by J. M. Colail
Julian’s body jerked, his cock leaving a sticky trail of clear fluid on his stomach. Patiently, Jack worked his fingers in and out, his own prick throbbing sympathetically as Julian writhed and moaned.
“Jack,” he murmured, head flat against the floor, heels planted. “Quit teasing me. I need you.”
Jack ignored him for as long as he could, adding a third finger and massaging his prostate almost brutally, until Julian’s vocalizations threatened to wake the rest of the house. Balancing on his knees, he reached up and covered his mouth with his left hand. to stifle the noise. “When I’m ready,” he said into the top of his thigh, still working his fingers in and out inexorably.
Julian licked his palm.
Jack figured that was enough of a sign for him. He twisted his fingers one more time, watching as Julian’s cock leaked pearlescent fluid into his navel, then withdrew them to yank the top off of another lube packet. He squirted a liberal amount into his palm and slathered it over his dick, releasing his hold on Julian’s mouth.
He eased forward, sliding into the tight sheath. Julian hissed softly, his legs wrapping around Jack’s waist, ankles hooking together. Jack groaned as Julian drew him forward until his balls were resting against Julian’s ass. Then Julian’s fingers twined in his hair and yanked him down, taking his tongue as well as his cock. Jack grunted at the change of angle, ground his hips forward firmly and growled as Julian bit his lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
The sharp jolt went straight down his spine and into his groin, and Jack broke away from the kiss as he pulled his pelvis sharply back, slowly pushing forward again as Julian dug sharp fingernails into Jack’s ass.
“Jack.” Julian buried his face in Jack’s neck, his dark curls tickling Jack’s chest and chin. He licked a trail up to Jack’s ear, as Jack fucked him long and slow, knees burning on the carpet, nails digging into his palms as he balanced on the floor. “God, that’s good.”
He was so hot, and so tight, so alive and so close that he was almost under Jack’s skin, eyes open in the dark. Jack scraped his teeth along Julian’s jaw, breathing in the scent of his sweat, tasting the salt on his skin. “Tell me,” Jack murmured, moving his hips unhurriedly, watching the expressions flicker over his face.
Julian groaned wantonly, reaching down between his legs to fist his cock. “Deeper,” he begged, gaze fixed on Jack’s.
Jack obliged, shifting his knees around until he could comfortably rub against Julian’s prostate on every stroke. Julian shuddered beneath him, his fingers moving quicker over his swollen cock.
“Harder.”
Shit. Maybe telling Julian to tell him what to do was a bad idea. Jack shuddered, running his tongue over the cut on his lip and swallowing as he pistoned forward again.
Julian practically mewled, and Jack lowered his head to catch the noise from his lips, rubbing their noses together. “God…. Julian….”
“Yes,” he whispered, and Jack couldn’t help it. He looked deep into those huge dark eyes and saw Julian for the first time.
Shit, shit, shit. He knew what this was, now, knew it without a doubt. He knew. He was terrified, and nothing had ever felt this good. Not in thirty-six years.
Hand shaking, Jack uncurled a fist and cupped Julian’s face in one hand, laying his palm flat against his cheek. Julian took a shuddering breath and released it with a whimper, then his whole body arched and spasmed, clenching furiously around Jack’s prick. Jack came almost soundlessly, his head falling forward as he pulsed inside Julian’s ass, hot seed spilling over, collapsing down onto his elbows as the adrenaline rush faded into post-coital tremors.
“Jesus,” Julian whispered softly after a long moment.
Jack concurred, shaken to the core. He pressed his uncertain smile into Julian’s temple and followed it up with a kiss. “Come on,” he said, rolling over and tugging Julian’s hand. “Let’s go to bed.”
Chapter Fourteen
“DON’T BE stupid,” Julian said from the laundry room as Jack put away the last of the dishes. Jack looked up in time to see Robot plant her paws on his belly. “My parents will love you. Everyone loves you.”
Jack wasn’t so sure, although his mom had certainly liked Julian well enough. She’d even invited the two of them back for New Year’s, though they’d chosen to stay behind in town with Roz. It was a good thing, because everyone at Brenda’s had figured out exactly why Roz wasn’t drinking and the lineup of well-wishers had been enormous. Julian had had to field hugs and smiles for her for a good half an hour. Eventually they’d had to facilitate her escape and take her home, which was just as well, since she’d been exhausted and Julian had been horny. There had been more than a few speculative glances thrown Jack’s way, but luckily, nobody had asked.
“Whatever you say,” Jack agreed noncommittally, closing the cupboard door. He turned just in time to find Julian’s body pressing against him.
“Promise?” Julian asked huskily, biting his chin.
Jack’s knees went to jelly. Right then—not just right then, but any time in the recent past or foreseeable future—Julian could’ve asked him for anything and Jack would have moved mountains to do it for him. He spread his legs to make room for Julian between them, leaning back against the kitchen cupboards.
Julian’s cell phone rang.
“Fuck,” Julian said, mouth full of Jack’s lips. “Never fails.” He moved back far enough that Jack wouldn’t overhear if it was confidential and flipped open the phone. “Dr. Piet.”
Jack watched as his body stilled in confusion and resigned himself to a night alone. It looked like it might be serious.
Julian frowned and turned aside, pressing a hand to his free ear despite the fact that Jack wasn’t making any noise.
Then all the color went out of his face. “Roz?”
Oh, fuck. Jack froze, staring as Julian slouched against the counter. His knuckles were white against the phone. “Roz, slow down, I can’t understand you. I….” Julian stopped, held the phone away from his ear, and looked blankly at Jack. “She’s not there,” he said. His voice was soft and quiet. “I… I think she passed out.”
Jack said, “I’ll get my keys.”
Julian ran for his shoes as Jack slammed the key drawer, tearing after him at a run, shoving his feet into his shoes. There was a foot and a half of snow on the ground that soaked into his socks as he ran out the front door without locking it, but the roads had been plowed, thank God.
They didn’t look at each other during the five-minute drive back to Julian’s, Jack’s foot hard on the gas the whole way. He hadn’t even parked yet before Julian was out the door, skidding across the slush in front of the back door and ripping into the house. Jack followed hot on his trail, his heart hammering in his chest. “Roz!” he heard Julian shout as he followed right on his heels.
“Jack, get up here!”
Fuck. Jack didn’t bother wiping the snow from his shoes. He just thundered up the stairs as fast as he could, heading for Roz’s bedroom.
Julian wasn’t there. Neither was Roz. “In the bathroom!” Julian shouted.
Jack whirled, ran down the hallway, and stopped dead in the bathroom doorway.
Roz was curled unconscious in a ball on the bathroom floor, a small pool of blood spreading steadily from between her legs. The phone lay beside her on the floor, the status light flashing. Jack could hear the busy signal over the roar of blood in his ears.
Julian was kneeling beside his sister, looking very small, two fingers on the pulse point in her neck. “It’s thready,” he said, intensely focused. “We’re going to have to carry her down the stairs. Hold her head and shoulders, okay?”
Jack did as he was told, lifting when Julian did, and they managed to bring her to the top of the stairs. There was no way they could bring her down like this, though. Not without serious injury to Roz or to themselves. “I’ve got her,” Jack said, shifting so that he could grab her legs. “Go get in the back of the truck and call the hospital. Let t
hem know we’re on our way.”
For a minute, he thought Julian was going to protest, but then he was gone, cell phone pressed to his ear. By the time Jack got Roz down the stairs, out the door and into the truck, Julian had it started and was sitting in the backseat of the pickup with the throw blanket from the back of the couch. Jack laid her down next to him, with her head resting on Julian’s chest, and was surprised to find Julian almost completely calm. He took Roz’s wrist in one hand, presumably to keep track of the pulse he’d called thready, and the other on her lower abdomen. “Drive,” Julian instructed.
Jack drove. Fast. They made it to the hospital in forty minutes, riding in terse silence the whole time, save for Roz’s occasional groans. She woke up once along the way, her voice soft and pained and confused, and Jack heard Julian’s tone falter in the backseat as he answered.
By the time he pulled up in front of the emergency room, Roz was unconscious again, and a team of hospital staff was waiting with a stretcher. Jack practically fell out of the truck.
The team had the back door open and Roz on the stretcher before he could say anything. Julian was rattling off medical terms at a pace Jack couldn’t keep up with, shooting Jack the briefest of glances before running to keep up with the staff. Jack looked helplessly at the security guard and the nurse that had been left behind, tossed his keys at them and took off after the siblings, but they had disappeared into an elevator.
The nurse at the emergency station wouldn’t tell him where they’d gone.
Lost, Jack just looked at her. “Listen, my friend is three months pregnant. We found her passed out on the floor of her bathroom in a pool of blood less than an hour ago. I need to know where she is!” Just as importantly, he needed to know where Julian was, so that he could be there for him.
The nurse—Michelle Renaud by her name tag—gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, but I can only release that information to family members. She’s probably in surgery right now. Why don’t you give me her name, have a coffee, and take a seat? I’ll let you know when she’s in a recovery room.” She paused. “If you can see her. She might not want company.”
That was as much as he was going to get, and Jack knew it. Trying not to think about what that last comment might—probably did—mean, he ran a hand through his hair. Coffee, waiting. Phone? “Her name is Roslin Piet. That’s P-I-E-T. Roslin with an s.” Jack waited until Michelle had scribbled down the information, then gave her his own name and cell phone number so that she could call him when Roz had a room.
When he didn’t move after that, Michelle attempted a small smile. “Decaf?” she suggested, motioning to the coffee pots on a small table near the outside door.
Jack flashed her a grateful look, or what he could manage of one, anyway, and drifted over to pour himself a steaming cup. It was so hot, it was almost flavorless. Perfect.
He sat there feeling worse than useless with no idea what he could or should be doing for almost half an hour. Then he took a deep breath and did what he always did in tough situations.
He called his mother.
JACK’S CELL phone buzzed. He jerked awake with a start, looking around guiltily until he caught the eye of the nurse at the station. Not Michelle, a different one this time. He wondered how long he’d been asleep.
Swallowing hard, Jack stood and walked over, trying to keep his emotions in check. He couldn’t even imagine what Roz and Julian were going through right now. They would need him to be strong, no matter what had happened. He would be there for them. He would not let them down. “Yes?”
The nurse—a man probably close to Julian’s age, with blond hair and dark shadows beneath his eyes—said, “Dr. Piet’s been asking for you. Room D-518. That’s up five floors, take a left when you get out of the elevator, past the nurse’s station, then turn right. You got that?”
Jack nodded mechanically. “Thanks.” He looked at the bank of elevators, wondering. What would he say when he got to the top? Should he have brought flowers? That might, at least, have got a smile. But it seemed so inappropriate.
Deciding he needed a few minutes to pull himself together, Jack headed for the stairwell, climbing the flights mechanically until he reached a landing labeled D5.
He found D-518 without any trouble. Julian was sitting outside it on the floor, legs splayed in front of him, wearing someone’s borrowed scrubs and a lab coat a size too large for him, head leaned back against the wall. Jack slumped down beside him and put his arm around him before he could think better of it. Fuck it. Some things were more important than public perception of his masculinity, or lack thereof. “Lean, Julian,” he commanded when the doctor resisted.
Julian did, exhaling slowly as he let his head rest against Jack’s chest.
“Now talk.”
It was as gentle a way as Jack knew to put it, but Julian still flinched a little and picked at the hole in Jack’s jeans while he spoke. “Roz is, I mean she, I don’t think….” After several more abortive attempts at a sentence, Julian sighed and went limp. “She’s sleeping now. Well, sedated. I…. That’s for the best.”
Jack’s heart ached for the two of them. He pressed a chaste kiss to the top of Julian’s head and then leaned his own back against the wall, utterly wiped. This emotional shit was draining. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, at length. “I can’t even….”
Against his chest, he could feel Julian shudder. “Me neither. God. Being orphaned is one thing….”
Without his permission, Jack’s arm tightened around Julian’s shoulders. He wanted, irrationally, to promise Julian he’d never have to be alone again, but it was stupid. Julian hadn’t been alone then, and he wasn’t now, and Jack had no right going around making grand gestures like that when he couldn’t control how long he’d be around for and hadn’t even been comfortable enough to hold hands in public. Until now, apparently.
“She’s devastated,” Julian finally heaved. Jack’s fingers curled into his upper arm supportively. “And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it and, damn it, Jack, I don’t know how to fix things like this. Roz always knows what to say or do to make me feel better and I am utterly, utterly hopeless when it’s time to return the favor.”
“Julian.” Jack managed somehow to pull him closer, so that Julian was sitting between his legs, using him for a chair. The hallway here was mostly deserted except for a few scattered hospital staff, and they seemed to be ignoring the scene playing out here. They’d seen their share of breakdowns in this ward, he decided. “There is nothing you can do or say right now to make this better. That’s not your fault, okay? You did everything you could. I was there, remember?”
In front of him, Julian’s head bobbed in a nod, and then he was very still for a few long minutes. Jack held him without moving until his ass went numb, wondering if he’d fallen asleep, and then wiggled only just enough to work some blood back into his butt. It was late now, some ridiculous hour of the morning, late enough that it was actually early, and people were starting to arrive for shifts. Jack was about to ask one of the passing staff if there was a gurney his exhausted doctor could nap on for a few hours—or days—when Julian stirred against him, jerking fully awake in seconds.
“Is your ass numb?” was the first thing he asked once he seemed to have figured out where he was and just whose arms were holding him upright.
Jack couldn’t resist squeezing a little, but he let go quickly, wanting very much to stand up, stretch, and pee, not necessarily in that order. Julian jumped to his feet without a hint of hesitation, and Jack glared up at him resentfully. His own hip and knee made embarrassing old-man noises as he dragged himself up off of the floor. “I guess that answers your question.”
Amusingly, Julian seemed to be very engaged in massaging feeling back into his regrettably still-clothed backside. “Need a hand?” Jack offered.
Julian gave him a darkly amused look. “Now you decide to molest me in public? No offense, Jack, but your timing sucks.” He stretched, the s
kin showing between the halves of his scrubs making the roof of Jack’s mouth go dry. Tease. “I’m going to check on Roz,” he said, and the severity of the situation flooded back so quickly that Jack just nodded.
“I’ll be in the waiting room at the end of the hall,” he said, intending to round up some coffee. If there was a vending machine around here maybe he’d scrounge Julian some orange juice. “Call me if you need me?”
Julian nodded, not quite smiling, and opened the door to Roz’s room. It was dark inside, but Jack could see Roz’s silhouette against the brightening window, looking curled up and small.
Wandering off down the hallway, Jack opted to locate a cafeteria rather than drink the sludge that was trying to ooze its way out of the spigot on the D5 coffee machine. He took the scenic route, hitting the bathroom first. Afterward, he wandered through the just-opening gift shop, then played a game of pinball in the small arcade. He detoured into another quiet lounge area to make a quick phone call to work, let Hamilton know he might not be coming in Monday, then sidled into the cafeteria to stock up on pocketable goodies to sneak to Julian throughout the day. Hell, maybe Roz would feel up to something loaded with sugar and delicious trans fats. He picked up a few extras, just in case. Pockets full of pastries, Jack meandered back up to the lounge on D5, sipping his coffee slowly. Still scaldingly hot, and oh so good. He had a bottle of OJ for Julian, too, but he’d wait until Julian came out to get it himself.
Jack had just sat down to polish off the last of his coffee and bagel when the last person he’d expected to see walked down the hallway. He put down his drink and stood, suddenly uneasy for reasons he couldn’t explain. “Roy?” Jack fidgeted, made even more uneasy, if that were possible, by the large bouquet Roy was carrying. “Is that you?”
It definitely was. Roy froze at the sound of his voice and turned slowly in his direction. If his posture was anything to go by, he was every bit as on edge as Jack. “Oh, hi, Jack. I came as soon as I heard.”