The Orchestra - Sinfónia Lifsins - 64. 62 - Flashback, Flashforward

Dmitri landed next to me on the bed. His hands fumbled not with my belt, but with my hair, taking my hairband away to let it flow freely down my back. “This is as safe a place as you can get, isn’t it?” The flowery wallpaper agreed with him. Gunnar had never stepped foot in Arnar’s house. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in this bedroom. I guess since you moved in with us?”

“Probably.”

“This room brings back memories, though, doesn’t it?” Dmitri grinned. Pulled me close until our shoulders touched and he could rest his head against the mess of hair around my neck.

“I have four years’ worth of memories here. Care to be more specific?”

“You. Me. In bed. Together for the first time. You being a horny virgin tired of having to rely on dildos for sexual gratification and desperate for the real thing. Me being a new hire in the orchestra worried that fucking the Leader’s son would ruin my career.”

“I see.” Three years on, and still one of the most vivid fucks. Not that I needed to tell him that.

“I consider that day to be the beginning of our relationship. That was when I got to know you not only as Arnar’s son, or the guy with a horrible past who could use a friend who had gone through something similar. You opened up to me in more ways than one then. No pun intended.” His chuckle coerced one out of me too.

“I see what you mean. For me that was when I properly trusted you for the first time. Not only because Arnar said I could, but because I felt you were safe.”

Dmitri’s arm closed around me. Just tight enough to make a point. “I want us to be back to that time. After everything that happened in the last few months, after failing as your best friend and neglecting your needs for so long, I want us to recover that trust, that closeness that has been drifting away. I’m sure we both know a lot of it is gone, but I want to rebuild it. And since this room is where everything started then, maybe this is where we should start now too.”

“Is that why you brought me here?”

“It seemed like the right thing to do. Though if it wasn’t for the dinner you would’ve come back here anyway, so it’s not like I’m changing your plans.”

“No, it’s not.”

Dmitri had a strange look on him. Harder to interpret than usual. “You know something we never really do?”

“What?” Eyebrows raised. So he had some sort of plan already? “You mean you want to do something other than fucking my arse into oblivion?”

“Yeah. I know we’re not a romantic couple, but have you noticed that we rarely kiss? I mean, it’s not like we never do, but the frequency of kissing compared to fucking or even blowjobs is… well, it isn’t.”

“You want us to kiss more? What for?”

“Just humour me this once, will you? I want to kiss you and check something.” Dmitri leaned forward, one hand resting on my shoulder, the other coming up to my lips.

“Sure, whatever.”

Kissing Dmitri had never been more than a spur-of-the-moment decision guided more by our erections than any conscious thought. Our lips would smash against each other, tongues clashing and dancing and exchanging far too much saliva. But as quickly as they started, kisses moved on to biting, sucking, and whatever else would leave a physical, permanent mark.

Never had Dmitri run his finger down my cheek, a delicate brush like my skin would break with stronger pressure. Never had he held on to the back of my neck like I would fall apart without his support. Never had the look in his eyes been so lustful and yet so caring, so clear.

Our lips touched, but so, it seemed, did the rest of our bodies. His warmth invaded me as if I had drunk half a bottle of vodka, but with no nasty side effects. The warmth became more than a physical sensation, the kind of feeling only music used to be able to give me.

I broke the kiss. “What is this?”

“So you felt it too?”

“What are you playing at? What was this for?”

“You sound like you didn’t like it.” Concern. Since when was his face so easy to read?

“You were making me feel things. It can’t be good.”

“How so? Don’t you want to be able to do that?”

“Not when I don’t understand why. Or when the feeling I get is…”

“…Is?” He inched forward again, the corner of his lip eager to shape into his usual grin.

“Love.”

The word came out sharp, like barbed wire cutting through my mouth and leaving behind a bloody taste. His eyes widened, that obvious surprise wiping the near-grin off his face for a second.

“Is that your feeling for me or mine to you?”

“I managed to get a feeling out of this mess. That’s enough of an accomplishment. Don’t expect me to be able to tell its direction too.”

Dmitri’s forehead touched mine so I could not frown at him. “I’m sure it came from me, though I wouldn’t mind if it was a two-way street.”

“You love me now? Or are you just manipulating our feelings to make a point?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. Why wouldn’t you?”

His lips twitched. “Because manipulating people’s feelings is not a nice thing to do? No, I’m not playing with you.”

“Then what? Are you in love with me now that your boyfriend turned out to be scarier than we ever thought possible?”

“No, listen.” His hand on my face again. Delicate. Caring. Another brief touch of lips. “I wanted to see if I could find another way to prove to you how much you matter to me. How much I treasure our relationship even when we screw up. Not all love is romantic, like how you love Arnar and how he would move mountains to make you happy. I’m the same. I love you.”

“Not like you love Gunnar.”

“Not like I love Gunni.”

“But like how I love Arnar?”

“Something along those lines.”

“What is that supposed to mean, then?”

“It means that here, in this room, I want our relationship to start again, like it did before.” His arms fell on my shoulders. Dmitri’s words sounded like music, an expressive melody that resonated beyond my ears into every part of my body it could reach. “I want you to understand you’re loved. That I hold you as an equal to Gunni in my heart, and I want to give you as much space as I give him inside of it.”

“But you said it isn’t romantic love. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It does because I figured that, if it was my love for Gunni that was causing me to screw up our friendship, then if I frame our relationship as love too, I should stop seeing Gunni as a subconscious favourite.”

“I don’t think this is going to work.”

“Don’t doubt the power of love!” Dmitri grinned and wiggled eyebrows at me.

Neither of us said anything else, but our bodies moved on their own for a repeat of the previous kiss. This time, though, it came with skilled hands prying my shirt open and ravishing my chest with no time for delicacies or hesitation. My belt followed, and I kicked my trousers away before we broke the kiss.

“Can your love sense what I want?”

“Maybe, but it’s much sexier if you tell me directly.” Dmitri was no longer wearing trousers either.

“Fuck me until I can’t get out of this bed anymore.”

“Sounds like a plan!” He winked. Rummaged the nightstand for a condom and a brand-new bottle of lube. Kissed me, his body gently guiding mine to lie on my back. “One deep, unforgettable fuck coming right in! And out! And in again!”

“Less talking, more fucking, will you?”

The sound of my own laughter was not something I heard often, but it definitely joined his this time. Dmitri was still between a smile and a sexy grin when he broke into my arse. The usual pain came, turning into the kind of pleasure that made me impale myself against him even though my body tried to resist. Dmitri let me move on my own for some time before following my lead.

Whatever I tried to say turned to grunts and moans. Dmitri smiled even as he quickened the pace and gasped for breath, though eventually he had to slow down. “I’m… not… done…”

“Neither am I.”

Dmitri took a theatrically audible breath and pulled out. “Turn around. You were on your belly when we fucked the first time.”

“You want to redo the whole script?” I moved much quicker than he did. Arse up in the air, ready for him to grab and bury his cock into. “I don’t know if you’ll have the energy, though. Back then you were like a fucking machine.”

“And I gave you the time of your life.”

“That too.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

My answer was to stick my arse even higher up. Dmitri’s cock found no resistance. His hands gripped the bedsheets and his teeth found my neck. The bites came in time with the thrusts, and just as strong.

“Someone will have to wear a turtleneck to the concert…” he whispered in my ear, then bit it too.

“That is the opposite of a problem.”

“I’m glad you and I are on the same page about this.”

I could hear his grin. The sweaty warmth of his body left my back, only for him to grab my wrists and pin them to the base of my spine.

“What now?”

“You tell me.” His grip strengthened. “What do you want me to do to you now that you can’t possibly escape my sexy intentions?”

“Can you tie me up for real? Then your hands will be free to do as you wish. Tie me to the bed. Use me as you please.”

“Excellent choice, my friend!” Dmitri’s hands left my body, but his noisy trail of rummaging was easy to follow. “Get in a comfortable position. I don’t want you cramping while I’m working hard to pleasure every cell of your body.”

“And here was I thinking cramping was part of the fun…” But I turned around anyway. Dmitri tied my hands above my head and tied them to the bedpost. I sucked his cock while he worked, if only to see how well he could multitask. He redid the knots three times before giving up and fucking my mouth instead.

“You’re going to… you’ll have to stop… if you want me to fuck… fuck you after this.” Dmitri pulled out. He struggled to breathe more than I did during an asthma attack, and his face was redder than my arsehole, but his eyes screamed for me to keep going.

Dmitri was easy to read when sex was concerned.

“We have toys. If you want to dump a load down my throat, the time is now.”

“Thanks.”

He was done long before I could run out of air.

“Feel free to play with me when you can move again. I’ll be here ready to be used and definitely far from satisfied.”

Dmitri chuckled. He lay on top of me, leaving lazy kisses all over my jaw and neck while he tried to summon some energy back into his body. He put his weight on my groin, rubbed against it to let me know he was not done with me yet.

“Let’s get you some dicks.”

“Get two. I’m hungry and it’s been too long and you’re too much of a tease.”

“Your wish is my command!” One last kiss (this one full on the lips with all the tongue and saliva he could inflict in two seconds) and Dmitri was gone again. “Do you want a dick for your mouth and one for your arse, or a double entry?”

“Get three and do both. And I want all of them to be big ones.”

“I wasn’t even considering the small ones.” He came back after more noisy rummaging, his hands full of cock and lube and condoms. “You’re going to let me douse those things in lube, right? This is not one of those times you need to make everything horrible, is it?”

“Fucking without lube is not horrible. But no, this is not one of those times.”

Was that relief in his face? “Good. It’s reassuring to hear you say that.”

“What if I said I wanted you to ram them in without lube, then?”

“I would be worried. There’s a difference between wanting pain because you enjoy it, and because you need an ever bigger pain to forget whatever is already hurting you. And I know you’ve been doing the second kind a lot. And I really don’t like it.” Dmitri put the fake cocks on the bed and sat next to my head. His hand played with misplaces strands of my hair. “But to have you like this… doing it because we want to have fun together… because we want to make each other feel good and not just forget bad things… I feel like it’s been ages since we’ve fucked that way, and you have no idea how happy I am that we’re doing it again.” He kissed my forehead to prove his point.

“Just because I don’t have self-destructing wishes it doesn’t mean I want you to go easy on me. You better start kissing something else, or –”

“Or what? It’s not like you can stop me…” Dmitri barely let me register his mischievous grin before he put his mouth to work on every non-sexual part of my body. I struggled against the bounds, wiggled his mouth towards places that mattered, but Dmitri only laughed at my futile attempts. And kissed my elbow with renewed vigour.

“I’m going to strangle you with those ropes when this is over.”

“Who said it’ll ever end…?” That fake innocent face did not fool anyone. “You’re in my power now, Siggi, and I’ll do anything I want with you.” Trust Dmitri to turn my most arousing fantasy into a long make-out session with my knee. Sexy face included.

“At least one of us is having a good time.”

He snorted into my thigh. I did not expect it to tickle so much. Or for the tickles to turn into arousal.

This must have been the signal he was waiting for. “One of us, you say?” Dmitri wiggled his eyebrows at me while his hands brushed my inner thighs with the same weight as feathers. My body shook, struggled, wiggled, and could not decide whether it want to be free of that weird ticklish arousal or if I should demand Dmitri keep going.

It settled for a desperate moan.

“Aww, who knew your body was so sensitive…” Dmitri kept one feather-hand on my thigh, but the other found the side of my abdomen. “I wonder where else I can make you feel that desperate…?”

The moan turned to laughter. My lips formed the command to ‘stop’, but my brain decided to not let it out. Dmitri tickled my sides until I could no longer breathe.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh so much!” Dmitri lay next to me while my body recovered its normal oxygen levels. “You have a beautiful laughter, you know? It gave me all sorts of warm feelings.”

I knew for a fact the grin on his face was an exact match to my own expression. “I feel better too. Which is a worrying thing to say considering I haven’t even come yet.”

“We’ll get to that, don’t worry.” He winked. “But on a more serious note…” Dmitri waited until my face was fully turned to him. He put loose strands of hair behind my ears as he spoke. “I know we still have a long way to go before we get there, but I am looking forward to the day you’ll laugh like that without being tied to a bed and forcefully tickled. I’m really sorry about how I messed us up. You were doing so well, you were even getting back to your old self after Arnar’s accident, and then my feelings had to get on the way and I almost lost you. And I was in such a weird place that I wouldn’t even have cared if you were gone.” His hands left my face. “You have no idea how much it scares me that I can even have those kinds of thoughts, let alone know them to be true.”

“I feel I should give some sort of answer to that, but I can’t –”

“No, it’s fine. I’m sorry I probably killed the mood too, but those thoughts had been eating at the back of my mind since the restaurant, and when I heard you laughing so free and happy I couldn’t keep them inside anymore. I feel like ever since I realised my feelings for Gunni I haven’t really been myself. I’ve stepped back and watched this other obsessive monster take over, and now is the first time I feel properly grounded, back to my old self, and able to see all the mess I caused. No wonder even Gunni thought I was too much. I’m really sorry, Siggi, I –”

“Stop there.” I could not do this while looking at him. “You screwed up. You made my life hell for longer than I bother to remember. Since your birthday? It feels like years. Watching you and Gunnar every day was like falling into a nightmare after I struggled so much to wake up from my actual nightmares. I didn’t get a break. I felt our friendship break apart while you didn’t even care to move a finger to repair it, knowing fully well that I couldn’t do it by myself. You sent me to a kind of dark place I hadn’t experienced since before I moved in with Arnar.”

His voice sounded as weak and exposed as I felt. “I’m really sorry.”

“I’m not done yet.” How did my voice keep from breaking? “I don’t know how I’ve managed to say all those things. I didn’t realise I felt that way until I started talking. But it’s all true. And I know that being in that dark place has caused me to be a horrible person to others too. Lashing out at Gunnar today was just one of the bad things I did. I want to be able to apologise to our friends. Being in a dark place shouldn’t be an excuse to be horrible to others. Our housemates deserve better. The ISO deserves better.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“I think we both owe everyone some kind of apology. I don’t know how I would do that on my own, but maybe the two of us together…”

“You mean a public apology at the next rehearsal?”

“Maybe. It’s a start, at least…”

“Do you forgive me, then? For being that monster who took you to hell?” Dmitri’s eyes filled with water as soon as he spoke. His lips shook. Not even I could miss these signs.

“I’ll forgive you as long as you’re also the friend who brings me back.”

Thanks for reading!
You can blame Glasgow Pride last Saturday for the slight delay on the chapter. As nice as it is to work for an LGBTI organisation, it does mean Prides are the longest working days of the year rather than a protest/party... (the good news is we're done with all the pride events now, so I don't have other excuses to delay future chapters! )
 
That said, I hope this chapter was worth the wait. Dmitri and Siggi are best friends for a reason, and I really like when they have a chance to show it. 
Something will definitely change from now on, particularly between Gunni and Siggi, but since we're still only about half-way around the plot, there's more than enough time for this chance to mean anything. 
 
Gunni will be back in two weeks, though my patrons get to see him next Saturday.