by Laney Cairo
"Meltdown,” Lukowski said. “I've only spoken to her mother, who was in your apartment, so I don't know the details. I don't think it had ever occurred to Madison that you might leave."
"I couldn't do it any longer,” Shane said, and he sounded bereft.
Lukowski nodded. “Madison's not my client, you are. Now, do you have everything you need?"
Shane glanced at Dale briefly, and for a moment he smiled. “Yeah. Doctor and lawyer are both taken care of. I've got a letter from the doc for the team. Is that something you can deal with?"
"I can take it to Gordon,” Lukowski said. Shane picked up the envelope from the cluttered nightstand and handed it to him, and Dale could feel the effort it was moving his arm.
Lukowski must have too, because he said, “Shit,” under his breath. “Do you need me to bring you anything? A replacement phone?"
"Don't think I'll need a mobile phone for a while,” Shane said, and his knuckles were red and sore-looking when he patted Lukowski's arm. “For now, I just need to sleep."
On the front porch, with Perry yowling in the back yard, Lukowski said, “I must admit I hadn't expected to see you again, Dale, and certainly not like this."
"Me either,” Dale said. “Thank you for bringing Shane's belongings over."
"Call me if there're any problems. I'll do what I can."
Shane was still sitting up in bed, chin resting on his knees, when Dale went back.
"I'm starving,” he said. “Can we eat that lasagna now?"
* * * *
Shane was on the bed, naked with only a sheet over his hips, kissing Dale. His skin was sunset-flushed in the lamplight, slick with oil, mouth open and eyes closed, and Dale trailed his fingertips down the underside of Shane's arm, where the skin was parchment fragile.
Dale hadn't intended to do this, hadn't meant to, but kissing had led to touching, and there was never enough touching happening. This was an old way they had of being together, something they'd done before; oil and slick fingers, lightest pressure, nips of teeth and brush of thighs. It was a way to lengthen things, delay and subvert and side track, and the damp patch on the sheet over Shane tormented Dale.
But Shane, with his eyes closed, wouldn't know that Dale's eyes were fixed there, all he'd be able to feel was the trail Dale's fingertips were making across his chest now, dragging around each nipple, circling, then sliding into the notch at the base of Shane's neck.
The damp patch was spreading as Shane leaked, and it occurred to Dale that maybe no one had touched—really touched—Shane in the time they'd been apart.
Dale peeled the sheet back slowly, breathing the thick smell of Shane's cock and its precious fluid, and kneeling like he was, he could use both hands. His left hand slipped between Shane's spread thighs, cupping Shane's balls, then pressing fingertips behind. His right hand stroked the groove on Shane's sternum, then his oiled fingers slid slowly upward, across Shane's windpipe.
Shane was trembling, hopefully on the edge of coming, and if Shane had been well, they'd have done this differently. But he wasn't well, and Dale was too heartsore to do an entire scene. Beneath Dale's fingers, when he pressed against the cartilage, he could feel Shane moaning helplessly.
Bead after bead gathered at the tip of Shane's cock, glistening then spreading across his belly as he moved with the tension building in his body. Dale lifted the weight off his right hand, so his fingers just curled around Shane's throat, and leaned forward and licked the most recent drop off.
"Oh, God,” Shane said, and Dale slid the length of Shane's cock down his throat and sucked.
When Shane had finished coming, Dale gathered him up in trembling arms and held him close.
Shane was relaxed, but it wasn't the limp relaxation of drugs. This was better, where he kissed Dale back, touched Dale slowly, and his eyes were clear, not glazed.
"Fuck me?” Shane asked, and Dale wanted to so desperately, ached unbearably to be back inside Shane.
Before, he would just have slicked his cock with the bottle of oil beside the bed and slid in, but too much had happened for that, and Dale shook his head.
"Maybe tomorrow,” he said, and he curled his fingers around his cock and pumped himself hard. It wasn't the same, wasn't as good, but he was so fucking turned on that it wasn't going to matter.
This way he got to watch the lines of his come splashing across Shane's belly, spreading and becoming translucent, and he rubbed the pad of his thumb through the fluid, spreading it evenly across Shane's skin.
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Chapter Eleven
When the wreck of your life has been hoisted onto the back of a tow truck and driven away, it becomes easier to work out what matters after all.
It wasn't too bad. It wasn't real withdrawal, just getting his dosage back under control.
At least, that's what Shane kept telling himself.
Dale was asleep, snoring and snuffling, and Shane rubbed his face against Dale's shoulder for a moment, just for the contact.
Sleep was an impossibility, there was no point in even closing his eyes. The light from the hall was enough for him to be able to make out the shadows of the paintings that were on the wall.
Perry was on the floor beside the bed; Shane could hear her chewing away at something. He felt kinda bad that he'd actually forgotten about Perry when he'd staggered to the secret apartment, determined to never go back.
He'd forgotten about Dale, too, and it had certainly not occurred to him that Dale would be there.
Dale muttered in his sleep, and Shane pushed one palm against Dale's side, just to touch him. His hand felt strange, like it belonged to someone else. His whole body was consumed by pain and the belly-twisting need for something unknown that Shane recognised as cravings from when he'd quit smoking. Dried come flaked off his hip, and he really didn't want to look at how good it had been to have Dale touch him again.
Inside his head was rough and painful, feelings kept welling up then melting away—panic and fear and failure—and the clock beside the bed was mocking him. One in the morning, that was when he could have the next pill, and it wasn't midnight yet.
He slid awkwardly out of bed, stumbling a little over Perry and the clutter on the floor, and made his way slowly to the bathroom. He pissed; the bathroom light hurt his eyes, and in the mirror he looked like shit. The bruising on his face was dark and blotchy, though when he peeled the little strips of sticky off the cut, it had closed up. His eyes were swollen, all puffy and red, and it was a damned good thing he wasn't supposed to be playing, because no amount of shaving and hair combing would hide how ill he looked.
Things were jumping around inside his head, making his skin crawl, and he was too restless to go back to bed. Shane pulled Dale's robe off the hook behind the bathroom door and dragged it on.
His knees were still weird, kind of absent, so he held onto the wall in the hall, and Perry bumbled along in front of him.
It was cold in the kitchen, and the light flickered a little. He needed a cup of tea and some distraction, but his hand shook too much get the lid off the tin of tea bags, and it was all impossible...
Dale's arm around his shoulders was solid and comforting, and Shane buried his face against Dale's neck and stopped trying not to cry.
"Hey,” Dale said, and his arms wrapped around Shane securely. “Why didn't you wake me up?"
"It's a fucking cuppa,” Shane said. “How fucking hard can it be?"
"Sit down,” Dale said, guiding Shane across to the kitchen table and onto a chair. “Give me a moment to put some clothes on, and then we can talk about this."
He was back in a minute, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, hair sticking up and bedroom lint in his stubble, and he was the weirdest guardian angel Shane had ever imagined.
Dale made tea for them both and sat down beside Shane. “Talk to me?” he asked.
"Oh fuck,” Shane said, wrapping his hands around the mug to hide the way they were shaking, but not trusting
his grip enough to try and lift the mug. “I'm just hurtin'."
Dale nodded and covered Shane's hands with his own, and the double heat warmed Shane's fingers right through. “You don't have to face this alone,” Dale said.
"How the fuck did I not see this happening?” Shane asked, and Dale's eyes were still and calm when Shane lifted his gaze.
"Our ability to delude ourselves is not the least of a human's defining traits,” Dale said. “You didn't see it because you didn't want to."
"It was all right at first,” Shane said, and the words tumbled out of him. “I must have known you were miserable, but it seemed that if I could just keep playing, keep talking, keep smiling, it would all sort itself out. I didn't have to worry about what I said or did, it was like no one would ever know."
Dale nodded, just once, and said, “So what went wrong?"
"I don't know how to explain,” Shane said. “It was like each single thing was bearable: remembering to wear straight clothes, going places, sleeping with her, everyone thinking we're marrying. She always used, but everyone uses, and that sounds so fucking pathetic."
"At least she wasn't a lawyer,” Dale said. He didn't seem upset at what Shane was saying, and that was good because Shane didn't think he could face Dale being all virtuous at him.
"It just went on and on,” Shane said. “My knees hurt all the time, then my shoulder didn't even start to heal...” He stopped and swallowed. “How fucking pathetic? I thought things got better, but I just got drug-fucked."
"It's not pathetic,” Dale said gently. “You're not pathetic. You were strong enough to know to run."
"I wasn't strong,” Shane said, and he could feel tears trailing wet down his face, but it seemed like he was finally past crying. “I think I was going to overdose. I wasn't leaving just her."
"Would you have called me?” Dale asked, and his voice was kind.
"Would you have come?” Shane asked. “If I had?"
"Every time,” Dale said. “So wake me up next time, alright? We can wait this out together; the middle of the night and I are old friends."
"Maybe you're right,” Shane said, and he disentangled his hands from Dale's and leaned across and hugged the man.
Shane and Perry curled up on the couch in the living room, and Dale wrapped a blanket around both of them. Music played on the stereo while Dale dragged a disassembled bundle of shelving into the living room and began to slot the supports together.
The minute hand on the clock in the kitchen crept around, and Shane chewed at the side of his thumb while Dale slid shelves into brackets.
When the shelves were assembled, Dale moved to clearing the coffee table, shifting the books and papers on the coffee table to the shelving and carrying the coffee mugs to the kitchen, as the clock hand eased toward the hour. When Shane dragged his eyes away from the clock, Dale sat on the newly cleared coffee table and took his hand.
"Want some more tea?” he asked. “To take your pill with?"
He wanted to scream, ‘No! Gimme the fucking pill!’ but this was Dale, who had done nothing to deserve it, at least, on this occasion, so Shane nodded. Saying, ‘Please,’ however, would have meant getting his jaw to relax, and that seemed too much.
None of Shane's medication was locked away, something that had seemed like a profound expression of trust on Dale's part at first, but had become more like torture.
It took two sweeps of the second hand on the clock for the kettle to boil, and another for Dale to jiggle the tea bag and put milk in the mug.
If Dale had smiled or said anything remotely like a platitude as he gave Shane the mug and the white pill, Shane might have finally screamed, but Dale's face was serious when he put them down. Dale turned away, went back to the kitchen, and Shane didn't have to try and hide his relief at swallowing the pill.
It wasn't instantaneous, of course, something Shane had forgotten, he'd been so focussed on getting through to one o'clock, and he had to put the mug down again because his hands were shaking too much to hold it without slopping yet more tea over himself.
Dale put his own mug down on a bookshelf, changed the CD, and went back to shoving books onto shelves.
It took a while, but Shane felt the first trace of the opiate hit his bloodstream, he was certain of it. A minute later the burning in his gut began to ease; another minute and his skin stopped crawling.
Then the pain in his body began to fade, starting with his headache and spreading to his knees, shoulder and feet. If he'd taken more, if he'd taken enough, he'd just go to sleep, but even when he pushed Perry along the couch and laid down beside the dog, his eyes still stayed open.
Dale's fingers were gentle, pulling the blanket around Shane's shoulders, and when he knelt down in front of the couch, Shane was acutely aware of the scent of Dale's body.
"Want to go back to bed?” Dale asked, and Shane nodded.
The bedside light was on, making the inside of Shane's eyelids glow, and Dale kissed his forehead and held him close. “I'm so sorry,” Dale murmured. “For pulling away from you."
"I made bad decisions,” Shane said. “You tried to tell me, but I didn't listen. And I wasted so much time because of it."
"Time is never wasted,” Dale said. “Almost everything can be changed. You can undo the things you did."
"Madison...” Shane said. “What about her?"
"She has to be responsible for her own actions, same as everyone else,” Dale said.
Shane lifted his hand, touched his throat where the chain circled it. There wouldn't be any marks, Dale had barely touched him, but the memory of the pressure of his fingers was strong. “Did it ever worry you?” he asked. “What we did?"
"Did it worry you?” Dale asked. “Was that why you left?"
"It scared me,” Shane admitted. “It still does."
Dale was silent, but Shane could feel him breathing, feel his hand stroking down Shane's back. Shane kept his eyes firmly closed. He'd come, come so hard, just from the tiniest touch, there was no way past that.
"Oh, God,” Shane whispered. “Is there something wrong with both of us?"
"Perhaps,” Dale said. “But if we both want it..."
"I want to know if you do it with other people,” Shane said, surprising himself with the question.
"Since you left?” Dale asked, and he sounded just as surprised.
"Yes,” Shane said.
"No,” Dale said. “I've fucked a few people, but that's all."
"Who?"
The hand was gone from his back, there was a draft of cold air as Dale got out of bed, and Shane listened to Dale pull a robe on.
Perry murmured at the foot of the bed, and then the door to Dale's study opened and closed.
It took effort to crawl out of bed, but when Shane tried the handle on the study, it wasn't locked, and Dale was sitting cross-legged on the couch beside the open windows, in the darkness.
"It's not reasonable for you to ask me who I've slept with in the past year,” Dale said. “You left."
Shane sat down tiredly on the end of the couch, and Perry appeared in the doorway, sniffing curiously and proceeded to rummage through the mess, making rustling noises.
"I was never unfaithful to you,” Dale continued. “There was none of this shit about needing to sleep with a woman, too. And I could never do what we did with a stranger, or even someone I didn't trust utterly."
The curtains, pulled wide apart, billowed as cool ocean air poured into the room through the open windows.
"I'm sorry,” Shane said. “I'm not functioning very well at the moment."
"You're not,” Dale agreed. “Do you remember?” he asked, waving a hand, pale movement in the darkness.
Shane looked at the open window, through at the night, and it was as if he'd forgotten a word momentarily, because he recognised the feeling but couldn't find the name for it.
"What? Where?” he asked, because his heart was pounding harder and his eyes were wet, and this meant something but h
e didn't have a clue what.
"Do you remember the first time?” Dale asked. “We were at your place, in Scarborough, near the beach. It was a cold night, but you wouldn't let me close the curtains..."
A curtain blew through the darkness, against Shane's face, and he remembered. They hadn't fucked that night, just touched and kissed and it had been warm under the thick feather duvet, warm and safe.
Moisture leaked out of Shane's eyes and dripped off his nose and chin, and it felt like Dale had just peeled all the layers, all the years, off him.
"I want to go back,” he said.
"To Scarborough?” Dale said, and fingers curled over Shane's bare shoulder, making Shane realise how chilled his own skin was.
Shane shook his head and sniffed. “No, back to feeling like that."
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Chapter Twelve
When the insurance company writes your car off, the best thing to do with the payout is not to buy an identical car. Sometimes, the money is enough to do something you've always wanted to do.
Shane was curled up under the bedding, his face in shadow with the bedside light over his shoulder, and Dale pushed aside the drapes at the bedroom window, the hooks screeching on the disused runners. There were blinds underneath the drapes, the kind that stopped all sunlight, and Dale gave up trying to get them to glide and settled for wrenching them off their brackets.
The insect screens popped out of their slots reasonably easy, and he leaned them against the dresser. They were going to provide hours of amusement for Perry, who licked the base of one experimentally.
The keys for the windows were in the locks, which meant that he wasn't going to have to go hunting for them, but the locks were so stiff he did wind up having to go find some oil to coax them undone.
The windows propped open and a cool wind blew in off the coast, carrying the promise of rain.
Shane was shivering when Dale crawled under the covers beside him. Dale drew the bedding up higher and pulled Shane's head over onto his shoulder after leaning across Shane and turning off the bedside light.
Perry was on the bed, too, a big patch of heat, and when Dale nudged his toes against her, searching for warmth, Shane's feet were there already.