by Jude Sierra
Joaquim tries to keep his eyes on Reid, who is so painfully beautiful, whose eyes are riveted by Joaquim’s body. He wants to be ready, right now, to watch Reid’s face while they fuck.
“Hey,” Reid says, and kisses the inside of his knee. “Relax.”
“I am,” Joaquim says.
“No I mean, there’s no rush,” Reid says. His fingers move in, and in, inexorably pushing pleasure into him; little pulses of it run warm through his pelvis. “Let me enjoy you, J.”
“Reid, you are so backward,” Joaquim says, and then gasps, loudly, when Reid twists his fingers. “Oh fuck, fuck that’s so—”
“Hmm.” Reid’s grin is smug and warm. He bites Joaquim’s knee, reaches for more lube and a condom with his free hand, and works Joaquim’s body until he’s pliant and open, begging and desperate for him. When Reid is finally there, pushing into him, it’s as if his whole body is orgasming, as if pleasure is pulsing from his skin inward. He’s sweating and gasping and shaking before Reid’s even all the way in.
“Stay close,” he gasps and puts his hands around Reid’s neck. Reid has one hand wrapped around Joaquim’s thigh, which is pulled up around his waist, and is propped on the other next to Joaquim’s head.
“I will,” Reid says. His forehead against Joaquim’s is sweaty, his moans low and urgent, and from the moment they begin moving together, Reid never quiets. He feeds small moans and gasps to Joaquim as they move in response to Joaquim’s requests for more, for harder or wait, or yes, please.
“When I come, go slow,” Joaquim says, and Reid stills above him. “I want to feel everything, Reid.”
“Fuck, you—oh god, that’s so—” Reid tries to speak but can’t.
“Kiss me, oh, oh, I’m about to—” Joaquim says, breathless and aching at the precipice of release, and then Reid’s lips are on his as he rocks Joaquim through a wrecking orgasm.
“Don’t stop,” Joaquim begs, even when his orgasm has come and gone, because it’s so good, so deliciously good. Post-orgasm, everything is different, and Joaquim’s body has always taken a different pleasure from this, as if his pleasure is centered in his partner, as if what his body can give is as good as what it’s been given. He can watch Reid unabashedly and focus on remembering all the tiny details: the way Reid bites his lip before he comes, the way his eyelashes flutter during his orgasm, the way he holds himself so tightly that the muscles of his arms grow taut. Joaquim wraps both legs around Reid and tilts his hips and makes his body as available as possible so that he can drink in every moment of Reid’s orgasm as if it were his own.
After he comes, other than to collapse on Joaquim, Reid doesn’t move for a long time. He’s heavy, and they’re both ridiculously sweaty, but Joaquim doesn’t move either. Reid feels so true. There’s no precision to the movement of his body now; they’re both basic in this wreckage, both recovering and being.
“Hey,” Reid finally says, flopping off Joaquim and onto his side.
“Oh my god, hi,” Joaquim says, gasping in a deep breath and wiping sweat from his forehead.
“Sorry, I was probably—”
“Finish that apology and I’ll make you get back on,” Joaquim threatens.
“Huh?” Reid puts his head on Joaquim’s shoulder.
“I don’t… I make no sense right now. Ignore me.”
“Mmm, don’t wanna ignore you.” Reid sounds half asleep; Joaquim does too. Everything smells of sweat and sex and, while it’s nice, in its way, Joaquim is also aware that they are growing stickier by the minute and that’s gross.
“Hey, wanna shower?” he asks.
Reid hesitates. It’s not obvious, just the smallest pause in the pull of his muscles as he inhales. “Yeah,” he says quietly.
Reid gets up to turn on the water, leaving Joaquim behind. Joaquim’s legs are wobbly, and he’s focused on trying to figure out how to walk without making a fool of himself. Then he realizes why Reid hesitated. Right. Acting normal with Reid has been easy up till now because he’s been so very much in the moment, unable to see or focus on anything but Reid. A shower is different, or it must feel so to Reid. A shower is being naked in a different way.
And it’s not as if Reid’s given Joaquim an instruction manual. Can I look? Should I not? If I avoid looking at his scars, does that signal that I don’t care? That I’m pretending not to care? That I care too much? Fuck.
Honestly, Joaquim wants to be with Reid. He follows Reid to the bathroom. He steps into the shower. The look Reid sends over his shoulder to Joaquim is hopeful and tired and a little wary. It triggers the sure knowledge he had when they came in from the pool.
Right. He’s in love with this boy. And there’s no manual, but maybe if he takes care, Reid will let him in enough to tell him how he needs that love shown.
Twenty
“Tell me about your sister,” Reid says later that night. They’re squashed into Reid’s bed again. Reid likes the closeness; he likes that Joaquim has no choice but to snuggle with him so he doesn’t have to ask for it and seem needy or pretend he doesn’t want to cuddle. A little more room might be nice, though. For the first time, Reid considers moving to his grandmother’s bed. But only if they’re not having sex there—because, no.
“Sofia?”
“Do you have another sister?” Reid drapes himself over Joaquim’s chest and smiles down at him. The only light in the room is the faintest glow from the window. Joaquim’s face is glints and shadows. Reid ghosts his fingers over Joaquim’s lips and a sense of comfort spills, glowing, through him.
“Nope, just Sofia” Joaquim says after kissing his fingers.
“So?”
“Well, she’s beautiful. And protective. She makes dumb choices about boyfriends.”
Reid snorts. “Because she has them, and you hate them all no matter what?”
“No, because they are dumb choices,” Joaquim responds. “I swear she picks guys who are projects. No job. No education. No motivation. Needs a haircut. It goes on and on.”
“Hmm.” Reid refrains from laughing.
“She’s always there for me, though. She was the first person I came out to. Only family member I am out to. I’ve always been able to tell her anything.”
Reid sighs and puts his cheek on Joaquim’s chest. “I wish I had a relationship like that with someone.”
“Not with anyone in your family?”
“No. I mean, I guess maybe my grandma.” How to say that he never felt like he fit in? No one excluded him. His family loves him. But Reid’s always stood apart. Before his diagnosis, Reid was out of step, confusing and isolated, angry and unpredictable for no reason. After his diagnosis, they had a million reasons to explain him, none of which changed the fact that Reid would never be like them.
“It’s complic—fuck.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Joaquim says; Reid’s unsure if he’s imagining a slightly slowed cadence in his voice.
“No, I do. I realize I say that things are complicated, like, every time you ask me a question.” Reid props himself up. “I don’t think I’m sheltered, really. But all of this history? Everyone in my life knows that part of me. They only know me through the context of my mental illness for other reasons.”
“Okay.” It’s obvious Joaquim isn’t sure how the threads of this conversation are connecting.
“You’re the first person I’ve been close to in a long time who saw me as anything other than Reid-with-problems, who doesn’t define me by my ‘crazy’ or the stupid shit I’ve done. It makes me nervous, because I love that. I don’t want that to end. I want to tell you stuff. But it’s—I just…”
“I get it,” Joaquim says, covering Reid’s hand with his own. “Or, I think I do.”
“I’m not like, giving away family secrets or exposing my root—”
Joaquim snorts and mimics Reid’s tone. “Your root?�
�
“Shut up,” Reid says, poking Joaquim’s side. “It’s from a movie called But I’m a Cheerleader. It’s a cult classic; just really campy queer fun.”
“Campy queer fun?”
“I love that movie!” Reid says. “We’ll watch it. Anyway, not the point. I don’t want to change in your eyes. I feel like someone new. I could tell you about my parents. And I will. It might not change things. But I’m scared.”
Joaquim holds his breath, telegraphed under Reid’s palm flat on his sternum. “I don’t ever want you to be scared with me, Reid. I understand why you are. I’m scared too, but only because I’ve never known anyone with—like you. I mean—”
“It’s okay,” Reid stops him stumbling through an explanation.
“I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing. But I want to know you so much. I…”
“Yeah?”
“I think… Ikindofloveyou.”
“What?” Reid’s body flashes hot and then cold.
Joaquim groans. “It’s really soon, and I’ve probably scared you off, but I can’t help it.”
“Babe.” Reid kisses Joaquim gently. “I think I kind of love you too.”
Joaquim kisses him back with lips flavored not so much with sexual intent, but more than passing sweetness—a little like a promise, with warmth and passion.
Reid pulls back and puts his head on Joaquim’s chest. His finger circles Joaquim’s navel. “I never fit in. With them. My family.”
“Oh?”
“They didn’t exclude me. But I always knew something was different. I knew I was different. Some things seemed to just come for people. They knew how to react to situations appropriately, to manage their moods. I tried. I tried to learn how to act like everyone else. And then I tried to fake it, because it became clear I couldn’t, but not being able to was disruptive.”
“Reid—”
“No, let me finish,” Reid says, but gently. “I always knew there was something different about me. But I didn’t have the tools or words to figure it out. None of us did. And so it snowballed. Some of my history,” Reid gestures vaguely at his body, “Comes from that. But really, that’s a part of a complicated set of circumstances: feeling alone, not having coping skills to pair with mental illness.”
Joaquim is quiet long enough that nervous buzzing begins in Reid’s stomach.
“You don’t have to explain it all to me now. It sounds complicated. But will you trust me enough to try? At some point?”
“Yeah,” Reid says. He forces his body to relax, bit by bit. “So, with my parents. History… it’s there. I recognize that we could have a closer relationship. That partly it’s on me, for keeping distant. Maybe one day I’ll be in a place where I can work on that. I’m still working on other aspects of recovery. Here, I don’t feel that separateness, like I’m the odd one out. Like I’ll only ever be ‘crazy Reid.’ I don’t want to feel that. Here I could be someone new.”
“Could?”
“Well, now you know.”
“Reid,” Joaquim shuffles them precariously in the tiny bed until they’re face-to-face, noses almost touching. “You’ll never be ‘crazy Reid’ to me. You’re the same man I fell for. I—” Joaquim cuts off suddenly.
“What?”
“Nothing. I knew I didn’t know all of you. You can be an enigma. But I wanted to. I want to. That hasn’t changed, and neither has what’s under everything.”
“The core of me?” Reid bites back the sarcastic urge to point out that he’s been keeping some pretty core stuff from Joaquim.
“No, of us. Connection. How drawn I am to you, how you fascinate me. Your sweetness—”
Reid scoffs.
“Your secret sweetness that you think you should hide.” Joaquim has him there. “Your unpredictability. I love that. I love that you make me feel free, sometimes reckless, in a good way. You and I, we make a good pair.”
Reid closes his eyes. He kisses Joaquim with shaking lips; his breath punches out of him as his heart pounds. He’s wanted to hear words like these for so long, but never thought himself worthy. And when he recognized he might be worthy, the possibility that he could or would ever hear them still seemed a foolish wish.
“You’re not out to your family?”
Joaquim sighs. “Can I borrow a phrase? It’s complicated.” He smiles when Reid laughs softly. “It’s more like… we’ve never talked about it. I assume they know. I don’t want to make a huge thing of it with them. But maybe it’s cowardice.”
“Hey, no.” Reid’s fingers are cool and gentle on Joaquim’s skin. “Everyone does this their own way.”
“I guess. They’ll notice sure enough when I tell them about us.”
“Wow, you’re going—you’ve never told them about a guy before?”
“I’ve only had one serious boyfriend. It didn’t feel like this. I kept waiting for the right time. But the fact that I never found it says a lot.”
Reid is quiet, processing the weight of implication. Everything they speak of tonight is a different proof of love. It’s humbling and frightening and utterly exhilarating. “You haven’t seen them in a while. But you’ll see Sofia when you visit, right? She’s still home?”
“Yeah, she’s in university there.”
“What will she do after? Travel?”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t have the wanderlust.”
“You do, right?”
“Yeah. I’ve been lots of places. I didn’t want to go to university. I want to see the world.”
Reid holds his breath; anxiety blooms in his chest. “So where to next?”
“What?”
“When you’re done with your internship and stuff.”
“Oh.” Joaquim clues into the direction of the conversation. “I have no idea. I like it here, though. If I can get a job once I’m done, I’d like to stay for a while.”
But what if you don’t?
Reid barely curbs the impulse to ask. It wouldn’t be fair to ask Joaquim to stay, or to insinuate he should, or to make a big deal of this when he himself has no idea what his future holds. A lack of defined direction could be good for them, give them flexibility. But not knowing how something will end, not having a road map, is one of Reid’s anxiety triggers. It’s always been a low-level trigger. Since he’s begun working on turning his life around and managing his mental illness, Reid’s learned the importance of structure in his life. It supports him, gives him focus, keeps him present. But perhaps his anxiety in times of chaos has worsened as a result.
Recovery is a constant practice, a balancing act, and exhausting.
Joaquim’s lips are on his neck, though; if this is the promise of what Reid could have in the future, it’s worth it. His thoughts are too heavy, and this boy in his bed is too bright a promise.
“Let’s play a game,” he says.
“Uh, like a board game?” Joaquim pulls back. “In bed?”
“No,” Reid swats at him through his laughter. “Twenty questions.” He’s perfectly aware that he’s dodged a lot of Joaquim’s questions so far. But if they’re both going to act like there’s more to Reid than his issues, Reid wants him to know more.
“Um, okay.”
“Favorite food?”
“Ugh! I suck at these. I love food!”
“Nope, not how it goes.” Reid bites Joaquim’s chest lightly, making him squirm.
“Wait. Are punishments involved? Because I’m happy to break the rules—”
“Yes. Every time you do this wrong I tease you, but don’t follow through.”
“Oh my god, that’s terrible,” Joaquim says. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Beef stroganoff, but only the kind my mom makes.”
“That’s not what I expected.”
Reid kisses him. “I’m full of surprises,” he wh
ispers against Joaquim’s lips.
Reid learns that Joaquim is bad at answering questions on the spot. By the time Reid’s gotten to fifteen questions, he’s marked up Joaquim’s neck and chest with love bites. He’s busy sucking the tips of Joaquim’s fingers into his mouth and nipping at them lightly while Joaquim curses and moves restlessly, barely able to form answers, much less questions of his own. In charge, Reid is alight with sex and joy and utterly comfortable in his skin.
They never make it to twenty. At eighteen, Joaquim has had enough, flips Reid over and, holding his wrists to the bed, grinds against him hard. Impossibly wound up, they come in minutes and fall asleep in a tangle of limbs.
Twenty-one
Joaquim fiddles with the mask display far longer than necessary. They’ve been left a mess by a family that came through with unsupervised little ones. Organizing them gives Joaquim time to think about Reid. Reid loves board games. He loves his mother’s cooking but has a strained relationship with her. His favorite color is blue. He loves live music but hasn’t gone to a concert in months. His body is both a delight and a roadmap Joaquim doesn’t know how to read, or even how to begin reading.
After Reid showed him his scars, it was painfully clear he wasn’t willing to talk about or acknowledge them again. Joaquim carefully ignored them in the shower. Instead, he focused on Reid’s lovely shoulders and how sensitive his neck is to touches and kisses. In the dark, Reid’s skin read like Braille under Joaquim’s exploring fingers. He touched Reid everywhere, though, and didn’t let himself linger.
Yesterday, all of Joaquim’s senses were trained to Reid. Being fucked senseless. Admitting he’d fallen in love: something he’s never said to another man. Pushing and pushing down the worry and fear Reid’s confession had inspired; Joaquim knows nothing about people who cut. He has no idea what he should be doing to help Reid.