, he managed to get a hand between them and he curled it around Basil’s dick.
He swallowed another moan, offered one of his own that Basil caught with a sweep of his tongue. His long fingers buried in Derek’s hair and tilted his head back just so. He ground his hips down, his ass spasming, and then Derek was coming. His staccato thrusts stuttered upward, grasping Basil like if he let go he’d break apart, and Basil didn’t relent until every drop was spilled.
Derek only realized Basil had come from the way his dick was softening in his palm, and the wetness on his chest. His breathing was ragged, and his limbs felt useless as he allowed his lover to slide off to the side with a wet sound.
It was messy and it was perfect, and Derek didn’t care how filthy it was. He didn’t want to move, he just wanted to bask in the evidence that although his mind would always be different—that he’d always wake up afraid sometimes no matter how many years would pass—Basil would be there.
Warm kisses and careful words on gentle hands, and a rough fuck to give him just a single moment of peaceful forgetting.
And the rest—he could do the rest on his own.
Derek breathed out, shaky and grateful as he dragged the tips of his fingers along the edge of Basil’s face. He saw him smile there in the dim light, then he turned his head and pressed kisses against Derek’s warm skin.
“Okay?” he asked aloud.
Derek swallowed thickly, then raised his fist in a single nod. ‘Yes.’
Because he was okay. He wasn’t perfect—but he didn’t want to be. He didn’t need to be. He curled in toward his lover—his everything—and let those hands drag lines down the knobs in his spine until sleep claimed him.
And this time, there was only quiet darkness.
Fin.
Sam And Niko
The Honeymoon
One
The Honeymoon
“Do you think we should call them before we check in? Just to be safe?”
Niko bit back a smile, even as his irritation rose. Not at Sam, of course, but at the massive line of cars ahead of him waiting for valet. And maybe it was not the best idea to choose that hotel on that weekend—but fuck’s sake, why the hell should anyone else be celebrating but them.
It was an irrational thought and he gave exactly zero fucks about it because goddamn they had just gotten married. He had a ring on his finger and husband attached to his name and the love of his life sitting next to him in their car.
“Babe,” he said softly, “you know they’re fine. Maisy loves Derek more than anyone. Definitely more than me, and probably more than you most days.”
Sam bit the edge of his thumbnail and Niko noticed that his right leg had begun to spasm. He reached over, even as they were able to crawl forward an inch. Sam wouldn’t feel the touch, but he’d see it, and that was enough.
“We’re so far away. Like, hours ,Nik.”
Niko moved his hand to cup Sam’s cheek and caressed the stubble there on his jawline with the pad of his thumb. “Yes, and she has her entire family there with her. Maisy is going to be fine.”
“I’ve just never…”
“Left her. I know.” He curled his fingers around the back of Sam’s neck and drew him in for a languid, soft kiss. “Except now you have, and I know it’s not going to be easy, but at least try to enjoy this.”
“For you,” Sam agreed.
Niko shook his head and tightened his grip. “For you. You’ve worked your ass off raising her. You’ve worked your ass off loving me. Let’s just enjoy this.”
Sam let out a breath, then clenched his teeth and nodded. “You’re right. And I’m being a total dickhead right now. This is our honeymoon. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you any other way. Both your head and your dick.”
“No,” Sam said with a groan. “Nope, no that was bad. That was too bad. I want a fucking refund.”
Niko laughed, then let out a pleased hum when the line began to crawl forward and a man with a too bright smile, very blonde hair, and skin so pale it had started to pink under the sun reached for Niko’s door.
“Valet, sir?”
“Yeah.” He left the keys in the engine, made sure it was in park, then stepped out as Sam started to reach for the pieces of his chair. “We have a lot of crap.”
“No problem. We have a bell cart for you, and there’s a ramp up right there to get the lobby.”
Niko checked his watch and saw they still had two hours before check-in, but he was hoping a room might be ready early. Though, by the state of the line at both check ins and outs, he didn’t have a lot of hope. He walked around to the back of the car and popped the trunk, grabbing bags to set onto the bell cart until Sam joined him.
“Anything you want to take now?” Sam asked. “I bet there’s going to be a wait.”
Niko tried not to groan. Sam had a lot of equipment he had to use for travel—and all of it was fine to lie in wait, but he was hoping to get it settled so they could do honeymoon shit like order drinks by the pool, and swim, have dinner, then go upstairs and fuck each other to sleep.
“No, I guess not. I’m hungry though.”
Sam waved his hand as he grabbed the smaller bag with his emergency stuff and slung the strap across his chest. “So, let’s eat. We can get a drink, check out the downstairs lobby. The room will be ready when it’s ready.”
Niko wanted to hope that there was
a miracle lying in wait for them, but the woman at the front desk merely smiled and told him she’d send an automated text when their room key was ready for pick up. “We have some fantastic restaurants by the pool, and you can make reservations for the cabanas down at the concierge.”
Niko squinted his eyes and peered through the tinted window and saw a vast array of lawn chairs, umbrella, a multi-tiered pool, and a walkway to the beach. He and Sam had already discussed whether or not he’d make it down there—Sam resigned to the pool only, but Niko held onto hope because the recommendation he’d gotten for that place had been solid.
“Can we charge shit to the room, or…?”
“You can, Mr...Pad…Pago…” he could tell she was struggling with his former last name, and it gave him a great thrill to correct her.
“Braga, actually. We just got married.” He turned and looked back at Sam who was paying absolutely no attention at all to him, tapping what was most likely an over-protective message to Derek or Basil.
He looked back at the woman who wore a more tense smile—and fuck her, he thought—but he couldn’t care. He was too happy.
“You should have your room soon, sir.”
It was the best he could do, so he shoved the map under his arm and then walked over to Sam who had finally looked up. “No luck?”
“No, but we can eat and do pool stuff and…whatever.”
Sam seemed happy enough with it, and Niko was glad to see wide, automatic doors, and ramps on either side of the main stairs that didn’t take them completely out of the way. The pool was crowded, but not impossibly so, and he used the map to shade his eyes as he scanned the covered cabana chairs that faced the ocean.
“There?” he asked, pointing.
Sam hummed, then shrugged. “Could work. Do you think they’re expensive?”
“You married rich, babe,” Niko said with a wink. Sam often forgot—and a lot of Niko’s money was tied up in his restaurant, but they were comfortable now. They were more comfortable than Niko had been growing up—and that Sam had ever been in his life. And Niko knew it made his husband uncomfortable, but he also wanted to spoil him.
