Taking the now clear path, Blaine took long strides down the sidewalk and into the alley. His boots thumped on the surprisingly clean floor. Eric was only a few yards from him, whirling around at the sound of his approach.
“What the fuck?” Eric demanded, pulling his shoulders back.
“Yeah, what the fuck,” Blaine said in an even tone as he approached.
Before he could decide what he was going to do, he found his arm shoving against Eric’s chest and pinning the man against the wall. Before Eric could lash out with his legs, Blaine pressed in close, holding Eric flush against the wall with his larger body.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Eric hissed, trying to get a grip on Blaine.
“No, I’m just pissed as hell,” Blaine growled back, realizing the emotion only as he said it aloud.
“You?” Eric asked incredulously. “You’re the one…”
“Who left,” Blaine finished for him. “I left, and you were alone. Except you weren’t. You still had your home, you still had your brother, you were okay.”
“Fuck you,” Eric spat.
“You,” Blaine grunted, pushing harder against Eric. “Were the one who told me to go, to not look back, that you were done with me. You were the one who made me leave for good, you pushed me out.”
Eric’s eyes widened. “You were already leaving!”
“I joined up because I had nothing there but you! What the fuck was I going to do in Carson! I was nothing!” Blaine snarled. “Do you have any fucking idea what it was like to look to the future and see nothing?”
Eric let his head fall back against the wall, chest heaving. “There was me.”
“And what was I going to give you, Eric? A life of me working at some grocery store? Us scraping and working our asses off for nothing? I wanted something more for us, something better. I told you that. Or I tried to, but you wouldn’t listen. Because that’s what you do, isn’t it, Eric? You get an idea in your head, and that’s all there is to it. That’s all that matters. You believe something, and if someone doesn’t agree, they’re automatically the enemy. It was always different with me, you always listened to me, until you didn’t.”
And it had hurt, damn it. Knowing that in the end, he was no different than anyone else to Eric, not when it mattered. Blaine had left, signing up for a career that would open doors that wouldn’t have opened before. He’d wanted something better for them. All he’d held in his head was the life he wanted with Eric, with his best friend. But instead, Eric had twisted it around, using it as a weapon to dig into Blaine’s side and twist.
“Then I was the enemy, then I was the one leaving you. The one time I needed you to listen to me, for me, and you didn’t. You were selfish then, and you’re selfish now. I did it for us, I did it for me, but you, you did it for you. All you saw was your hurt feelings, your broken heart, you threw everything back in my face and refused to hear a goddamn word I said! I was willing to fight, to hold you close until I was out on the other side of it all. We could have been something. But you, you told me to go, to never look back, to leave you behind because you were done. So fuck your attitude, fuck your bitterness, and fuck every nasty thing you’ve thrown my way, Eric, because you’re just as responsible for what happened to us as I am. I’m done taking the blame for it.”
His throat hurt, and he realized he’d been shouting. Eric had stopped fighting him, his body going almost limp as Blaine’s words pounded down on him.
“I wrote to you,” Blaine hissed, feeling his body tremble. “I wrote to you for weeks while I was in boot camp. And I tried to call you. I tried so goddamn hard to get you to understand. But you never wrote back, you never took my calls. I left for us, but you left for yourself. I tried Eric, I tried so goddamn hard.”
“Why?” Eric asked softly.
Blaine stared at him, unable to comprehend. “Why? Because I loved you, Eric. With every part of me. I loved you so goddamn much all I could think about was how to make things better for us, to do better for us, for you. I loved you.”
Eric’s jaw tightened, but his eyes swam with unshed tears. His face was flushed, and his tongue nervously darted over his lips.
“Loved,” Eric said, voice tight.
Blaine stared down at him, head spinning, trying to figure out how they’d got to where they were. They had been so good with one another as a team. Sure, they’d bickered and argued, but they had never blown apart, they had never been bitter. All it had taken to change that was one decision, one choice Blaine made for both himself and for them. It had been the first time he’d ever done anything like that, and it had destroyed them.
As he stared down at Eric’s stricken and torn expression, Blaine realized it hadn’t changed his feelings, though. Loved, love, would always love. Even with all the anger and vitriol Eric had thrown at him, twisting the guilt inside Blaine like a knife, he still loved the man.
Leaning forward to kiss Eric for the first time in eight years was the easiest thing to do.
Eric stiffened against his arm, but Blaine felt his breath catch, hitching somewhere in his chest. Lips parted slowly, almost reluctantly, as Blaine tasted the coke and liquor on Eric’s tongue. A zing of pleasure shot through him as Eric’s body went taut, whether to press tighter against him or to gear up for a fight, Blaine didn’t know.
It was warm, it was somehow both soft and hard, and Blaine felt himself tumbling into the moment. From the first time he’d laid eyes on Eric in the police station, he’d wanted him. Maybe it was just in the hopes of having something, anything warm and close, but to have his mouth against Eric’s again was everything he’d hoped for and more.
Eric shifted beneath him, and Blaine had a moment’s notice before the man’s palms shoved against his chest. Blaine stumbled, his back hitting the opposite wall. The sound of the nearby street echoed down the alleyway, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention.
Eric panted. “What the fuck was that?”
Blaine snorted, letting his head fall back. “That was me, not being as done as you said we were.”
“Who the hell are you to decide that?” Eric demanded, stepping away from the other wall.
“Who the hell were you to decide we were done in the first place?” Blaine shot back, feeling his anger flare once more.
“You…” Eric began.
Blaine held his face, taking in the expression of mixing anger and confusion. “Left. I left. And you let me go, pushed me to go, and never look back. Well, tough shit, Eric, I was always looking back, and no matter how much of an absolute prick you are to me, I’m always going to be looking back. It’s you, Eric, and it always has been. Probably always will be.”
Eric’s hands clenched at his jeans, knuckles turning white. “After all this time, years later, and now you’re saying this shit?”
“Better late than never, right?” Blaine said, thinking of the dozens of letters he’d sent in the early years.
“Go to hell, Blaine.”
And then Eric was on him.
Blaine almost flailed when Eric’s body slammed into his, knocking him into the wall once more. Eric’s fingers wrapped around the back of his head, yanking him down into another kiss. There was no hesitation or doubt in Eric’s touch as he kissed Blaine soundly, forcing his lips apart and claiming Blaine’s tongue.
“Fuck,” Eric growled against his lips.
Blaine agreed with a low grunt, wrapping his arms around Eric’s waist. He could feel Eric’s anger in the way he nipped at his bottom lip and the way he shoved himself against Blaine’s body. It fed into Blaine’s own desperate, furious need, tightening his grip around the man’s hips and in the way he spun them around to press Eric’s back tightly against the wall.
Blaine shoved a hand between them, not caring when he heard the button of Eric’s pants pop off. Past the band of Eric’s underwear, he found the man’s cock, wrapping his hand around it tightly. Eric hissed against his lips when Blaine swiped his thumb over the head. The man c
ursed when Blaine’s fingers began stroking him, remembering the rhythm and grip strength that would make Eric thrash and moan.
Eric’s mouth was eager and demanding against his as Blaine stroked him. Eric’s fingers scrambled against Blaine’s pants but went ignored. Blaine wanted to hear Eric, to feel the man let loose and groan Blaine’s name. He wanted this to be for Eric. He wanted to dominate the moment, make it his as much as it would be Eric’s. It didn’t matter who the hell had been with Eric in the past eight years. This was his.
“Come for me,” Blaine growled, giving Eric’s head another swipe of his thumb.
“Fuck you,” Eric snarled, thrusting his hips into Blaine’s hand.
“Only if you’re good,” Blaine whispered in his ear.
A smile curled the corner of his lips as Eric’s retort was lost behind a shuddering gasp. Eric had always been a sucker for the deep rumble of Blaine’s voice, ironically at his most susceptible when he was wound up and feisty. It was good to know some things didn’t change.
He spun the man around, shoving his chest against the wall. Eric grunted, squirming as though unsure if he wanted to fight the movement or press tighter. He stopped when Blaine shoved his groin against him, grinding his denim-covered cock against his ass.
“Blaine,” Eric hissed in warning.
Blaine chuckled, bringing his free hand up to hold Eric by the base of his throat. He nibbled on Eric’s neck, tasting his sweat, and feeling him stiffen.
“I know, next time,” Blaine promised in that same low rumble.
Grinding his groin against him again, he pushed tighter against the wall as he spoke. Eric’s hips pushed back against him, stuttering as his legs shook. A low, desperate cry poured from Eric’s lips as his cock jerked, spilling over onto Blaine’s fingers and against the alley wall. His body shuddered, fingers curling against the brick that made up the bar’s outside wall.
Blaine allowed himself a moment of regret that he didn’t have supplies on him. It would have been so much more fun if he’d kept at least a tube of lube on him and probably a condom. He could just about remember what it felt like to fuck Eric into a solid surface when the man was like this. Pissed off and riled up didn’t turn Eric off, it just made him one hell of a good lay.
“Fucker,” Eric panted, sagging against the wall.
Blaine knew that was his cue to let go. He did so only after he was sure Eric wasn’t going to sag to the floor. Clean looking or not, he really didn’t like the idea of Eric being left on an alley floor.
“You good?” Blaine asked softly, stepping back.
“Why? Gonna just leave?” Eric shot back.
That had been his plan if only because he suspected now that Eric had his release, he was going to retreat back into bitterness and rage.
“Why? Do you want me to stay?” Blaine asked.
“What, you can decide to pin me against a wall, yell at me, and kiss me, but you can’t decide if you want to stay afterward?” Eric snorted. “Typical.”
“I said I wasn’t putting up with you blaming me anymore. So if that’s what you want me to stay for, you can kiss my ass, Eric,” Blaine told him without heat. “I mean it.”
Eric stood up straight, tucking himself back into his pants. His dark eyes swept over Blaine’s face, and instead of anger, there was only thought.
He snorted. “You do, don’t you?”
“Be pissed all you want, blame me if you want, but keep it to yourself,” Blaine said.
“What? No telling me to think about what you said?” Eric asked with a soft sneer.
Blaine shrugged. “I meant everything I said. From calling you selfish to saying you’re still it for me. If you want to think about it, then think about it. But I’m not going to force you to do shit.”
Eric opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, then snapped it shut with the faint click of his teeth. Blaine watched the war clash behind Eric’s eyes before he averted his gaze to look down at his shoes.
“Fine, I’ll play nice,” Eric muttered.
“Thank you,” Blaine said, meaning it.
“But it doesn’t make us…” Eric said, looking up to gesture vaguely.
Blaine snorted, turning toward the mouth of the alley and walking. “Yeah.”
“I mean it, Blaine! Don’t get any ideas,” Eric told him, hot on his heels.
“I heard you. I think the whole block can hear you.”
“Fuck you, Blaine.”
“I thought we covered that?”
“Oh! You...I hate...motherfu-”
Blaine laughed, letting Eric sputter as they stepped out onto the sidewalk. Maybe Eric didn’t feel better, but Blaine sure did. Eric was still pissed, but Blaine didn’t hear the old bitterness there anymore, or at least not as much.
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Eric
Monday morning rolled around, and Eric entered the precinct with a distinct feeling of unease. After the rather...intense night at the bar on Friday, Blaine had remained silent throughout the whole weekend. Every time Eric heard his phone go off, or thought someone was at the door, he went tense and broke into a light sweat. None of them had been Blaine, but he had been dreading his return to work.
David was eyeing him as he came through the door. The usual book in his hand was missing, replaced by a lighter and a can of lighter fluid.
“What?” Eric demanded at the man’s scrutiny.
“What what?” David asked innocently.
“You’re the one staring,” Eric told him.
“I’m just looking. I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on the front door, remember?”
“Right, and instead, you’re staring me down and playing with a lighter.”
“Refilling.”
“Whatever. Since when do you smoke?”
“I don’t,” David told him, flipping the lighter open and lighting it. “I just like having one on me. Always have.”
“Ugh, don’t let anyone else hear you say that. The last thing we need is rumors of a firebug in our precinct,” Eric told him.
David’s eyes widened, face losing a shade or two of color. “Shit.”
Eric smirked at him. “Yeah, exactly.”
Smug in his victory, he left David to stare at him as he made his way back toward his office. He wasn’t too proud to admit to a wash of relief at finding it empty. It meant there would be time before he had to face Blaine.
Didn’t stop him from jerking in alarm when his phone buzzed in his pocket, though. Wincing at his overblown reaction, he pulled his phone out to see a message from Sean.
Why is Blaine asking to talk to me?
Eric frowned at his phone.
I have no idea. You ask him.
Pretty sure you should be asking.
Why?
Because.
No. Fuck off.
You’re his partner.
And he’s asking you. Go away.
He tossed his phone onto his desk, ignoring the next set of buzzes. There was no way in hell he was going to argue with his brother. Eric wasn’t even completely sure how Blaine had got Sean’s number in the first place. Then again, he could remember Blaine’s talent for getting into places where he shouldn’t, and knowing things he had no business knowing.
Eric snorted, shaking his head as he remembered all the times Blaine had picked Eric’s pocket, just to irritate him. He would spend several minutes cursing up a storm about whatever he lost, only to turn around and find it placed right in front of him. Meanwhile, Blaine would be looking innocent to all save Eric’s sharp eye, who would catch the gleam of amusement in his friend’s face.
He jerked in surprise when a tall, steaming cup was placed in front of him. The rich smell of coffee filled his nose as he whirled around.
“Morning,” Blaine said, walking toward his desk.
Eric said nothing, watching Blaine warily as the man plopped down behind his desk and powered up his computer. Blaine certainly looked more relaxed than befo
re, though Eric couldn’t quite say how he knew. There might have been a looseness to his shoulders, and his movements didn’t seem nearly as quick and precise. It had occurred to Eric that he might be seeing shadows where there weren’t any, but that didn’t stop his suspicious evaluation.
Blaine looked up, blinking slowly. “What?”
Eric felt his cheeks warm, turning to face his desk again. “Nothing.”
“Planning on drinking your coffee? Stuff is a little too expensive to let it go cold.”
Eric looked down at the cup, frowning when he spotted Mithril’s label. Now the man was bringing him expensive coffee too? He shot his partner another suspicious look before taking a drink, unable to help the low sound of pleasure at the bitter, rich taste of the coffee.
Blaine shifted in his seat, and Eric felt the heat return to his cheeks. The memory of Friday night rushed back in full clarity. Eric could almost feel the press of Blaine’s hard body behind him, hips grinding tightly against his ass, and his hand wrapped around him.
Not caring about his thoughts for the moment, he turned and shot a dirty look at Blaine.
“What?” Blaine asked, the picture of pure innocence.
Eric huffed and once more, forced himself to look at his screen. Thankfully, there seemed to be something waiting for him in the urgent pile of digital messages. He’d already told Blaine that what happened on Friday wasn’t an invitation for something more.
Sure, Blaine had made a few good points, well several good points. Eric certainly hadn’t any counterargument to throw back in the man’s face. In fact, the only thing he’d thrown was himself. He still wasn’t sure how to explain that to himself, other than hormones, alcohol, and the intense emotions bouncing between them in the narrow alley.
With an inward cringe, he also had to admit that he’d certainly never seen Blaine that worked up before. Blaine never raised his voice, and he’d been shouting loud enough in the alley, his voice low and booming, Eric had felt the vibrations in his toes. He wasn’t quite sure what it said about him that he’d found it oddly attractive.
Unbreak My Heart (Heroes of Port Dale Book 4) Page 9