How The Light Gets In - 12. Chapter 12

Even by 9 a.m., the sky was still dark and fog heavy, the road to the university treacherous with black ice. Luc, a calm and cautious driver despite his Montreal roots, started out nervous in the passenger seat of his red Civic, tensing as Matt negotiated the twists and curves. He soon realized, however, that Matt had noticed his nervousness, and was relieved that he responded by taking the slick road slowly and carefully.

Twice the insipid tones of some horrible overproduced music emerged from Matt’s jacket pocket, and twice Matt ignored it. The third time, however, he reached for his cell. Luc’s good hand fisted nervously.

But Matt didn’t answer it. Instead, he placed the phone carefully in Luc’s lap. “Can you see who it is?”

Luc exhaled and his fingers relaxed as he picked up the phone and glanced at the screen. “Brandon. Want me to answer?”

“Yeah. Three times in ten minutes sounds important.”

Luc flipped the phone open. “Hello?”

“Matt?”

“No, this is Luc. We’re just driving in. The road is bad.”

“Oh, um. Look. Could you tell Matt–”

Brandon’s voice trailed off, but Luc knew from his tone that something had happened. “What is it?” he asked.

A silence, and then a catch in Brandon’s breath. “Laura,” he said, and his voice broke a little. “She’s had an accident. In practice this morning.”

“Mon Dieu,” Luc muttered. “She is alright?”

“What is it?” asked Matt. “What’s happened?”

Luc shook his head. He was listening intently to Brandon.

“No. She fell doing that new dismount, and broke her leg. Badly. Compound fracture. Scott was there. He said there were a good two centimeters of bone protruding through the skin just above her ankle.”

“Non!” Luc gasped.

“What the fuck is going on?” Matt demanded from beside him.

“She’s in an ambulance on her way to the hospital now,” said Brandon in his ear.

“Un moment,” said Luc into the phone, quickly filled Matt in, then returned to the call.

“Which hospital?”

“Halifax. The local hospital doesn’t have a specialty orthopaedic OR.”

“And where are you?”

“I’m following the ambulance.”

Luc looked at the deceptively black road ahead of them; he and Matt were already fifteen minutes into a ten minute drive, and they were barely half way there. He knew that the long road to Halifax, beautiful as it snaked beside the ocean, would be slick and dangerous in this frozen fog.

“You mean you’re driving? That’s not safe.”

“But I need to tell Matt–”

Luc clutched the cell. “There is nothing you need to tell Matt that won’t wait until you get there. Get off the phone now, Brandon. I know that road to Halifax. It’s dangerous in this weather. Call Matt you get there, or if you stop on the way. His phone will be on.”

“Tell him she’ll probably be having surgery right away. I gotta stay here with her, Luc. Her parents can’t get here until tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll tell him. Now goodbye. We don’t need any more accidents. Call Matt when you get there. I have a four o’clock appointment at the hospital, so he will see you then.”

Before Brandon could extend the conversation any further, Luc snapped the phone closed.

“Fuck,” said Matt, and he flicked a quick glance at Luc, then fixed his eyes back on the road.

“Oui,” said Luc, filling him in on the surgery details.

“So you don’t mind if we spend some time with him after your appointment?”

“Mind?” asked Luc. “I would expect it. Laura is my friend too.”

 ***

Luc entered the lecture hall to see Scott slumped in his regular place by the window. It was early afternoon, and Scott was gazing out into the heavy grey day. His laptop was already open in front of him, his backpack on the empty chair to his right.

Luc made his way across the room. “Anyone sitting here?” he asked.

Scott turned, his worried frown giving way to a quick and genuine smile as he grabbed his pack and tossed it on the ground.

“I hoped you’d make it,” he said, “But when I didn’t see you this morning…”

“Registrar’s Office. I had to straighten my classes out. My parents and my doctor insisted I drop one course – well, they wanted me to drop two, but we compromised on one, which I can pick up in Montreal over the summer.”

He slid into the seat beside Scott. “I… heard about Laura. Brandon called Matt as we were driving in this morning.”

Scott sighed heavily.

“Brandon said you were there?”

“Yeah. I’d just stuck my head into the gym on the way back from working out with the team, and decided to hang around for a few minutes to watch her practice. It – looked pretty bad.”

“What will it mean?” Luc asked. “Will she have to give up gymnastics?’

“Too early to say.”

Luc was about to turn his attention to his computer bag when Scott began to chew worriedly at his lower lip. As he watched the white teeth draw in the soft skin – he couldn’t not look – Luc was shocked by the little thrill of awareness that shot through him. It took an almost physical effort to force himself to look away.

“Matt’s driving me to Halifax for an appointment with the surgeon this afternoon,” he said, breathing deeply as he propped his canvas shoulder bag on his lap. “He’ll be picking me up here, after this lecture. We’ll see Brandon and then maybe Laura after that, if we can.”

He forced himself to look steadily into Scott’s eyes, which were storm grey and worried.
“Do you want to come with us?” he asked.

Scott shook his head. Part of Luc – a very large part – was relieved.

“Thanks, but Josh and I are gonna drive down after dinner.”

Josh, thought Luc. Of course.

He turned to his attention to retrieving his laptop. It was awkward; he had to stabilize the bag with the weight of his left hand, while his good hand struggled with the buckle.

“Want some help with that?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

But he didn’t have it. He was fumbling. And the more he fumbled, the more frustrated he got – and the more awkward.

Finally, Scott reached over. He didn’t open the bag for him, but he rested his hand on it, steadying it against Luc’s thighs. That made it easier. But as he eased the computer out, the side of his hand brushed against Scott’s, and…

There it was. That little thrill – quick and surprisingly intense. He trembled, though Scott appeared to noticed neither the touch of Luc’s hand, nor Luc’s reaction.

The professor arrived and the lecture began. Luc could not concentrate. No matter how he tried, the words degenerated into mere sound, their meaning eluding him. His skin seemed to burn where he had grazed Scott.

He found himself stealing glances at Scott’s hands, resting casually at the edge of his keyboard, grazing the keys occasionally to capture thoughts.

Luc noticed hands.

Perhaps it was because he had studied piano for so many years. It often seemed to him that his childhood had been defined by his hands, his development measured out in the span of small boy fingers across the ivory keys. Five keys from thumb to pinky. Six. Seven. An entire octave. Year by year, note by note, until the long and slender fingers had grown into a strong and sure eleven-note span.

Scott’s hands were bigger than Luc’s, though his fingers were perhaps the same length.

A lot of big guys had surprising heavy hands, strong but lacking grace, definition. Daniel’s had been like that: large and square like his father’s. At fifteen, the blond hair on the backs of his hands, on his knuckles, had just started to coarsen…

Scott’s hands were not like that. Scott’s hands were large, but beautifully proportioned. Graceful. Strong hands, beautiful hands. Hands, Luc remembered, capable of immense gentleness.

Luc remembered the first time he had felt the touch of those strong, gentle hands. That night in the fog. The first time Scott had kissed him. How could he ever forget such gentle, controlled kisses?

And Scott’s fingers, equally gentle, equally controlled, caressing his face in the fog with the faintest touch of his fingertips.

Now, in the public anonymity of the lecture hall, Luc did not dare to look at Scott’s face, the profile he knew, the line of the jaw. He looked instead at his hands. There, on the keyboard, now resting, now moving quickly. Luc looked at them, and remembered.

Not the night in the fog, the sweet, soft touches.

Not even the night in his bedroom, where his insistence had led to a surer, more daring carress.

No. What Luc remembered now was not these joyous touches. What he remembered instead was the last time Scott’s hands had touched him. The last time. When Scott’s hands had gently, intimately pushed his hair back from his forehead. When worried fingers had grazed Luc’s cheeks with anxious fingertips. When that strong, strong grip had gently wrapped itself around bandaged skin and bone, and trembled, as Luc was trembling now . . .

It was eight weeks ago now, eight weeks. Luc had been lying in the hospital bed, after–

After.

Luc could remember after.

He remembered waking up.

He remembered that he hurt.

Everything, everywhere had hurt – his hands, his stomach, his throat, even his eyes in the dim light. In some ways, his throat had been the worst of it, worse than his wrists even. Stillness could control the pain in his wrists, but nothing had seemed to control the pain of swallowing, of breathing. In those first lost hours, it seemed there had been only breath and pain.

He learned later that he’d had a seizure when he was being intubated, which made the procedure even rougher, more desperate than usual. His trachea had been damaged. For weeks afterwards, it had been painful to talk. Even now, his voice seemed weaker to him, breaking at odd times.

Yes, Luc could remember after.

What he was having a hard time remembering was before.

He could remember the facts of it well enough.

He remembered taking the pills, swallowing them four and five at a time. The bitter taste of Tylenol on his tongue. The burn of the vodka he’d used to wash them down.

But he could not remember what his heart had felt, what it had desired. Maybe his heart had felt nothing.

Mostly he remembered waiting.

And waiting.

He remembered thinking of Scott, and thinking of Daniel, and thinking how they had both abandoned him, and thinking that somehow the wait was the worst part of it. He remembered that nothing seemed to be happening at all.

Now he looked once again at Scott’s hands, where they rested lightly on the lower edge of the keyboard. And from Scott’s hands he looked down on his own. The narrow right hand gripped in a fist. The left still splinted, the fingers curled like a frightened child’s.

He forced them straight.

After a while, he’d decided that he must not have taken enough tablets. He’d felt desperate because of that, because there had been nothing more he could do. He’d had only the one bottle. He’d taken them all.

That was when he’d had the brilliant idea to get one of his mother’s chef’s knives.

Luc was aware of the professor’s voice, well into the lecture now. The words were just sounds, background noise, stripped of meaning. The lecture hall didn’t seem real to him. Nothing seemed real to him.

Nothing but Scott’s hands, so close to his own.

Scott’s hands ,and the large, hard reality of Scott himself, listening intently, strong fingers flexing occasionally to input notes and thoughts.

The first cut, the cut to his right wrist, had been odd. Almost an accident really. He’d been moving the knife, blade up, from hand to hand. And then he’d kind of… frozen. With the knife in his left hand. Staring at his right wrist.

His wrist had seemed so thin to him, so white, so weak, with its fine tracery of blue vein beneath almost translucent skin.

He’d stared at the blade in his left hand, the edge of it, wondering…

And then he’d just… swept his right wrist over it.

Not even that hard.

Not really.

But his mother kept her knives very sharp, and he remembered being surprised by the sting, and by the trail of red left behind.

None of it had seemed real.

The wound itself wasn’t deep, not deadly – he could see that, even in the strange, suspended state of his clouded mind. The wound was…

Insufficient.

And that was when he had taken the knife again, in his right hand this time, determined to do a better job. A serious job. He was staring at his left wrist, his left hand, his fingers. The fingers Daniel had broken.

Daniel.

For the first time since it happened, Luc allowed himself to remember that it had been Daniel he’d been thinking about with the knife in his hand. Daniel, who he had loved, and who had been so consumed by fear of that loved that he had lashed out with his fists and his feet and broken Luc’s fingers, his ribs… That’s what Luc had been thinking about, when he struck down with the knife in his hand. Daniel breaking his fingers.

That’s what he’d been thinking, when he stared down at his wrist that night: that this was the logical ending to what Daniel had begun. Daniel. By breaking his fingers and breaking his heart. Because even though the breaks had been clean and the doctors insisted perfectly healed, Luc could not find his way back to the piano. His fingers no longer felt they belonged on the keys. Everything broken so badly that the spirit could not heal.

And that was why had tried to slash down, again, and again, trying somehow to finish the job that Daniel had begun.

But as he’d thrust the knife down, he’d been overcome by a surge of nausea so powerful it had left him suddenly on his hands and knees on the floor. And he seemed to be puking out his very soul, and then he couldn’t find Daniel, and he couldn’t find the knife, and he couldn’t find his wrist–

The result, according the surgeon, had been the weirdest damn self-inflicted cuts he’d ever seen.

Now Luc stared at his fingers, thin and white and soon to be freed from the safety of the black fabric and velcro splint. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the memory of it all. When that didn’t work, he braced himself, then moved his fingers firmly and deliberately, gasping slightly as he absorbed the familiar, stabbing pain. Immediately, he felt the weight of a hand on his arm, above the black protective splint.

He felt the heat of breathing against his ear. “You ok?”

He forced his eyes open to met Scott’s worried grey gaze. He nodded, and Scott, smiling a little, removed his hand.

Luc did not smile.

Luc burned.

***

By mid afternoon the fog had lifted and sky brightened to the faded blue of Atlantic winter. For the two men in the red Civic, the long drive to Halifax was quiet. Luc was distracted, and after a few polite attempts at conversation, Matt let him be. The appointments would, no doubt, be rough going, and if Luc needed to prepare in silence, Matt could respect that. He had enough to worry about himself. Brandon’s periodic calls were increasingly frantic as Laura’s surgery was delayed hour after hour for X-rays, bone scans, and MRI.

And Scott would be showing up some time around seven.

With Joshua.

Matt walked Luc to the door to the out patient clinics where he was meeting the plastic surgeon. “You sure you don’t want me to come back in an hour?” he asked again. “We won’t be able to use our cells. I can wait here.”

Luc shook his head. “I’ve no idea how long this will take or how many doctors I have to see. I’ll come up when I’m done.”

There was something in his voice, an uncertain edge that made Matt look at him closely. His head was bowed and he was staring at the floor. His left hand was pressed protectively against his stomach, and his right rubbed the fingers gently.

Matt found himself reaching out, resting a reassuring hand on the narrow shoulder. Luc was tense as wire. “I don’t mind,” he said.

“No,” said Luc, stepping away from his touch. “Go sit with Bran.”

So after a quick pit stop in the cafeteria for remarkably bad coffee, Matt made his way to the third floor OR waiting room, where he found Brandon pacing uneasily. He handed him a cardboard cup.

“Any news?” he asked.

Bran shook his head. “They just took her in. They said it would take maybe two to three hours, and then an hour or two in recovery. They let me see her before she went in.”

“How was she?”

“Scared.”

“Have you talked to her parents?”

Bran nodded. “They’re flying in tomorrow morning.”

Matt suggested they go downstairs for a quick meal, but Brandon refused to leave the waiting room until he knew Laura was safely out of the OR. When Luc arrived, more than two hours later, they had still heard nothing.

“That took a long time,” said Matt. “How did it go?”

Luc touched his left hand with his right. “No more splint,” he said.

Matt looked at the pale skin, the long fingers. He had never seen a hand look more naked, more exposed.

“How does it feel?” asked Bran.

“A little painful right now,” Luc admitted. “I also had my first physio session.”

“Ouch,” said Bran. “Did they give you some pain tablets?”

Luc flashed Matt a small smile. “I’ve got some powerful shit at home. The physiotherapist said next time to take one an hour before I come.”

“But do you have anything for now?”

Luc shook his head. “I’ll be ok until I get home.”

Matt found himself watching closely as Luc settled opposite him, on a long bench by the wall. He didn’t look ok. He looked pale and a little shaky. Matt was just about to ask him about it when the surgeon emerged from the double doors to the OR.

“Mr. Kozinski?”

Matt watched Bran spring to his feet. He actually had official status, since Laura had signed papers to the effect that he could be given information on her condition.

“The surgery went well. We just moved her into Recovery a few minutes ago. We’ll give her a little while to wake up, and then you can see her.” He looked at the three of them. “Actually, I can manage to let two of you go in for a very brief visit. You can all go up when she’s settled in her room, but that probably won’t be for another couple of hours. You might want to go grab something to eat.”

He had just launched into a long description of screws and titanium rods and bone grafts and wound sites when Scott walked in.

Followed by Joshua–

Scott flashed a quick smile around the room, then went over to where Brandon was listening to the doctor explain Laura’s condition.

Joshua, calm and separate, stood just inside the room, watching them all with thoughtful green eyes. His cheeks were flushed from the cold, and melting snow glinted in his short dark hair. It seemed to Matt that he wore his black leather jacket like a protective skin, that the red scarf wrapped around his neck was protecting his throat.

Matt felt his presence like a hard stab in his heart.

Scott went with Brandon to see Laura in the Recovery Room, leaving Matt alone with Joshua. After “hello”, Matt had no idea what to say. Luc seemed half asleep on the bench by the far wall. Joshua chose an armchair beside him, across from Matt. A strained silence fell on the waiting room.

Matt picked up an ancient magazine and flipped through it, pretending to read the pages while in fact watching Joshua. He watched the shadows play across the planes of Joshua’s face. He remembered the taste of Joshua’s skin. When he looked down at the magazine, he realized that his hands trembled.

The silence was unbroken until Bran and Scott returned some fifteen minutes later. Bran made his way to the information desk, while Scott headed over to Joshua. Matt saw the quick graze of Scott’s fingers on his neck, slipping for an instant beneath the loosened red scarf – a private, intimate gesture. He saw the way Joshua’s mouth curved into a quick smile.

Then Scott looked over at Luc. His hand fell from Joshua’s shoulder and he frowned. Turning away from Joshua, he went instead to Quebecois boy, easing down beside him on the bench.

Matt watched Joshua.

Watched the quick smile fade.

Watched a flash of pain around his eyes, his mouth, before the fine-boned face went quiet and still.

Unreadable.

It had been a fleeting glimpse of the desperate, wounded Joshua Matt remembered.

As he watched Joshua watching the two younger men, Matt was almost overwhelmed by the reality of his beauty. And by the pain and the fragility he sensed behind it. To him, Joshua’s beauty had always seemed hazy and distant, like a full moon in a foggy sky. To him, the pain behind that beauty seemed, somehow, to be a mirror of Matt’s own.

He was thinking of that, of the unbearable beauty of distant moonlight, when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Out in the hall,” said Scott, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “I need to talk to you for a minute.”

Matt dragged his eyes away from Joshua. “What? I–”

“Hall.”

Matt looked up in surprise at the hard tone in the big guy’s voice. His face was set hard, too.

As soon as they got out in the hall, Scott grabbed his arm and turned to face him.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. The deep voice, normally so soft, was edged with fury.

Matt could only stare at him in surprise. “What?”

“Look. I know you’re hung up on Josh. It’s pretty bloody hard to miss. But can’t you get your mind off him long enough–”

Scott’s grip on his arm was tight. Matt shook it off furiously. “What the fuck–”

“What the fuck nothing,” said Scott. “You’re supposed to be paying attention to Luc, remember?”

“Luc? What–”

Scott gestured through the open doorway. Matt could see Luc slumped against the wall, his eyes closed.

“Look at him, for God’s sake. The poor guy’s in agony. How bloody selfish can you be?”

“What do you mean he’s in agony–”

“He had a physio session. He doesn’t have any pain tablets here. Can’t you see it?”

Matt looked. He did see it. He slumped back against the wall.

“Fuck,” he said softly.

Scott glared at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Scott shook his head. “Just get him home. Josh and I will stay here with Bran until Laura’s settled in her room. Then I’ll drive Bran home in your car. He’s too tired and too worried right now to be driving.”

Matt nodded. “Thanks–”

But Scott was already heading back to the waiting room.

Matt returned slowly, and made his way towards Luc more slowly still.

He was ashamed.

Matt knew about shame. He had done so many things . . . Things that had hurt the people who loved him – his parents, his brother. Things that had been deeply degrading to himself. But somehow none of those things had aroused quite the depth of shame he felt now.

He look at the lovely, wounded boy slumped helplessly against the wall, pain evident in every line of his body. Pain that was his fault. He’d selfishly ignored it – and for what? To indulge in self pity and stupid daydreams about a man he could never have. He really was a fuck up.

He reached the bench where Luc sat so silently, his left arm held carefully across his chest so that his hand rested against his right collar bone. His right arm was crossed protectively on top of it, gripping his left shoulder so hard that his knuckles were white.

Matt sat down slowly beside him, so close that his thigh pressed against Luc’s. He noticed the pallor of Luc’s skin, the tension in his clenched jaw.

He felt like a total asshole.

“We’re going to go now,” he said quietly.

Luc turned towards him, focused slowly. “It’s ok. We can wait–”

Matt just shook his head. “Where is your splint?

Luc looked up. Matt saw pain and exhaustion in the beautiful silvery eyes.

“I’m done with it,” Luc said.

“We’ll put it back on just to get you home. I don’t want you to jar it and make the pain any worse.”

Luc closed his eyes; when he opened them again, there were tears caught in the long, black lashes. Matt felt each one like a thorn.

Luc nodded towards his shoulder bag, as if he were unable to speak.

Matt fished it out, along with the silver iPod from which Luc was rarely separated. He touched Luc’s shoulder gently. “Let me put it on for you,” he said.

Slowly, Luc stretched out his arm, wrist up. For the first time, Matt saw the mass of angry red scars across the pale wrist. It was all he could do not to gasp aloud. He wanted to touch it, to heal it. It was all he could do not to raise the poor shattered wound to his lips, to try to kiss the pain away.

Instead, he focused on the splint, opening it carefully, placing it gently beneath the wounded hand.

“Too tight?” he asked as he fastened the first Velcro strap.

“A little tighter,” said Luc, so softly Matt could hardly hear him.

***

Though they left the hospital at the same time, Josh had been settled in bed with a book for more than an hour when he heard Scott’s key in the door. Settled was a bit of self deception; he was in bed, the comforter up to his chest, but the book in his hand might as well not have been there. As he listened to the small domestic sounds of Scott kicking off his boots, hanging up his jacket, Josh felt his body tense, his breathing quicken.

Not in a good way.

This is Scott, he told himself, forcing the calmness and discipline that years of therapy had taught him. Scott.

He slowed his breathing, deliberately loosened his shoulder muscles.

Seconds later, Scott strode in. There was no smile as he moved across the room towards the bed.

“Sorry I’m so late,” he said, bending over to drop a small, hard kiss that landed just to the right of Josh’s mouth. “We waited until Laura was settled, but we really couldn’t talk to her; she just drifted off to sleep. I ended up walking him up to his room, and just listening to him talk for a while. I wanted to try to talk to Bran about Matt, but I couldn’t. He’s just so worried about Laura.”

Josh nodded, watching silently as Scott pulled off his sweater and the t-shirt underneath in a single graceful movement. Scott’s mouth was hard, set, twisted into a frown.

“I don’t know,” said Scott, his hands dropping to the button on his jeans. “Maybe Matt was a mistake. I just don’t get how he could ignore Luc like that.”

Josh watched as strong fingers pushed the button through, then lowered the zipper.

“I just don’t fucking believe it. I mean – did you see Luc? How pale he was? God, he looked like he was ready to collapse.”

Scott pushed his jeans down, and his boxers with them, stepped out of them, tossed them on the chair. Josh let his eyes follow the powerful lines of the body he was still learning with so much joy. Just once – and then he looked away.

“He did seem to be in pain,” Josh said.

“Exactly. Anyone could see that. But Matt – fuck. It was you, you know. It’s because all he could think about was you. He can’t stop watching you – every breath, every movement–”

Josh said nothing. Scott was right. For fifteen awkward minutes, Josh had sat alone in that waiting room with Luc and Matt, the Quebecois boy silent in the corner with half-closed eyes, and Matt – Matt pretending not to watch him.

But what could he say? It was hardly his fault. He’d never done anything to encourage Matt to feel the way he did – not now, not then.

He knew Scott was angry, really angry, in a way he’d never seen before. He could almost see the fury emanating from him. It was in the way he paced the room, the way he’d stripped down. It had even been in the fast, careless kiss that had felt more of duty than of welcome.

Scott headed into the bathroom, and Josh drank in the easy grace of his going, the departing curve of his back, the strong, strong legs. He loved that body. He loved that man -- so much it scared him. If he wasn’t very careful, he would have nothing of himself left to hold back.

He couldn’t let that happen. He could not allow anyone to make him feel that vulnerable ever again. Not even Scott.

He felt… scared. Panicked, almost.

It wasn’t just because of Scott’s genuine and barely contained fury at Matt, though anger made him nervous. He’d suffered enough at the hands of an angry man. He had the scars…

But the root of his panic was not a fear of what Scott might do to him physically. He did believe, in his heart, that Scott would never use his physical strength against him. No, it wasn’t a fear for his physical safety.

What really made him anxious was the way Scott had been with Luc. Josh had seen the force of Scott’s tenderness, his concern. The strength of it– It seemed so real, so tangible.

So much more than friendship.

He felt Scott’s weight settle beside him on the bed, the touch of Scott’s hand on his thigh, through the down comforter. He turned away to turn off his bedside light, and the room was dark. He stayed like that, turned away. He felt Scott’s hand glide up his backbone, first through the comforter, then slip beneath it and glide down, on bare skin.

And he couldn’t help it. He tensed a little.

Scott slid into the bed with him, spooned up tight against his back. One powerful arm wrapped around his chest, pulling him close. Josh tried to relax into his touch.

“Hey,” said Scott softly, pulling him even closer, rubbing his cheek up the side of Josh’s neck until his nose bumped Josh’s earlobe, breathing hot and slow against his neck. “Tell me.”

He moved his mouth a little, drew Josh’s earlobe gently into his mouth, sucking softly.

“Tell you what?”

“Where you are.”

Josh stiffened a little, laughed uneasily. “I’m right here.”

“Tell me where your head is,” said Scott, pulling him closer, trailing a line of small soft kisses down his neck from beneath his ear to his collar bone.

“Here,” said Josh.

“I love you,” Scott whispered.

Josh closed his eyes, tried to believe. He wanted so much to relax into Scott’s strength as he usually did, but somehow he couldn’t. He thought of how Scott had looked at Luc, of how he had dragged Matt off into the hall.

And how he’d stared after the two of them when they left the hospital…

“Don’t pull away from me,” Scott whispered, with more soft kisses, one hand trailing up Josh’s chest from his navel to his throat.

Josh pressed back against him. “I’m not,” he said.

“I mean in here,” said Scott, tapping the centre of Josh’s chest lightly with his fingertips.

Josh felt that tightness at the back of his throat and what it threatened. He couldn’t speak.

Scott spread his hand wide over the centre of Josh’s chest. “I love you, baby,” he whispered. “You are mine and I am yours and nothing changes that, ok?”

“Yes,” Josh said, in a voice soft as breath. He was trembling, he felt so opened, so exposed, and this time the sobs were there.

And then Scott was whispering against the back of his neck, beneath his ear, touching him slowly and soothingly. It was all Josh could do to accept the sweet caresses, pressing back, pressing back…

Until Scott was wanting in where he seemed to know Josh needed him to be.

And it seemed to Josh that it was all on so many levels, letting Scott in. Always. It was never just about his hands, his breath, the first small thrusts of his hips. It was more than that, had always been more than that. Because it seemed to Josh that Scott was always asking admission not just to his body, but to his heart and to his soul.

And mostly that was just so good. It was what he wanted, what he needed, what he welcomed. They could meet there, in that safe place, for the giving and the taking, and it was so, so good.

But sometimes, like now, it was so very, very difficult. Sometimes he wanted to shut down, close up, turn away. Stay safe behind his locked doors, his carefully constructed walls.

Scott recognized these times. He seemed to know. Sometimes, he let Josh be. But sometimes, sometimes, he dared to ask admission anyway. Sometimes, when Josh went still, silent, distant, Scott refused to turn away from his walls, his doors. He climbed them determinedly, tricked open their locks one by one.

This was one of those times. He was pressed against the full length of Josh’s back, grasping his thigh with one powerful hand, bending Josh’s leg, opening him with calm, sure fingers.

“Let it go, baby,” he whispered against Josh’s neck. “Trust me. I love you. Let it go.”

And then those hands were on Josh’s hips and Scott was pulling him close, taking him, taking him – so slowly, so certainly. Pushing deeper, until Josh did let it go, enough to cry out with the beauty of it.

And then he felt Scott deep, so deep, and heard Scott murmuring against his neck, and Josh pressed back, back, wanting him deeper still. Deeper–

Scott started to withdraw, and then to push forward again. Josh knew what would be next. The thrusts, the increasing speed. And suddenly -.

He didn’t want that. He wanted–

He wanted Scott to stay very, very still. He just wanted to feel him inside, deep, deep inside. Just there, just–

“Oh, God, stop,” Josh whispered, not expecting to be heard. “Please. Don’t move–”

But Scott, his mouth against the back of Josh’s neck, did hear. He froze. “Am I hurting you?” He began to withdraw.

“No!” Josh was almost sobbing now. “Don’t go. Don’t move. I want–”

Scott was almost out, pressed back slowly, gently. It was good, so good, but not what Josh wanted right now…

“What do you want, baby? Tell me what you want.”

It was too hard to speak. Josh wanted to say, he desperately wanted to say. He didn’t know how. Not now. Not when he felt so… exposed, so vulnerable. He didn’t know how…

He felt Scott’s hand move, from his hip where he was pressing Josh back against him, around to his stomach, and then down, trailing down. And all the while he whispered, and all the while there were those soft, soft thrusts…

Josh groaned. He wanted to. God he wanted to–

“Trust me, baby,” Scott whispered, over and over, his fingers at once barely there and impossibly, magically real. “Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need. Trust me.”

“I do,” Josh said finally. “I do. I–”

And Scott’s mouth against his ear. “No. You don’t. Not yet. Not completely.”

And again Josh felt the tears at the back of his throat, the pain in his heart, the pleasure of Scott’s fingers, and the soft, soft thrusts. The sounds he was making were whimpers, small, desperate.

“Tell me what you want, baby,” Scott was whispering. “Anything. I’ll give you anything. You know that. Mostly I know, I understand, I can read you. But sometimes you have to tell me.”

And all the while, those caressing fingers, and shallow gentle thrusts in and out of him.

Until Josh couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Be deep,” he said. “Please. I need you to be deep. Deep and still.”

“Ah,” said Scott, breathing against his neck.

And did it.

Pressed deep.

Deeper.

Used the power of his hands to tilt Josh’s hips and pushed deeper still.

And then – stayed there. Held him hard. Whispered against his ear…

And Josh thought he would die of it, Scott so deep inside him.