by Alexis Hall
He knew the difference between cruelty and consequences. So while he was pretty sure he had no intention of raising his hand to his own kids, he tended to imagine they’d somehow be like Greg. Sweetly middle-class and respectful and easy-to-manage. Not a set of too-tall, testosterone-fuelled, riot-running hooligans who needed all the discipline they could get. Neither he nor his brother had ever meant any harm, but they’d often inadvertently caused it, and Alfie wasn’t resentful of being called to account. Not about this anyway.
He hadn’t even been resentful at the time. He hadn’t liked being on the wrong side of his dad’s belt, any more than he’d liked being grounded or shouted at, but there was something very direct and immediate about it. It was a clear line. And, on the other side, everything was okay again, so Alfie didn’t have to feel bad or guilty or ashamed of himself. All that mattered was that he’d done wrong and taken his punishment as a man should.
“So we doing this?” he asked, when Fen showed no sign of speaking. “Or going to dinner?”
Fen stared at him for a long moment, and Alfie had absolutely no idea what he was thinking. Then he nodded. “Okay . . . yes.” He sounded a bit dazed. “We’re doing this.”
He stepped past Alfie to the door and flicked the latch down. It landed in its cradle with a clatter. Then he turned the key in the lock and flipped the sign over.
“Can you just do that? Say you’re closed?”
Another of Fen’s tight little shrugs. “My shop. My rules.”
“Ehm, what about your mam?”
“She’s not here. Come on, it’s this way.”
So Alfie followed him into the back room, then along a narrow corridor, and up a twisty staircase with a faded runner. He got a vague impression this area was lived-in, but he didn’t really have time for sightseeing before Fen yanked open a door and he abruptly found himself standing in a bathroom. Cracked tile floor. Mildew streaking the walls. Alfie, who barely spent any time in his flat and still paid someone he’d never met to keep it pristine, winced. He had half convinced himself that Fen was just fucking with him—that nobody really lived here—when he caught sight of the clean, slightly damp towel hanging from the rack. And there was a toothbrush and a razor by the sink. Shampoo (and conditioner too, which Alfie had long believed to be a scam for women) bottles balanced on the edge of the scabby bathtub.
“Do you actually live here?” he asked.
“Problem?”
“Well, it’s, uh, kind of a dump.”
Fen did his irritated fast-blink. “I’m a florist, not Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“What?”
“Why are you still here? In South Shields?”
“None of your business.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.” Alfie rolled his eyes. “You have to stick my head down the toilet before I’m allowed to talk to you.”
He hadn’t exactly been stalling—or maybe he had—but since no reprieve seemed imminent, he took hold of the hem of his T-shirt and peeled it off his body.
There was an odd sort of squeaking sound. “What are you doing?”
Alfie emerged to discover that Fen was staring at him, shameless and ravenous, and in a different context, it would have been hot as hell. As it was, it just made him grumpy. “Mate, it’s not pay-per-view. I just don’t want to get bog water all over my clothes. This is Calvin Klein.”
Fen turned very, very red and covered his eyes.
Somehow, that was even worse. Alfie hadn’t meant to embarrass him. He reached for his wrists. And Fen let him have them, let him draw his hands down, and hold them there, between their bodies like a bridge. Beneath Alfie’s thumbs, Fen’s pulse thudded as hard as hoofbeats. Oh God, the memories, bodies moving together, heat and skin and salt, and he knew Fen was thinking the same thing. He could see it in his dazed eyes. So light and bright, like the first apples of spring.
If he didn’t do something, he was going to do something else, something very bad. Like ignore the rest of this nonsense, and push Fen up against one of those grotty walls and take him. Until there was nothing left between them but this. This sweet, senseless wanting that wouldn’t go away.
He dropped Fen’s hands abruptly, and Fen actually bit his lip, another strange, uncertain sound, not quite moan, not quite whimper, echoing through the bathroom.
Somehow Alfie managed not to kiss him. He wanted to taste that noise.
He turned away and dropped to his knees on the bathroom floor. It was painfully hard. Cold, too. He shifted his weight, trying to get something close to comfortable. Apparently that was impossible.
“I’m doing this,” he announced, since Fen was still standing somewhere behind him and was giving no indication of moving. Alfie only knew he was alive because he could hear him breathing.
He adopted what he assumed might be a helpful position. Screwed his eyes tightly closed. It was, all things considered, fairly clean down there. Well, for a toilet. But he didn’t think close scrutiny would benefit anyone right now. Also, there was no denying it. When you got this intimate with a bog, even a fairly clean one, you couldn’t escape the purpose for which this particular piece of furniture had been designed. It smelled.
He turned his head, trying not to gag. “I’m ready. All yours.”
Then. Nothing.
“In your own time, mate.”
Fen’s hand touched him so lightly on his naked shoulder that it made him jump. He tried to settle down again, but that just ground his knees deeper against the tiles. And he was trying to find a way to get air into his lungs without inhaling through his nose or opening his mouth but, unsurprisingly, not having much success.
Callused fingers traced the top edge of his tattoo. Awareness swooshed over his skin, making it prickle and dance. He swallowed something that might have come out of his mouth as a groan. “Can you maybe do that later?”
A palm closed over the back of his neck. God, that was warm, so ridiculously warm. Where it touched him, the way it touched him, made him actually squirm, it felt so sweet. Made him so fucking vulnerable. He wanted to arch, gasping, into Fen’s hand. Lean into the suggested closeness of his body. Tip his head back for a kiss.
And, instead, Fen was about to shove his head down the toilet.
“Look,” he said, and he could hear the desperation in his own voice, “I know you want to do this . . . and . . . I’m going to let you, but can you do it, please? Can you do it now like?”
Great. He’d just literally asked for it.
Fen’s hand tightened.
Okay. Fuck. This was happening.
Alfie tried to brace himself. Externally. Internally. Whatever would help.
Come on, come on. Take it like a man.
Which was how exactly? Had Fen? He tried to remember. A thin body struggling against his. Sobbing gasps and splutters. Wet, defiant eyes. The furious white line of that hard-soft mouth.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He was a fucking terrible person.
He actually deserved this.
“Do it. Fucking do it.”
Fen’s fingers curled into his neck, hard enough that he could imagine pale crescents pressed into his skin from the nails. But then Fen’s whole hand slipped away, and Alfie was sufficiently messed up by the whole business to miss his touch. He shivered helplessly with something that felt a bit like cold, but wasn’t.
“I . . . I can’t,” Fen whispered.
“Course you can, it’s easy. I’m not going to fight.”
A pause. No hand. Nothing.
“Fuck.” Fen’s voice sounded so thin, so close to broken. “Why the fuck can’t I do this?”
“Uh.” Alfie cautiously raised his head. “Because you’re a better person than me? And you always have been?”
“I don’t want to be a better person. I want to make you feel bad.”
“I already feel pretty bad. If that helps.”
“It doesn’t help. That’s the problem. Nothing is going
to help.”
There was a long silence. Alfie wasn’t sure whether to stand up or stay where he was, but once it became clear nothing was going to happen, he sat back on his heels. He was pretty relieved to be able to turn away from the toilet, but then he saw Fen was perched on the edge of the bath, head in his hands, looking utterly defeated.
“You alreet?”
“No. No, of course I’m not all right.”
“Y’know, if you don’t want to put my head down the shitter, you don’t have to. I’m okay with that.”
Fen looked up briefly. Offered a wan sort of smile. “Generous of you.”
Tentatively, Alfie grinned back. He wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, but frankly anything was better than hovering over the toilet. “Howay there. You seem more upset about it than I do.”
“Were you really going to let me?”
“Aye.” Alfie shrugged. “Seemed like the least I could do.”
“You feel that guilty?”
“Well, yeah, but I’m not here because I feel guilty. I’m here because I like you.”
Little lines of sunset pink streaked over the arch of Fen’s slightly too prominent cheekbones. “You don’t know me, Alfie Bell.”
“I know you like rosé and that you’re pretty when you’re smiling. I know how you like your cock sucked. And that you’re from the same place I am.”
“That doesn’t make you a friend.”
“No, but it makes me more than a stranger.”
Fen covered his face with his hands again.
“Come on, don’t do that.” Alfie knew he was pleading, and he didn’t care. “So, we can’t change the past or balance the scales or whatever. I’m still on my knees on your bathroom floor because I want the chance to know you.”
“I thought I’d left all this behind,” Fen mumbled. “I thought I was done. You wouldn’t believe it to see me now, but I had a life, you know?” He glanced up, just for a moment, eyes nearly grey in the gloom. “I was happy and fun and special to someone. And yet here I am in South Shields. Hung up on the same fucking guy. The same loser I always was.”
The idea that Fen might be hung up on him, even a little bit, would have been a lot nicer if it hadn’t been part of a list of things Fen obviously considered horrible failures. Alfie wasn’t quite sure what to say or what would be comforting, but he wasn’t just going to sit there blankly while Fen seemed so desperately in need of comfort. “That . . . that’s not how I see it. I mean, if there’s a loser here, it’s me. I’m a bully and a coward, remember? You’re not.”
But Fen wouldn’t look at him, and the silence went on and on, and it was horrible. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he shuffled over to the bath. Except that brought him right up against Fen’s legs, and the last time they’d been this close, with Alfie looking up at him from the floor, he’d been about to suck Fen’s cock. Which was suddenly all he could think about. The power and the vulnerability and the taste of Fen’s skin.
Fen’s hand dropped to his lap, his eyes opening slowly, like he was just waking up. The silence was different now. Heavy and sweet as syrup.
“Oh, mate . . .” A world of regret in Alfie’s voice. And a world of hope.
He reached out, the tips of his fingers brushing Fen’s. It sent a little spark through him, pleasure and relief and homecoming, and Fen gave a sharp gasp. Then reared back wildly.
Not such a good idea when you were balanced on the edge of a bathtub.
Alfie tried to grab him, but it was too late. Fen was already toppling backwards into the bath, legs waving, one of his flailing hands wrapped in the shower curtain.
“Fen, be careful—”
Too late again. The entire rail came down on top of him, along with the curtain, and quite a bit of plaster.
Alfie stared at the daisy-patterned mound quivering in the bath. “Are . . . are you okay?”
No answer.
So he reached in and very delicately twitched the curtain aside. Fen was grey with dust, pink beneath, his hair sticking in all directions, and his glasses askew. He looked entirely ridiculous and entirely adorable, and Alfie was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to kiss him. He was pretty sure Fen would have appreciated neither.
“You’re not hurt, right?”
Fen had a hand pressed tightly over his mouth, hiccoughy, high-pitched sounds leaking between his fingers. It took Alfie a moment to realise he was laughing. Well, giggling, really. “I . . . I fell in the bath.”
“Yeah. You fell in the bath.”
“I’m the most ridiculous person.”
It was impossible not to smile. Alfie felt sort of goofy about it, like squinting, half-dazzled, into the sun. “The most ridiculous? Out of everyone, in the whole world?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I dunno. Seems to me you’ve got some pretty exaggerated ideas about your own ridiculousness.”
Fen blinked up at him, lashes glittering. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. There’s videos of kittens on YouTube tripping over their kitten feet and stuff. They’d be pretty strong competition.”
“Alfie Bell. Are you seriously telling me you watch videos of kittens on YouTube?”
“Uh, no.” He cleared his throat. Climbed to his feet and held out a hand. “Come on, up with you.”
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
“No, I’m trying to help you out of the bath you fell into.”
“The bath I fell into because I didn’t want you to touch me.”
Alfie froze. “Look, you’ve got no reason to believe me, but I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“It’s not that.” Fen’s fingers curled around Alfie’s wrist, his grip as rough and strong as Alfie remembered. He was so light and supple, though, that it took only the smallest of tugs to de-bath him and bring him flying into Alfie’s arms like a dancer.
They were pretty much hip to hip now, crushed together in that tiny, grimy bathroom. And Alfie should probably have been letting go and stepping back, but Fen was not only still holding on, he was pressing closer, tucking himself into Alfie like he belonged there. He sighed, the waves of his breath lapping warmly against Alfie’s neck. “You see the problem?”
Alfie really didn’t. “Problem?”
“When you’re touching me, I have trouble remembering why I don’t like you.”
“That doesn’t really give me much motivation to stop.”
No answer from Fen. Just the rub and press of his callused palms.
“Are you telling me to?”
Fen swallowed. Lifted his gaze to Alfie’s. “No.”
He’d meant to be classy about it—he could totally be classy—but the moment he got his mouth on Fen’s, felt it open to him, warm and slick and eager, all he could think was more. Fen tasted so right, and smelled so . . . so nice. Man and flowers, which should probably have been weird, but it just made Alfie want to strip him naked, hold him down, and lick the sweat and all that sweetness from his skin. But maybe Fen wanted ravening beast monster Alfie, because he came at him just as wild, moaning and clinging and sort of fighty, but fighty in a good way, until everything got full-on, face-sucking, cock-groping porno.
It was strobe-light sensation: electric bright flashes of hands and lips and bodies. Alfie’s belt was half-undone—clumsy fingers against his stomach—Fen’s teeth were at his neck, rough breath in his ears. And his hands were full of Fen, full of that perfect, provocative arse, which fit his palms like it had been designed for Alfie to grab and paw at. Though for all his wiry strength, he was slight compared to Alfie, which meant one particularly urgent kiss-squeeze-fumble nearly sent them both toppling back into the bath.
Alfie had just enough of his brain left to try and steady them. Unfortunately, the bathroom was too small for miracles, and the best he could manage was slamming Fen into the wall. Sexy, in a way, especially when Fen flung both his legs around him. Less so when a network of little cracks exploded across the wall and a fresh shower of plaster tumb
led down on top of them.
It was just enough to give Alfie pause.
“Shit.” He realised just how heavily he was leaning into Fen and eased up. “I’m really sorry.”
Fen wheezed, but he didn’t seem upset. The opposite, actually. He was pink and fluffy, his hair a fuzzy halo, and his glasses crooked. The closest to happy Alfie’d ever seen him. Even when they’d been together at the hotel, there’d been other things going on—a legacy of anger and hurt. This was a glimpse of Fen as he truly was, or should have been, breathless and laughing and free. He squinted upwards. “I think we did more damage to the bathroom. But we should probably . . . um . . . stop. In case you blow my house over like the Big Bad Wolf.”
“There’s a joke in there somewhere.” Truthfully, he’d have been willing to risk it. Partly out of general Fen-based lustfulness, but also because if they stopped touching Fen might remember he didn’t like Alfie all that much and get sad and bitter and sharp again. Except while he’d have been willing to try, keeping Fen out of his mind on sex probably wasn’t sustainable in the long term. And definitely not after he’d just been given a cease and desist. He stepped back, just enough for Fen to get his feet back on the ground. Probably breathe a bit.
“Only if you want to be obvious, Alfie Bell.”
It was only a little bit of a rebuke. Mainly, it made him smile. Then he found himself going up on tiptoes, leaning over Fen to examine the place where the shower rail had ripped out of the wall.
“It’s fine,” he declared with great authority for someone who knew absolutely nothing about DIY. “Bit of filler, drill a new hole, job done.” It sounded very like the sort of thing his dad would say.