Thanks again to everyone who's sent feedback on "Wood," "Bronze," and "Iron." Four down, two to go. Looks like it may even go into next year before I'm done with this series, the other boys have been keeping me pretty busy. Hit my page if you'd like to see who's been occupying my time. Apologies to Little Miss S (aka Nena) for making her wait and whine and beg and plead for so long. Okay, I'm not all *that* sorry because it was pretty damn entertaining, but still. Love ya, doll. Hope this is worth the whine--*ahem*--I mean, the wait. Hugs to Crystal and Aithine for the read-through.
"Wood, bronze, iron, water..."
NC-17, m/m
Language, sex, angst, sap. Not necessarily in that order.
Jim and Blair get wet. It's all been done, this is my version.
The characters aren't mine, the words are. We've all heard that one before. Five-digit student loan debt, blah blah. As always, rotten veggies, offers of marriage, and everything inbetween go to Tiriel
Water
By Tiriel
It's like Blair is a part of me. No, that's not right. He's very much a separate person, but at the same time, having him near me is natural, right. Like muscle memory. Like turning at the corner of Prospect without thinking about it. Knowing that the alarm clock is set without taking the time to remember which of the indicator lights means alarm and which is am/pm. Blocking a punch, drawing a gun, typing in your ATM code or dialing a familiar phone number. If you think about these things too much, they become suddenly and strangely difficult. But if you just let them happen, they come out right. That's what it's like, having him here.
Every time I think about that, though, I also have to think about the fact that, for a few brief moments that somehow seemed to last forever, he *wasn't* here. He died. Yes, he came back. Yes, it's been a while now and maybe I should be over it, but I'm not. Because if it could happen once...
It all floods back to me nearly every time I see him wet. From the shower, the rain, whatever. Sometimes I manage to push it off, and every now and then it doesn't even cross my mind. But most of the time, when I see him wet, I'm right back there, if only for a second. The utter silence of his body. The water soaking his clothes. All because he's a little damp. And in a climate that's dominated by rain, that's a lot. But what am I supposed to do--pack us up and move to the desert, forbid him to appear in front of me unless he's completely dry? I don't think so. So I suck it up. I deal with it. I reach for him with all of my senses, anchor myself, prove that he's here and real.
He doesn't know about that. I know he's wondered about a couple of things, especially in the time since we became lovers. Why I won't shower with him, for one. After, yes, before, yes, but I've always come up with an excuse not to shower *with* him. Making coffee or breakfast or a midnight snack, or watching the news or whatever comes to mind. Anything not to have to see him like that.
All of that, though, the flashbacks, that's the way things were. The way I would have described them before. Trust Sandburg to have a miracle cure for everything, even my "separation anxiety bullshit," I think he called it. But that was later.
I'd even tried to avoid the bathroom when he was in the shower. But last night it was unavoidable. I was standing at the sink, brushing my teeth, and in he came and before you could say "hyperactive" he was naked and in the shower. All I could do was stare. I felt and heard my heart pound in my chest and I think he said my name two or three times before I heard him over the sound of it.
"Jim." His dripping hand was on my forearm and I shrank back. He frowned at me. "That's what I thought."
"What?" I knew I sounded defensive, but at that point I was happy to even be capable of speech. I wanted to bolt, get out of the room, of the loft, but I wasn't sure if that would be better or worse. At least standing there, I knew that he was okay.
"Separation anxiety bullshit," he said. "I've had enough of it. Get in here. Now."
I stammered a vague protest. He tried to tell me later that I said something about needing to go vacuum the cat, but I'm pretty sure he was just shitting me about that. We don't have a cat.
So then he grabbed my arm and pulled. I stepped closer, then jerked my arm away and made a break for it. Next thing I knew, I was sitting on the couch, breathing like I'd run a marathon.
"Jim! Hey, Jiiiiiiiiiiim," he sang out. "Guess what? I've fallen and I can't get up! Glub, glub!"
I knew he was lying, but I raced back in to make sure, just like he'd known I would. "That's not fucking funny, Sandburg! Are you drunk?"
He had the front of my shirt bunched up in his hand before I could get away. "You think I find it funny? I don't. But it's done, and I'm not going to spend the rest of my life beating myself up for it. We both fucked up, Jim. But then we made it right. I died. The least I can get as a karmic reward is the ability to shower with the man I love without him having a panic attack. Get the fuck in here, Jim. I promise I'll make it worth your while."
So I did. I'm just not any good at saying no to him--not and meaning it, anyway. I was scared as hell and I kept flashing on that memory of his still body, but I did what he wanted. I undressed and got into the shower with him.
I was too overwhelmed to be anything but pliant and cooperative. He did everything. He took my hand and placed it on his chest, over his heart. Then he turned us so that he was directly under the spray of the shower and I was standing in front of him, face to face, my hand over his beating heart. Then he reached up, took my face in his hands, and brought it close so he could kiss me. He did all the work there, too, at first.
I stood there as he kissed me, the water streaming down over our faces, his blessedly warm skin under my fingertips, his pulse pounding under that, his breath on my face. Alive and wet and there. Near me. I sank into another level of awareness--the taste of his lips and the water, the smell of his soap, the sound of his breathing, and the way he looked, his eyes closed, water all around him--they all layered together with the sensation of his skin under my hand, and I felt the cold band of fear that had been constricting my chest snap and fall away.
Then I started to kiss him back and I brought my other hand up from my side to touch his cheek. I didn't move my other hand from its place on his chest. Not while we kissed, and not when he reached down to stroke me to full hardness and hissed into my ear, "I want you to fuck me." Anticipating a protest, he put his other hand to my lips and continued. "I won't break and I won't melt away."
Keeping my hand on his chest took a little more effort as he turned around, but I managed it, with a little help from him. He goes after what he wants. So that's how it was that I wound up with one hand on Blair's chest and one on my dick as I lined up and entered him. Making love to him in the shower. I'd forgotten how sexy it was to share a shower with someone, to breathe in the steam and hear the squeak of wet skin. I held him close against my chest for a moment, enjoying the feeling of being there, with him, in him, around him.
One hand on his hip, the other still on his chest, I started to move. I tried to keep things slow, but he had other plans. He braced his hands on the wall and pushed back against me, forcing the tempo and dislodging my hand from his chest. I froze.
Everything seemed to slow down. He turned his head and looked at me over his shoulder. I ran my eyes from his face to his neck to his back, down to where our bodies were joined, and then back up again. He was there and moving and breathing and so was I. We were both alive, and maybe I was more alive than I'd ever been. I wrapped both arms around him again and held him tight. "Thank you," I whispered into his neck. Then I put both hands on his hips. I saw him grin as he turned his head forward.
I love it when his vocabulary reverts to "more, faster, please, Jim." I love him. I reached around his body and wrapped my hand around his dick, letting him thrust back and forth, into my hand and then against me, into my hand and then against me, until his movements became jerky, erratic. I took over the rhythm, thrusting into him as he tilted his head back, mouth open, and came. A few more shallow strokes and I dropped my forehead to his shoulder and held onto him as tightly as I could while my own orgasm passed through me.
"Jim?"
"Yeah?" I said, hearing my voice shake a little.
"You okay now?"
"Yeah." We pulled apart gently and held each other for a moment. Then we finished our shower.
"So, tell me, Chief," I said when we were upstairs and about to get into bed, "what was that shit about falling down--glub, glub? Ever hear about the boy who cried wolf?"
"Well, it was either that or my Wicked Witch of the West impression. 'I'm melting! Melting...' And as for the boy who cried wolf, it's a little known fact that in the real ending of the tale, he and the guy with the panther lived happily ever after."
I looked at him, his still-damp hair and his water-blue eyes, and I smiled.
The End.