Flickers

by Tia Fielding

  He rounded the tree again, and saw Adrian wiping his eyes. Ben went to him and embraced him, hugging him close for a while.

  They filled the grave together, taking turns in an almost ritualistic way. Once it was all done, Ben tied the shovel onto the four-wheeler again.

  “In the spring, I could bring some flowers and plant them here. I could do some research and figure out what the horses wouldn’t eat?”

  It seemed somehow meaningful, the way he was looking into the future. The implication that there could still be “them” months and months from now.

  Adrian smiled. “Yeah, that would be great.”

  They drove back to the house, and continued their breakfast. Ben could feel the itch Adrian was starting to feel. Sometimes emotions or just pure inspiration made Adrian vibrate with something that needed to get out through his paints. Ben recognized it now, the way his fingers would start tapping, how he’d stare into the distance without seeing a thing.

  “Go on, go paint,” Ben said when they were done eating. “I’ll gather Spike’s things and put them into the garage for now.”

  Adrian gave him a grateful, although already a bit distracted, smile and kissed him deeply. “Thank you.”

  As Ben walked around the house and the yard, peeking into every nook and cranny looking for Spike’s beds and any errant toys, he wondered what Adrian would paint. Ben thought it might be something dark. To purge the grief, or something along those lines.

  He knew that Adrian would be in his zone, so he didn’t try to disrupt him with late lunch or even coffee, knowing that if the man wanted some there was a coffee maker in the barn

  He cleaned the house, since he had time, and started dinner preparations early. Around six in the evening, he had everything read to be tossed into a wok. Adrian would be hungry once he got the plate in front of him. Ben just needed to go get his man out of the barn.

  Ben stepped out of the house and walked across the yard, just to see Adrian closing the barn doors on his way out.

  “Hey, I was just coming to get you,” Ben said.

  Adrian had different colors of paint on his hands and some on his face, and there was a blob of blue on his beard. He looked drained, but smiled anyway. “I think I’m done,” he announced, and Ben felt as if there was new kind of weight behind the words.

  “I’m ready to start dinner, so you have enough time to shower.” They stopped walking midway through the yard, and Ben pulled Adrian close. He could feel the tiredness radiating from his lover. “We’ll call it an early night today, I think,” he murmured against Adrian’s temple.

  Adrian nodded and kissed him gently, then sighed contently and tugged him toward the house. “Let’s go before I collapse right here.”

  To Ben’s surprise, once Adrian had cleaned up and had dinner, he perked up visibly. He insisted on doing the washing up while Ben took his own shower, so that they could settle down for the evening.

  Again, when Ben moved past Adrian, he was given a kiss that seemed different than all the others they’d shared. There was a weird feel in the air, as if something had shifted without him noticing.

  Since it seemed positive, Ben decided not to dwell on it and just figure out where it would lead. He showered efficiently, eager to get back to Adrian.

  When he got out of the bathroom, Adrian sat on the bed, looking at him with an odd little smile on his lips.

  “What?” Ben asked, glancing down at his bare chest to see if anything was wrong.

  “I need to show you the painting tomorrow,” Adrian said. “It won’t be dry then, but….”

  “Okay…?”

  “It’s… I can’t explain how I feel. How different I feel.” There was a hint of frustration in his tone, and Ben watched, still clad in just the towel around his hips, as Adrian struggled to find his words.

  Adrian had gotten undressed, too, only wearing his boxer shorts and a T-shirt that stretched over his biceps and his powerful-looking chest and round belly. The man was so gorgeous to Ben, it was weird to think how he’d once resisted the mere idea of being gay. Internalized homophobia, his inner voice provided. Yeah, it had been that.

  “Can I just… show you?” Adrian asked, and Ben realized he’d been staring.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can I make love to you?”

  Ben swallowed hard. He knew what Adrian meant. Suddenly calm came over him, like a touch that enveloped his whole being.

  “Yes.”

  He realized he’d been waiting for this. That he’d known Adrian needed closure, needed to lay Gavin to rest, before moving on in the kind of way Ben needed to give all of himself to his lover.

  It seemed almost like a romance novel thing in some way. The whole idea of if not virginity, then the first time with someone being something that was Ben’s to give away. Snorting at the thought, he stepped closer to Adrian.

  Adrian seemed to understand where his mind was going, because he grinned as he tugged the towel off Ben’s hips.

  “Were you just thinking about me popping your cherry?” he asked casually enough to make Ben blush.

  He groaned, and Adrian laughed at him with obvious delight. “You were!”

  “Jesus, Adrian, way to make this weirder than it has to be,” he murmured, but he felt the amusement, too.

  “You don’t have to, you know. It’s not the be all end all of any sex, even between two men. I can bottom too if you’d rather do it that way. Or not at all.”

  “I know, babe. I want to. I guess I just… it feels silly now….” He leaned down to kiss Adrian while scraping his fingernails against Adrian’s scalp in the way he knew the man loved.

  Adrian pulled away from the kiss. “No, nothing you can feel about this is silly. It’s all valid. I was just teasing you, honey.”

  “I know. I think I was waiting for something. To feel a certain way,” Ben admitted.

  “To feel like this was it for you and for me?” Adrian’s smile was a little sad.

  Ben lowered his gaze from Adrian’s and nodded slowly. He hadn’t thought of it like that. Not consciously. But now, it was clear as day.

  “I’m a motherfucking Victorian maiden, aren’t I?”

  Adrian threw his head back and laughed, until Ben thwacked him in the shoulder.

  “‘S not funny,” he murmured.

  The way Adrian’s eyes twinkled at him though, yeah. It was funny. Ben started to laugh then, and couldn’t stop until Adrian pulled him close and nuzzled his stomach. That took Ben from the amusement zone directly into arousal.

  “You know I love you, right?” Adrian asked, his words almost muffled by the way he leaned into Ben’s lower belly.

  “Yeah, I know. I love you, too.” He stepped back from Adrian’s gentle grasp and smiled. “Will you show me?”

  Adrian told him to settle in the middle of the bed on his stomach.

  “If it weirds you out, tell me and I’ll stop.”

  Ben collected the pillow he’d come to think of as his under his head and tried to relax into the bed.

  They had touched each other a lot. Cuddled and slept with their limbs tangled together. Sometimes Adrian had rubbed his feet when he was sore after a long day at work. One morning, he’d helped Adrian shave the stray hairs from his neck. Hell, they washed each other in the shower.

  This seemed different. Adrian kissed his way down Ben’s shoulders and back, touching him everywhere in an almost reverent way, or so it felt to Ben. The scrape of Adrian’s stubble against his skin made goosebumps blossom everywhere.

  After he’d gotten together with Adrian, Ben had researched gay sex. He’d watched quite a bit of porn, something he’d never really been that into before. He had a pretty good idea where this was heading, and he felt both excited and slightly… trembly. That was the only word he could give the feelings inside.

  When Adrian finally started to massage his ass cheeks in his calloused artist’s hands, Ben let out a shuddering breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in.<
br />
  “You okay, honey?” Adrian checked.

  “Yeah,” Ben breathed out the word.

  He could feel Adrian’s lips move into a smile against his ass, which was endearing.

  “Good.”

  Without further ado, Adrian used his grip to expose his hole, and just… looked at it?

  A split second before Ben could become self-conscious and move, Adrian licked him right there. He didn’t have time to react, when the lick became more probing, followed by more licks and holy fuck was that sucking?

  All thoughts escaped Ben when the nerve endings Adrian was setting alight started to sing. He felt twitchy and completely relaxed at the same time, it was like nothing he’d ever felt before.

  At some point he started to hump the mattress a little bit, not even realizing it, before Adrian lifted his mouth off him and chuckled.

  “Get on your hands and knees, honey,” he instructed, nipping at Ben’s ass before moving just enough to get to the lube in the bedside table.

  Ben wasn’t sure his body would hold him up, and said as much to Adrian.

  “Oh, just for the stretching. It’s easier this way. You can be on your back when I enter you.”

  Adrian said it so casually, Ben didn’t really think twice about what exactly he was saying. When his brain tried to catch up, Ben blocked the frisson of something fear-like from entering his consciousness.

  “You still okay?” Adrian asked, petting Ben’s side. “We can stop right now if you want to. It’s totally okay.”

  Ben swallowed hard, then shook his head and looked at Adrian over his shoulder. “No. You said you’d show me.”

  Smiling, Adrian moved closer to kiss him, then pulled back and opened bottle of lube.

  “I’ll do this slowly, okay, it’s—”

  “Please don’t,” Ben interrupted. “I’ll lose my nerve and—”

  “Ben. It’s not about being brave or enduring something,” Adrian said, appearing almost hurt.

  “No, I know that. I didn’t mean it like that.” Ben sighed and let his head drop onto the pillow.

  He breathed for a moment and found himself fighting back a weird choked up feeling he knew was frustration.

  “I want you. In every possible way. For the fucking rest of our lives, Adrian. We both know it might not be a long time, Gavin taught us both that, so please, would you make love to me?” he spoke the words in a tone that surprised even him with its obvious strain. He wasn’t an emotional man, by now Adrian knew it too, but something about this moment was making him so anyway.

  “Okay,” Adrian said and climbed up the bed to cover Ben with his body.

  The warmth all along his back made Ben relax. He sighed contently, wondering if the amount of intimacy still needed more plain pure touch.

  “I love you too, honey. I’m in love with you. And I want forever, too, however long that might be,” Adrian murmured against the side of Ben’s head.

  The lamp on the bedside table dimmed.

  They both froze.

  “You don’t have a dimmer, right?” Ben asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No, I don’t.” Now it was Adrian’s turn to sound choked up.

  They stayed still for minutes, waiting for Gavin to do something else. Nothing happened.

  Ben had to say it out loud. “I can’t feel him anymore.”

  “Me neither,” Adrian admitted.

  The ghost had dimmed the lights for them. As if to say “now go and make love, I’m out.” The thought made Ben chuckle. Once again, Adrian seemed to be on his wavelength, and soon they were both laughing, Adrian rolling off of Ben, just so they could both breathe.

  Eventually the laughter died down and they just lied there side by side.

  “I think you were partially right,” Adrian mused.

  “Oh?”

  “You said maybe Spike and Gavin were waiting for each other. I think that’s true. But I also think Gavin waited for us, in a way.” Adrian turned his head to look at Ben “He waited for us to get to this point. Of course, the dramatic little bitch wanted to make sure it was in the bedroom, but….” He grinned, happy instead of sad now.

  Ben loved this look on Adrian. He turned onto his side and leaned in to kiss Adrian. They’d both gone soft at some point in the whole kerfuffle, but Ben knew it wouldn’t take long to get them both going.

  He reached blindly behind himself to grab the lube and put it on Adrian’s chest.

  “Do you think you can finger me like this?” he asked, forcing himself to gaze into Adrian’s eyes to let him know he was serious and so very willing.

  Adrian swallowed hard and shifted a bit, then drew Ben’s thigh up on top of his own. “I think I can manage.”

  He did indeed manage to squirt some lube onto his fingers and reached behind Ben to get to his hole.

  Ben shivered when the cold lube touched that delicate, nerve-filled spot. He realized he was staring at Adrian’s chest, when Adrian looked at him.

  “Hey, eyes on mine, honey,” he told Ben, leaning in to kiss him at the same time he pushed a finger inside Ben.

  He kept distracting Ben with kisses, until he didn’t know what was going on below his belt, other than the fact that he was hard again.

  “How many fingers is that?” he asked, groaning when Adrian managed to twist his hand despite the angle.

  “Three. You’re about ready, I think.”

  Ben reached between them and grabbed Adrian’s cock which was hard and leaking. Jesus, just the thought of him being this turned on just from fingering Ben… yeah, his own cock flexed a little at that.

  Adrian moaned, his fingers thrusting deeper the moment Ben rubbed the spot below the head of his cock Ben knew drove him wild. They both grinned into the messy kiss that followed, then Adrian pulled his fingers out and pushed Ben to lie flat again.

  “I won’t try anything too acrobatic, I don’t think either of us have the build for that,” Adrian said, smirking as he moved between Ben’s thighs.

  Adrian got a condom from somewhere they’d lost it in the bedding and opened it, smoothing it on. Ben handed him the lube and watched as Adrian dribbled it onto his cock, directly from the bottle. It was such a porn star move, but Ben loved it anyway.

  Adrian spread the slick on his cock and grabbed a pillow to stuff under Ben’s hips.

  He didn’t ask if Ben was ready, of which Ben felt fucking grateful. Instead, he shuffled closer and told Ben to hold the back of his thighs if he could.

  Ben might’ve been less-than-limber but this he could do, at least for a while. He spread himself, flushing at the thought of what he looked right then, and nodded.

  The press of the head of his cock against Ben’s rim felt like excitement and anticipation at once. Adrian locked gazes with him and pushed in steadily. The first stretch didn’t feel that good, but the fullness, foreign as it was, didn’t let Ben’s erection wane.

  He breathed through it all until Adrian was fully inside and could lean over to kiss him.

  “Hey,” Adrian said into the space between their lips, looking at Ben from the close distance. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” Ben whispered, and moaned right after, as Adrian rocked his hips back, then carefully pushed in again.

  Ben clung to him, one hand on his shoulder, the other resting on the back of his neck, holding Adrian close. It seemed like he needed it, and Adrian indulged him, keeping his thrusting shallow and slow for the time being.

  It felt so fucking good.

  Adrian’s delighted laugher let Ben know he’d said that out loud.

  “Faster?”

  “Yeah, please.” Ben kissed him, and tried not to feel adrift when Adrian pulled away a bit to get more leverage.

  It was worth it, though. When Adrian smirked at him knowingly, shifted a little and thrust in harder, he hit Ben’s prostate dead on and Ben let out a sound he never had before.

  Adrian continued to fuck him in earnest then, alternating the angle enough to not hi
t his sweet spot with every thrust.

  “Grab your cock,” Adrian ground out, and Ben realized he’d closed his eyes and was holding onto the sheets when he had to let them go to touch himself.

  The sheen of sweat on Adrian’s forehead and in the reddish fur on his chest just amped up Ben’s desire. Adrian looked so fucking hot, felt so amazing, that it only took Ben a few tight jerks of his cock to suddenly be right there.

  “Oh, oh fuck,” he managed to grunt out, and then his whole body seized up as he came and came and came, until his own chest was sticky with sweat and cum.

  He felt almost too sensitive when Adrian continued to fuck him for a moment. Ben stared at him, struggling to find his own release.

  “You are so fucking hot, babe,” Ben said, and Adrian thrust in harder and stayed there, filling the condom as he all but collapsed against Ben’s chest.

  Ben huffed at the weight, but wrapped his arms around his sweaty lover.

  “That was awesome,” he murmured into Adrian’s ear and got a sated murmur as a response.

  Eventually, after much petting and Adrian gathering his wits, he pulled out and disposed of the condom. Then he came back to the bed and held a hand to Ben.

  “Shower with me?”

  They ended up making out in the shower, washing away the stickiness and holding onto the pleasant loose-limbed feeling.

  When Ben turned off the light, he turned it back on again, just to see it be as bright as usual. He almost felt bad turning it off for the night. He missed Gavin now, but understood the significance of having closure and moving on into wherever they’d all go after death.

  Adrian held the blanket up for him to crawl in. They cuddled for a while, just enjoying the quiet and sleepiness that was crawling slowly over them.

  “Do you think you could move in with me?” Adrian’s tone was hesitant as he hid his face in the near darkness of the room.

  Ben gave it a bit of thought, never letting go of Adrian so he wouldn’t give him the wrong impression.

  “Yeah, if I can find a job closer. Hell, I could even start a landscaping business here if I could get my boss to partner with me.”