Memento Amare

by G. D. Cox

  "Yeah ... I'd like that," Clyde murmurs, opening his eyes to half-mast. "A new message from ya would be really nice, Phelan." Clyde's eyes flare with a sudden notion. "Hey, what if I wrote you a new email too?"

  Cole continues to caress Clyde's hair as something in his chest leaps. Yes ... yes, a new email from Clyde would be very nice too. Another distressing memory gone, soon to be replaced by a better one.

  "Yes, I'd like that too," Cole murmurs in return, and he sees Clyde's shoulders relax even more, hears Clyde let out a slow, stable breath.

  He watches Clyde delete the voice message he'd recorded and sent to Clyde a lifetime ago. He feels nothing except relief to see it erased from existence. Another distressing memory gone, just like that.

  Cole plucks up their comm pads and places them on the coffee table. They gaze at each other across the couch with eyes still crinkled and warm. Gradually, inevitably, their lips arch up in small, contented smiles. When he encloses his hand around Clyde's nape and pulls Clyde towards him, Clyde eagerly crawls into his arms. He reclines on his back with Clyde on top of him. He feels Clyde press that attractive, cherished face into the side of his neck. He threads his fingers through the short hairs on the back of Clyde's head.

  "I'm not letting you go, Clyde," he says, here in this sanctuary they've made for themselves, in this sanctuary they've found in each other. "I'm here. I'm still here."

  "Yeah, you are," Clyde rasps against his skin, his steadfast pulse. "We are."

  XLIII.

  THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN Clyde and Nate in Cole's ICU private room is not as excruciating as the one in Denver. There's still something to be said about the tension being solid enough to slice through it with an actual knife.

  "Director Fabry, sir," Clyde addresses Nate formally, and it's so incongruous when Clyde isn't in his Long-Shot outfit but a plain black t-shirt, black sweatpants and those white bedroom slippers that Supply & Services hands out to agents living here in HQ's assigned lodgings.

  Cole's awake with all his senses in working order and sitting upright with the blankets up to his midriff. It means he is very much present as a spectator while Nate stands on his left side of the bed and glowers at Clyde across the bed.

  "Sir," Clyde says again, his spine so straight that it hurts Cole to look at it (and that is really something considering he's still pumped up to the eyeballs with painkillers). "I know I submitted my resignation form and that it's probably been processed by now. I'd like to request for immediate re-employment. I don't care if it means getting knocked down to probie status again. I don't care if it means having to work my way up from Level 1 again." When Nate says nothing and simply glowers on at Clyde, Clyde says, "Please, sir."

  It's the first time since Cole has known Clyde in any capacity that Cole has heard Clyde speak to Nate with such a defenseless, beseeching tone.

  Nate is a deadly force of nature even when silent and stationary. His glare alone has made rookies visibly tremble (and Cole's seen that in person). Clyde, being the seasoned GATF specialist agent that he is with a decade of successful missions under his belt, fares better under its point-blank brunt. Just a little.

  "There's no point in asking," Nate growls after what feels like eons of taut silence.

  There's no malice in Nate's voice but Nate might as well have punched Clyde in the face with a boxing glove loaded with rocks. Clyde's face twists into an expression that's a combination of stupefaction and dismay. Cole hears Clyde's throat click audibly as it works in a long, hard swallow. He glances at Nate to see Nate already striding away towards the door.

  Nate halts at the door.

  Cole is holding his breath as much as Clyde is when Nate turns around with calculated slowness and stares at Clyde.

  "There's no point in asking," Nate says again, his expression stone-cold and soulless. "You never left the GATF, Agent Barnett-Cole. If such a form did appear on my desk, it's where it really belongs: in the fucking incinerator."

  Cole knows better than to smile now, so he doesn't. He gazes at Nate with warm, beholden eyes, knowing his old friend - one of the very best and oldest friends he'll ever have - has already forgiven his husband.

  "Thank you, sir," Clyde rasps, and it's as sincere as Cole has ever heard him.

  Clyde and Nate stare at each other for a long minute. There's a wealth of unspoken words being traded in that stare, of threats and promises.

  You hurt him like that again, Nate's unblinking, glowering eyes say, and I won't think twice about shooting you myself.

  I do that again, Clyde's unblinking, guileless eyes say, and I'll make sure I'm dead.

  "Phelan," Nate says, still staring at Clyde.

  "Nate," Cole says, permitting his lips to quirk in fond amusement.

  Nate doesn't glance at him. Nate departs from the room with a swish of that long, black leather coat, off to make more GATF agents under his command tremble and cry.

  Once Nate is out of sight and hearing, Clyde's shoulders slump dramatically. Clyde exhales long and loudly and Cole's lips quirk up even more. Clyde sits back down heavily on the armchair beside his bed and laces their fingers together when he reaches for Clyde's left hand. He rubs the curved, polished surface of Clyde's wedding ring with his thumb.

  "Yeah. Okay." Clyde shudders visibly, as if a chilly gale just swirled past him. "He still scares the living shit outta me."

  Cole snorts at that. Clyde shoots a mock glower at him.

  "Seriously, babe, I dunno what it says about you that one of your best and oldest friends is the scariest muthafucker on this planet."

  "You know," Cole replies, deadpan, "I was recently told by reliable sources that my husband is now considered the third scariest muthafucker on the planet."

  It shouldn't be as funny as it is to him that Clyde's eyes light up like Christmas bulbs at thousands of lumens.

  "What? Really?" Clyde's brow furrows for a moment as he thinks about it. Clyde then makes a face of pride, puffing up like a big, fluffy cat. "Hmm, I think I can live with that kinda rep."

  Of course Cole has to chuckle at that (and it's been so long, too long since he'd laughed with Clyde at his side, with dry eyes and a swelled chest).

  When he tugs on Clyde's hand, Clyde climbs into the bed and under the blankets with him. He's feeling better now that Clyde can snuggle closer to him and rest that golden head upon his right shoulder and a burly arm across his waist. He pets the crown of Clyde's head with his left hand and watches Clyde's eyes flutter shut. He feels Clyde go limp in another deep and necessary slumber (and thank fuck sedatives aren't required anymore to knock Clyde out for that).

  "You never left me, either," he whispers, caressing Clyde's long, dark eyelashes and that prominent, charming nose with the fingertips of his left hand. "It just took you a little longer to come home this time, sweetheart. That's all."

  XLIV.

  IN THE MONTHS AFTER Cole is discharged from ICU, Clyde treats him like the finest spun glass. Having weaned himself off painkillers as soon as he was out, he does appreciate the extra care from his husband. The first three weeks home are spent sleeping more than being awake. The regular physiotherapy sessions at HQ turn him into an embodiment of debilitating exhaustion that falls asleep before his head lands on the pillow.

  This isn't even his first run with recuperation from trauma like this. He's already gone through this circus act after Rio Rancho and well, he can now say without doubt that it doesn't get easier the second time around. It's an adventure just shuffling from the bed to the en suite bathroom and back even with Clyde's support. It's an even more fun adventure to use the toilet when he needs help just to sit down, when Clyde has to help him stand and pull up his sweatpants afterward. Bathing is the funnest adventure of all with Clyde having to help him strip off his clothes and bend his legs into the bathtub and then help him sit in it and then get down to the business of actually helping him to wash himself. Getting out of the bathtub is almost as fun, really.

  But no matter what, C
lyde is always near and prepared to help him with everything, with no complaint. Clyde drives him in Baby to HQ and back for his therapies. Clyde keeps their fridge well-stocked and their home clean and tidy. Clyde cooks all their meals and feeds him in bed when he's too weak to walk to the kitchen. Clyde bathes him in their bathtub and meticulously swathes the bandaged areas of his body with waterproof covers and sponges him from head to toe. Clyde even helps him to handle his ever formidable pile of paperwork, going through them next to him on their bed with a pen nipped between those full, supple lips.

  Clyde never complains. Clyde never tells him about being triggered, about reliving a whole host of traumas over and over. Clyde treats him like the finest spun glass, like a timeless artifact of infinite worth that can't be touched with lust, can't be loved, lest it crumble to dust at the merest contact.

  He wonders if Clyde takes care of himself with the same diligence.

  Six weeks after being discharged from the ICU, Clyde starts to touch him like a lover again. Clyde gives him a blowjob in bed that leaves him panting and wrecked and flying far beyond the roof. Three days after that, Clyde gives him a handjob in the bathtub that feels just as marvelous, that turns him into a boneless, smiling creature that grasps Clyde's head and kisses his quiet husband over and over. In the following weeks, Clyde makes him come again and again with zeal.

  It's a testament to Clyde's acting and deflection abilities that it takes Cole so long to realize that not once, not once does Clyde ever pleasure himself in any way, much less also come. Clyde is ... denying himself that pleasure. Clyde is punishing himself by giving Cole as much pleasure as often as possible while experiencing none himself.

  He wonders who this Clyde is, who is not like the Clyde he knew before that fateful mission in Croenia. This Clyde, who refuses sexual reciprocation just like their early days as lovers, when Clyde wouldn't let Cole give him a blowjob out of some perceived contamination of Cole's worth as a man if Cole did so. This Clyde, who behaves like a skittish colt and rushes around to serve him like a ... slave.

  Clyde is no slave. His husband is no slave, certainly not to him, or to anyone else. It perturbs him very much that Clyde may think of himself as one now. Clyde is inadvertently warping their lovemaking into something ... cruel. Something cold and cruel and bound by archaic, corrupt notions of penance. Something that should never be between two men who respect each other, trust each other, love each other as equals.

  Talk to me, he yearns to get through to Clyde, to every Clyde in any incarnation whom he respects, trusts and loves regardless. Talk to me, sweetheart. Don't let us go.

  Things come to a head almost three months after being discharged from the ICU, when Cole's sitting on that black, leather-bound couch in their living room, his lower back almost completely healed but still bandaged, his sweatpants tugged down to mid-thigh. Clyde is straddling him under the light of a mild late afternoon sun. Clyde is naked from the waist down and wearing only a loose, black tank top.

  This is the first time since their reunion that Clyde has shown any initiative to participate in sex with Cole instead of focusing only on his pleasure. Clyde is gyrating that sumptuous, ample ass against his stiffening cock and god, he's getting hard so quick that his head is spinning like some mad carousel. He digs his fingers into Clyde's hips when Clyde lifts up to wrap that warm, callused hand around his cock. Clyde's hand is a hot, sliding friction, kneading and massaging from root to leaking head and making a low groan escape from his open mouth. He leans his head back against the couch's headrest. Clyde's lips and tongue ghost down his arched neck and into the dip between his collarbones above the collar of his ruched, dark red t-shirt.

  "Lemme make you feel good, Phelan," Clyde rasps into his skin, grazing those pearly, white teeth on his bobbing Adam's apple, charging the air like a spark of fire. "Please, babe."

  He raises his head from the couch's headrest. He raises his hands from Clyde's hips to the sides of Clyde's head that he gently grasps. Clyde's hand around his cock slows to languid, feather-light stroking, then stops. Clyde sits back and only looks him in the eye when he tilts Clyde's head up, when he brushes the pads of his thumbs across the high angles of Clyde's cheekbones.

  "I will feel good," he murmurs, dragging his fingers down Clyde's stubbly, flushed cheeks. "I will feel so good if this is what you want too, sweetheart. Do you want this?"

  Clyde moans so goddamn pretty and answers him fast (too fast, really, when he has the mind to think again later), "Yeah, Phelan, oh yeah, I do. I do."

  Clyde's hand palms him again and moves faster up and down the length of his now rock-hard cock. Clyde's thumb spreads beads of pre-come around its tip. He can hear his own breaths quickening and hitching like they do when he feels so good, when Clyde makes him feel so good. Clyde dives down and kisses him ardently, shoving that agile tongue into his open mouth. Clyde moans so pretty again into his mouth when he smooths his hands down Clyde's arched back to squeeze generous handfuls of Clyde's buttocks.

  With his right hand, he reaches for Clyde's equally hard cock.

  And Clyde yanks the hem of the tank top down over it, blocking his hand from even going near it.

  Clyde is still kissing him as his eyes flicker open and a chill zigzags down his spine. He tries again to enclose his hand around Clyde's cock. This time, there's no mistaking it when Clyde seizes his hand and shifts it away from Clyde's groin. Clyde is stopping Cole from touching his plainly hard cock, from pleasuring him.

  "Clyde -"

  Clyde's lips brush against his as Clyde shushes him and gently, so gently pushes him back against the couch.

  "I wanna ride you, Phelan," Clyde rasps, licking those full, supple, reddened lips. "Take your big, hard cock inside me until I feel you all the way up to my throat. Ride you hard and fast and make you feel so fucking good. You like that?"

  Cole drags a scorching, shuddering breath into his lungs. He pulsates with lust, with hunger. He stares up at his husband (his, his alone), his mouth gone desert-dry, his heart hammering in his chest at the vision of Clyde so resplendent above him, so damn sensuous with that tank top strap slipped off a shapely shoulder and over a brawny bicep. He squeezes the curvaceous mounds of Clyde's ass again and dimples them with his fingers.

  Clyde doesn't seem to mind this particular touch. Maybe Clyde's just delaying his pleasure, just building it up until Cole's hilt-deep inside Clyde again (oh fuck) and Clyde can't hold back anymore and takes him and takes him (oh fuck) until Clyde is throwing back that golden head and baring that long neck, shaking and crying out and moaning his name -

  "Gonna make you feel so good, babe. You just sit there and let me take care of you."

  Clyde braces his knees on the couch on either side of Cole. Clyde is spitting onto the palm of one hand and slicking Cole's cock up with that along with more pre-come and he can feel its rounded, wet head pressing against Clyde's dry hole and, wait ... wait a minute, Clyde hasn't prepped himself yet, wait -

  "Clyde." He clutches at Clyde's bare hips and tugs at Clyde's tank top but Clyde won't look at his face. "Clyde, wait, that's nowhere near enough, you're not even -"

  He chokes on whatever else he's going to say when Clyde sinks down hard on his cock, taking him in one plunge until Clyde is sitting snug on his lap. Another choked, fractured noise escapes his open mouth as Clyde quavers and clamps around him. Oh damn, goddamn, oh fuck, he hasn't been inside Clyde like this since that Croenian mind-fucking box robbed Clyde of his memories, hasn't connected with Clyde like this for so long. He hasn't felt so deep inside Clyde for so long, like he's home again. None of his fantasies can ever compare to the real thing.

  But ... Clyde isn't touching their foreheads together, isn't gazing into his eyes with those big, beautiful, wide-set ones just like a big cat's. Clyde always does that when they make love face to face. Clyde always looks him in the eye and lets him see every emotion that flashes because when Clyde forced himself to fuck women in the very distant past, he could never open h
is eyes, much less look those women in the eye. Clyde always looks him in the eye, always smiles that impish, blissful smile and moans unreservedly when Cole pistons into him and lets Cole see him.

  Clyde isn't moving at all. Clyde is hunched forward, hiding that exquisite face in the crook between Cole's neck and shoulder. Clyde is shivering and Clyde has ... gone soft against his belly and that's ... that's never happened before, not in all the years they've been lovers.

  "Goddamnit," Clyde croaks, and that one word is steeped with pain.

  No, no, their lovemaking should never involve either of them feeling pain.

  "Clyde, why -"

  "Sshh, it's okay."

  Clyde's right hand is trembling as it slides up Cole's chest to his nape. Clyde lifts his head after strained minutes and ... oh, no. Oh, Cole can see the burning wetness gathered at the corners of Clyde's glistening eyes. He can see that little furrow between Clyde's eyebrows, that little tell that betrays Clyde's pain even when Clyde refuses to say a word about it.

  And Clyde is smiling at him, a tremulous smile that brings a wet burn to Cole's own eyes.

  "Ssshhh, it's okay, babe. It's okay," Clyde whispers hoarsely, caressing Cole's shoulders and chest with both hands, kissing him softly on the lips. "You just sit back and enjoy the ride. Don't worry about me."

  Clyde's smile isn't a smile at all but a friable mask that stabs Cole's heart to see it. Clyde isn't just punishing himself. Clyde thinks he deserves to suffer.

  "Clyde -"

  Cole's fingers dig into Clyde's powerful thighs as Clyde makes good on his word and starts to ride him hard and fast, rising up until his cock is almost popping out and then slamming back down with an audible smack. Clyde makes a strident, throaty sound deep in his throat with every slam down. Clyde rolls and bucks his hips and grinds down as much as he can, as if he has to take in all of Cole's cock or none at all. Clyde is biting his lower lip swollen and red, clutching tight onto Cole's shoulders. Clyde's only half-hard and Clyde has shut his eyes again and Cole doesn't want that, Cole doesn't want Clyde to hide from him again.