by Aiden Bates
I hadn’t been this tired since I was in basic myself. It felt like being drunk; my stomach strangely cramping and my muscles aching. Finally, somehow, I was outside my apartment building, and all I could think about was pouring myself into bed and sleeping until Monday morning when I would have to get up and do it all again. I thought vaguely about possibly eating something, but gave that up as too much energy.
I was already dreaming of cool sheets and soft pillows when a noise caught my attention. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Teddy was there, looking sheepish. At first, in my daze, I thought it was just a coincidence. Surely Teddy was here to meet someone else and not me, but the way his face lit up when he saw me coming up the walkway told me another story. I had hoped he would come back, but I certainly hadn’t thought it would happen so quickly. I’d warned myself over and over not to push, not to ask for more, even after I’d sat on the floor of my living room realizing I was ass over teakettle in love with the man. Teddy wasn’t usually one for diving headlong into things without sitting back and evaluating everything first.
Either way, if Teddy had made his mind up to come back, like hell I was going to do anything to persuade him not to. It was amazing how immediately I was wide awake. Where before I’d felt half-dead with exhaustion, now all I could feel was the anticipation in my stomach, the adrenaline in my veins. I figured Teddy needed to vent some more about what was going on with him at work.
“Hey,” he said, greeting me. “Sorry. I know it’s late. I bet Dad has had you at the office since the middle of last night.”
I shook my head, trying to put on a good show of being awake. “Nah, it’s fine. Comes with the territory. No way I’d have signed up for this without knowing what I was in for,” I explained, despite knowing that was exactly what I had done. “Did you need something?”
Teddy looked down for a second, and I saw a splash of color, confusingly, across his cheeks. He hesitated and then asked, “Can I come up?”
“Yeah! I mean, yeah, of course you can. I meant what I said. Come on up.” I made my way up the steps, determined that whatever it was that Teddy needed right now, I was going to be. Even though it was a shock, I was elated he’d decided to take me up on my offer so soon, even if it did mean, unsurprisingly, that things probably weren’t any better at work.
I opened the door and let him in before dropping my bag to the side. I turned to ask if he’d like anything to drink, already hoping for coffee to keep my eyes open once the initial excitement wore off.
And then, my brain shut off. Completely. No hope of recovery. Not ever. Because I could have imagined lots of different outcomes to this if you’d asked me. But not any of them involved Teddy pushing into me until my back hit the wall, bringing his hands up to my face and sealing his lips over mine. I instinctively put my hands on his waist to pull him closer and lend him balance while he was up on his toes, and then I reluctantly pulled back just slightly to catch my breath.
“Teddy, what—”
Teddy placed a finger on my lips, stopping me, then shook his head.
“No. I don’t want to talk. I want this,” he said before kissing me again. And god knew I wasn’t ever any good at not giving into Teddy, even with Master Sarge’s demand still pretty damn fresh in my head. That was never going to stand up to the reality of Teddy, warm and alive and solid under my hands. And so, it didn’t. I gave in. I gave in to the searing kisses Teddy was pressing over and over to my mouth. I gave in to the sweet-smelling neck my nose sought as I nipped and lapped at the underside of his jaw. I gave in to the soft skin under my rough fingers, in reality, far too fine for the likes of me to touch, like silk to a beggar. I gave in to the soft noises dribbling from his bee-stung mouth, reddened from the kisses I’d returned. I gave in to the trembling of his arms as I guided us back to my bedroom.
I lost myself at first in everything I’d been denying. The things I’d wanted, the person I’d wanted them with, but I was pulled up short when Teddy found the hem of my shirt. I drew back and sat on my heels, Teddy stretched out under me. Seeing him there, looking up at me with lust-blown eyes, it was so hard to stop, but I didn’t want there to be any surprises.
He looked confused, as though he thought I had somehow come to my senses and was preparing to get off the bed and to tell him to leave.
“No,” I said, shaking my head at his furrowed brow. “No, it’s just I’m not…” Embarrassingly, my voice strained with emotion, and I wasn’t sure if it was due to my unwillingness to admit my weakness to a person I wanted so much or whether it was just the sadness of having those marks across my body in the first place. “Teddy, I’m not like I was before.”
Teddy rolled his eyes. “Well, I know that. It’s been years, Roman.”
I shook my head again. “No, it’s… Fuck, Teddy. You know I was injured, right?”
Teddy rolled his eyes for a second time. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss him or shove him.
“Obviously.”
“Yeah, well. It was pretty fucking bad.” I thought back momentarily to the searing pain of my skin burning, the way it had smelled, the agony of having a nurse come by several times a day to change the dressing, and then scrubbing or removing layer after layer of poorly healing tissue. “It’s just, dammit, Teddy, I’m not… Fuck, I’m not all there, alright?”
“You were never all there, Roman,” Teddy said, voice teasing.
“Ha-fucking-ha. No, I mean—”
“Roman,” Teddy said, quietly. “I know what you mean. It’s alright. Just show me, okay?” Teddy sat up, and after meeting my eyes, pulled my shirt over my arms and threw it to the floor. He reached out—his hand, to his credit, steady and sure—as he softly traced the raised webbing of the scarring that cut across my left side.
“Oh, Roman,” he said. I couldn’t read all the emotions on his face as he examined the scars that were visible on my torso. But I could interpret flickers of them. Sorrow, pain, concern, maybe something more. It was difficult to say.
“It goes all the way down,” I declared. “All the way down.”
Teddy nodded, and then became increasingly focused on getting me completely naked, pushing me down flat on the bed with him now hovering over me. The skin on my left side alternated in places between being almost completely numb to extremely sensitive. Regardless of the scars, regardless of the pitted skin and the places where the tissue was thin and fragile, he kissed it all, from top to bottom. He used his mouth to map everywhere, from my pec and side, all the way down to the joints of my ankle. None of it was safe from Teddy’s lips and tongue, his softest caress.
“Not the sexiest conversation, but condoms?” Teddy asked. “My heat is finished, so I’m not as fertile, and well, I’m also on the pill, but if you want…”
No, I didn’t. To do this with Teddy, maybe my one and only chance to do this with him, I didn’t want anything between us. I knew Teddy would certainly be careful about diseases, and I’d been tested during my stay in hospital. “I don’t, and for the sake of transparency, another consequence of my injuries mean that…” I wasn’t sure how to say this. I felt my throat grow thick. “The doctors don’t think I can have children anymore. Sort of ironic, I guess. Me? Shooting blanks.” The joke fell flat, Teddy’s face showing, again, that confusing mix of concern and pain. “So, nothing to worry about there,” I added lamely.
I thought Teddy might say something, perhaps express some of the emotion I could clearly see. Instead he continued his exploratory trek, now up my body. As an alpha, it felt strange to lay back in the bed while an omega took charge. It was hard to overcome all the things telling me it shouldn’t be this way. I was much more used to the opposite. Even with Teddy, I’d almost always been in the driver’s seat, but this was different.
I watched helplessly as he once again kissed his way back up the inside of my leg until he finally got to my cock. I tensed, unsure how he was going to take in the changes to that particular area of anatomy. Before I could think much more about it th
ough, he traced my sac with his mouth, reaching up with his hand to tease at the head of my cock. Clearly, as far as Teddy was concerned, there wasn’t any problem at all.
I relaxed back into the bed and let Teddy drive, admiring the picture he made with his pinked lips wrapped around me like I was the best thing he’d had in his mouth all day. I thread my hands into his soft hair before pulling him off and bringing him to my mouth. I flattened my lips onto his and tugged at his bottom lip with my teeth. He gasped, and I pressed my tongue inside, groaning at the twin flavors of my own precum and Teddy’s mouth hitting my taste buds at once.
I helped him strip off his clothing, and it was all I could do not to rip each piece off at the seams. Finally, still kissing, he moaned as his naked body came back in contact with mine. His cock was hot and insistent on my stomach, and he began rocking into me slightly, grinding down into the notch of my hip bone as my tongue slid alongside his. Then he arched back, his ass brushing against my cock, long since forgotten while Teddy’s whole body was on offer.
This seemed to snap him back to himself, and he focused again on seeking his own pleasure. I was more than willing to lay back again, and let Teddy take over. He re-positioned himself further down my hips, straddling me in earnest now, his cock grinding slowly onto mine. I reached over to fish the lube out of my side table. Teddy sighed when I got the bottle open and poured some of the liquid directly on our cocks, the increased slickness easing his way as he rutted into me over and over. I would have been content to come this way, in fact, despite his question earlier, I almost expected it. In some way it felt reminiscent of all those times we spent together years ago.
I would have been content. Really. Up until the very moment Teddy took my still-slicked fingers and guided them back to his ass.
I slipped my fingers between his rounded cheeks, pausing only briefly to palm at the firm skin. Then I quickly found the tightly furled skin of his hole and I traced around it, watching as Teddy threw back his head and moaned at the sensation. The muscles in his neck were taut, and his mouth was open as he panted. His hips were still rocking into me, and I used the motion to slowly tease inside his rim with the tip of one finger. He was snug, clinging to my finger as I stretched him slowly.
“Fuck,” he moaned. “I’m not made of glass. I swear to—”
Whatever he was planning on saying was choked out when I pressed two fingers into him all the way to the root. I paused briefly to make sure I hadn’t hurt him, but in that few seconds, Teddy continued to rock back into my fingers more insistently. Now, all I could think about was burying my cock inside him and fucking him until I couldn’t think any more. I wasn’t nearly done with him, but Teddy reached back to pull my fingers out. I was confused at first until all at once he gripped my cock and sank down on it to the base.
It was heaven, surely. If I died right this second, I’d be okay with that. This first-time inside Teddy was more than I’d ever imagined or dreamed of. All those times we’d teased each other, tasted each other, now culminated in this one magical moment. I groaned, wanting to savor his tight heat, but Teddy guided my hands to his hips, and then I was helpless to do anything other than clutch at him as he fucked himself hard on my cock. He leaned over me, and I buried my nose into his neck again while canting my hips up to meet him on every downward thrust, following his rhythm. My only input was drawing my knees up and changing the angle, searching for the one that would make him fall apart in my arms.
His pale thighs were trembling with effort as he drove himself down again and again, and unable to stop myself I reached behind him to feel the place where we were joined. Fuck. For years I’d wanted this, and I’ll never forget it, never forget this gift Teddy was giving me.
Finally, I must have found the right angle because his moans took on a deeper resonance, as if they were being punched out of him over and over with my cock. His cock was still rubbing against me, trapped between our bellies, and after a few more strokes, he cried sweetly before he was clenching around me and spilling on my chest and stomach, blood-hot ropes saturating me in soft spurts. The feeling of his ass pulsating around me, the contented, satisfied slump of his body, the way his eyes closed as if this were the best thing that had ever happened to him, left me with no choice. Smoothly as I could, I rolled us over until he was pinned under me and then I drove into him half a dozen times before my body tightened and I spilled into him, hips snapping forward to come as deeply inside as I could.
I collapsed on top of him, and he brushed a hand against my short hair as he cradled the back of my head. I eased out, careful not to hurt him before falling into the other side of the bed.
I must have dozed. The next thing I remembered was a rustle from beside me. I opened my eyes to see Teddy, rumpled but dressed, standing over me.
I was about to ask him what was going on or why this had happened or what I could do to get him back into bed so it could happen again…and again, but before I could, he sealed his mouth on mine, cutting me off for the second time tonight.
I was too tired to hold back anything, and so I poured it all, lazily and half-asleep into the kiss itself. After too brief a time, it was done, and Teddy was pulling back, but not before leaning into my ear.
“Thanks, Ro.” I could hardly make it out, half because it was so soft I wasn’t sure Teddy actually intended for me to hear it and half because I was already falling back asleep.
I didn’t need to hear the gentle closing of my door to know Teddy wouldn’t be here in the morning.
12
Teddy
When news of the IED attack had broken, Silas, Bennet, and I had all found ourselves grieving, caretaking, and coping in our own ways. Southern tradition, however, dictated that in times of bereavement or major illness like those that followed the attack, a chief mourner was usually elected—officially or unofficially—among the parties affected by the negative event. Said chief mourner was usually the closest person to the deceased or the very ill and was considered the person most materially impacted by the loss.
It was clear to all of us that the chief mourner was Charlie. He’d not only lost Jason, he’d lost the life he would have had with Jason, he’d lost the children he would have had with Jason. In the blink of an eye, the entire trajectory of his life had blown completely and irreversibly off course.
Thus, began the tradition of Saturday brunches with Charlie.
Of course, as time went on and nearly a year passed, people got busy. Every so often, brunch would be postponed to Sunday. Silas or Bennet would have to bow out due to a conflicting shift or I’d occasionally pick to stay home to work. Recently, Silas had increasingly been excused due to the baby, but for the most part we all missed the person that our friend used to be so we all observed Saturdays with Charlie.
We only rarely talked about the sorts of things Charlie was going through in coping with Jason’s loss. Occasionally, usually around holidays or on days that would have been meaningful to him and Jason, we actively reminisced together about my brother. Most of the time, Charlie was more interested in listening to us natter on about work, gossip, family news or whatever else might prove a distraction to him, and we happily obliged.
“So, how have you been, Charlie? Aside from the comics, I mean.” Benny asked after we’d finished running through the cursory details of our respective work lives.
“I’m mostly curious,” Charlie said enigmatically with a tiny smile ghosting over his lips.
“Oh?” Benny asked, glancing at me.
“Well, it seems to me that if things have been so up-and-down at work then Teddy would have all the reason in the world to be down in the dumps, but he isn’t. Teddy seems positively upbeat.” Having finished his observation, Charlie’s lips settled into a sweet but sly smile and said nothing more.
For his own part, Bennet blinked and realized that Charlie was right. I quickly lost my only possible ally as Bennet came to the same realization that Charlie had.
“Good point, Charlie.
Very good point. What gives, Ted?”
With both my friends’ pairs of eyes trained on me, I felt very little hope of keeping my secret a secret much longer. Maybe Charlie would have had the manners to drop things if I really didn’t want to talk about something. Bennet, on the other hand, had known me far too long. There wasn’t such a thing as good manners between Bennet and me.
Still, I could at least make sure to play my cards correctly. I folded my hands together and prepared to lay out my rules of engagement.
“Gentlemen, I’m happy to cooperate but my cooperation is conditional.”
“Alright…” Benny agreed somewhat skeptically.
“You can’t tell anyone.” I leaned in toward the table and instinctively lowered my voice. “I mean it. I don’t mean don’t tell anyone or I’ll be embarrassed, either. I mean you can’t tell anyone because then I and at least one other person may suffer personal and professional consequences.”
Bennet and Charlie crossed looks of both surprise and concern, but being the good friends they were, they also nodded at each other and then at me.
“I hooked up with Roman last night,” I blurted, staring intensely into my coffee mug.
I couldn’t allow myself to look up quite yet, but I felt their stunned silence settle over us like a thick, rolling fog.
This revelation felt different than when I’d poured my heart out to Naomi and Miss Penny. I suddenly felt less blasé than I had at the end of the conversation at the Piggy Bank. Bennet, Charlie, and Silas were the closest things I had to brothers. These weren’t two strangers listening to me talk about my life; the four of us had led lives inextricable from each other almost since birth.