by Willa Okati
Look at him. His hands. The knuckles are white. He’ll make his mouth bleed soon if he doesn’t give up biting his cheek.
“Answer one question first,” Nathan said. He half smiled. “Honestly.”
“Even if the truth hurts?”
Nathan didn’t think it would, but even if… “Yes.” He refused to close his eyes, no matter how much easier it might make the asking.
One. Two. Three. Out with it.
“If I told you to go, would you?”
Fitz’s face… Put it this way—Nathan had seen parents lose their children. He’d seen men old enough to be his father losing their fathers. He saw that in Fitz now. “Yes,” Fitz said.
Nathan nodded. “If I asked you to stay, would you leave again someday? Because I couldn’t take that, Fitz. Not again.”
He’d seen grief, true. But he’d also seen children born. Not many. He’d seen them put in their grandparents’ arms, wrapped around in blankets and in warm, wrinkled promises to be loved for the rest of their lives, however long that life might be. That was what he saw in Fitz now.
The silence stretched on.
“Answer me,” Nathan said, prompting as gently as he could. Quietly, so he wouldn’t lose his balance on the ground shifting beneath his feet. It’d settle, with the right answer. He thought he knew, but he needed to be sure, he needed that, and—
“I’ve missed you every day,” Fitz said, meeting his eyes. He held his necklace as if it were a lifeline. “Every damn day, Nathan. And every night. I was even—there wasn’t anyone else. Not in all those years. I tried, but they weren’t you, and they went home disappointed.”
Breath escaped Nathan in a rushing sigh.
The string, far too abused, gave way and tumbled the stone pendant into Fitz’s palm. Fitz flinched at the tiny snap of sound, holding his palm open wide with the small rock in the middle.
He knew, now.
He was doubtful his friends, or his family would get it. There’d be questions to answer and noses wrinkled over his being gulled again, but they’d learn in time. Because he would show them, and so would Fitz.
Nathan crossed the distance between them, and closed Fitz’s hand around the necklace. “Just because something’s broken doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed.” He lifted Fitz’s chin, hoping he had this right. “Or worked into something new. Better than before.”
He wasn’t certain. Not before his lips touched Fitz’s, and Fitz’s his.
The hell with common sense and the way things should be. They’d made for cold bedfellows all these years, and he had a lot of catching up to do.
Fitz had always kissed like he meant it. Now, so did Nathan. He took Fitz by storm. If he was giving in, it’d be all the way.
And if Fitz’s reaction was anything to go by, he’d made the right choice.
The only choice.
Fitz took the game and turned it on Nathan straight away. Good. Better. Best. As it should be. Fuck the rules. Fuck me.
Fitz’s tongue slid deep in Nathan’s mouth, slick and twisting. He remembered what Nathan liked, and oh, so clever, picked up on what he’d learnt to like more. Same, but different. Rough and dirty. Only gentle enough to give a peek at his heart.
It was the heart that brought Nathan back, body and mind. He pushed as hard as Fitz, clashing against him, forcing his mouth wider open, pushing him to take more and still more, knowing he loved it.
Mouth open, drinking in the power that came from such an amazing kiss, Nathan rolled his hips, pressing and pushing against Fitz. No quick suck job this time.
Fitz chuckled, low and deep. “That’s what you want?”
“Can’t tell me it hasn’t been long enough.” Nathan snaked his hand between them. “Can’t tell me you don’t want that too.” He thrust his thigh between Fitz’s, grinding. God, he could smell them, both of them, and, while it wasn’t better than the feel of Fitz, it wasn’t a far distant second. Must have hit Fitz the same way. He groaned into the kiss and began to grasp at Nathan more than a little wildly. Buttons flew, and there was no caution in how he handled Nathan’s zipper this time around.
Better than the best.
Nathan laughed when Fitz swore, his hands shaking worse than old Gibson’s, his lips puffy and red from kissing. “Help a guy out here. Get these off. Want my hands on you. Now.”
“Do you?” Nathan turned, presented his back to Fitz, and gave his shoulders a lazy, sexy roll. “Then get to it.”
Fitz swore again, fit to impress a sailor, but it helped. He managed to ease Nathan’s shirt off—just. Nathan took a bit of pity on the man and his hands, clumsy now only from eagerness, and toed off his shoes and socks before Fitz reached them and had a nuclear meltdown. Jeans next, and boxers with a frustrated curse of his own.
God, he’d missed this. Knowing Fitz was crazy because of him, for him.
“Turn around,” Fitz rasped. “Let me see you.”
“I’ll do you one better…” Nathan glanced over his shoulder at Fitz. Time to take this to the next level. He stepped away, though he missed Fitz’s body heat immediately, and kept walking. “If you follow me to the bedroom and do me right.”
“Holy mother of God,” Fitz breathed.
Nathan kept walking, though he wasn’t entirely sure his feet touched the ground.
Fitz followed him. Every step of the way.
Perhaps a tad faster than expected. Nathan almost figured out what was going to happen, but not in time to stop Fitz tackling him, heaving him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
He slapped Nathan’s ass before Nathan could squawk. “You were moving too slow,” he said. “C’mon. Let’s run.”
Nursing wasn’t all Fitz must have done during his time away. Jesus. He carried Nathan as if Nathan weighed no more than a feather. Smart as ever, Fitz made straight for the bedroom door. He tossed Nathan on the bed, half scrambling his brains, but not for long. Fitz wasn’t the only one who’d grown into surety over the years.
Nathan stretched his arms over his head to catch hold of the headboard slats and watched Fitz pull to a stop as though someone had slapped him in the chest with a bat. Took his breath away in the same fashion.
He rippled with pleasure at the sight of Fitz standing stock-still with surprise and took control of himself quickly, spreading out for Fitz’s inspection. Naked, the room was too cold, but Fitz’s presence heated him past boiling. The air tasted of the smell of them combined. His chest rose and fell with each breath, his nipples were furled into hard nubs, legs parted and cock exposed for Fitz’s pleasure.
And it had the effect he wanted. “I could eat you up,” Fitz rasped.
Nathan lowered his eyelids. “What’s stopping you?”
“These.” He tugged at the collar of his scrubs.
“Mmm.” Nathan arched, raising his hips a little. “Then what do you say you get rid of those, and come nail me to the bed?”
He’d surprised Fitz again. Nathan laughed, even when Fitz scowled daggers at him. “I might have passed up being pissed off, or piqued, or slamming a door on you,” he said, rolling to prop himself on one elbow. “That doesn’t mean you get a free pass on teasing. I liked that best. Almost best. Once upon a time.”
Fitz’s lips parted over his white teeth. A knowing grin, with heat in his gaze that burned where it glanced over Nathan. “And some things never change?” he asked in deliberate echo.
Nathan still had the pendant in his palm.
He remembered one last thing—the day he’d bought the trinket for Fitz, and put it around his neck. Clumsy with youth, that promise, and yet in his way Fitz had kept to that word all these years.
Until he’d come back home.
Nathan stretched out to drop both necklace and cord on the bedside table. Rolled to his back again. Waiting. Offering. In the end, it was easy. “They can stay here,” he said. “So can you. No more waiting.” He reached for his cock as a measure of last resort. “Or do you want me to start without you?”
Fitz’s eyes
gleamed at that. “Someday, hell yes, oh yes. I want to watch you—”
“But tonight, I want you to touch me. Move.”
Fitz might as well have been a creature made of fire and flame. He growled, deep in his throat. If scrubs were as easily torn as they both wished at that moment, it would have taken far less than the interminable minute required before Fitz was naked, climbing atop him, grinding against him, finally.
“For you,” Nathan said, his voice sounding low and raw as unbrushed silk in his ears, using one of Fitz’s tricks against him and guiding Fitz’s hand tight around his cock. Not difficult to tell Fitz appreciated both. “All of it. Yours.”
Fitz withdrew his hand and brought it to his mouth, licking his fingertips. He twined his tongue around one and grinned at Nathan, daring him, urging him on. “Better put it to good use, then.”
Slick fingers, slippery with lube. A condom packet, its cellophane crinkle somehow obscene enough to make both hiss and hold their breath, their bodies still.
Nathan took hold, raking his short-clipped nails up Fitz’s back. Stopping him before he pressed inside.
“One more request.”
The fierce press of Fitz’s mouth would leave him bruised. Wonderful. “Anything,” he said. “Fuck, I can’t believe I’m here. You want something? It’s yours.”
“The truth,” Nathan said, enjoying this too much. Or just enough. Hard to say.
Fitz gritted his teeth. His cock strained towards Nathan, and it took all of Nathan’s control not to simply let him in. “Are you mine?” he asked instead. “I mean that. It matters. Are you?”
“God.” Fitz pressed his forehead to Nathan’s. “I never stopped.”
“Right answer.” Nathan nipped at Fitz’s chin. “Roll over, and let me ride you.”
Fitz’s teeth flashed in a savage smile, and he wasn’t slow to obey. Nathan was taller, and leaner, but though doing it this way was work, dear God was it worth the effort.
And it seemed right, to start this way.
“Hold on,” Fitz ordered, hands tight on Nathan’s hips. Biting his lip at the touch of Nathan’s hand guiding him into place. Positioning Nathan’s body over his cock, and beginning the first deep push inside.
Nathan moaned as Fitz’s cock ploughed into him. He only stopped when Nathan rested fully on him, his cock entirely inside. “We fit just right. Made to match. Never forgot that either,” Fitz said between breaths sharp and short as shards of crystal. “Take all of me.”
“And more,” Nathan said, rocking slightly back and forth, making Fitz groan, and grasp his hips more tightly still. He’d have bruises, and he’d cherish each and every one of them. “Shut up and fuck me, Fitz. Fuck me hard.”
Every now and then Fitz could take orders.
Nathan could hear himself, babbling on. He couldn’t have stopped or censored himself even if he’d wanted. “Yes, oh, fuck yes, that’s the way. Good, good. Oh, God, good. There. Harder. More—”
He got his wish. Oh. How he’d done without this… Mad as it might be, how could he have considered turning down a second chance?
Look at him. Who could blame me for wanting that? He touched Fitz’s chin, lifting it to meet his stare through the haze of sweat-damp hair hanging over his eyes, the blurriness of focus that came of his mind being as well occupied as his body. Occupied like Normandy, Jesus. Wanting that. Wanting him.
Recognition kindled in Fitz. One nod, then, oh then, the game was on. Nathan shouted, discovering his throat already raw and fiercely glad of it. That was Fitz. No difficulty too great or small to work his way around. Thank God. He angled them so that he hit Nathan’s sweet spot on every stroke.
Nathan caught Fitz’s arms and held them for balance. It was all his turn now. To ride. To bear down. To grind his hips, and—
To surprise himself by coming, his orgasm punching its way out of him. His body took over, leaving him a distant observer, but feeling every last ripple and shiver of muscle. As his muscles quaked around Fitz’s cock, Fitz threw his head back and shouted his name.
Somehow—Nathan wasn’t sure how, and was certain he wouldn’t have had the presence of mind himself—Fitz held Nathan upright until both of them had finished, both shaking with the aftershocks of climax. He took care in separating their bodies, in tying off the condom, and in casting it aside to be taken care of properly later.
Then collapsing as if his strings had been cut.
That, Nathan had expected.
The next, he had not. Fitz’s shoulders shook, and it took Nathan a moment to understand why.
“Something had really better be actually funny,” he muttered, cuffing Fitz lightly on the ear.
Fitz looked up. Well fucked, a mess from top to toe, beard burned and not in the least bit repentant. Blazing with joy. Alight with mischief. Warm with relief.
He jabbed Nathan in the soft spot between ribs and hip, not hard. “I never did get a straight answer from you. Do I have the job?”
Nathan considered his response. For about five seconds.
He figured Fitz knew what he meant, and how he meant it, when he whipped the pillow out from beneath the man’s head and pressed it over Fitz’s face. Fitz batted it away and came up delighted.
“What do you think?” He tweaked Nathan’s nose. “For good? Not part-time. Not temping.”
“For good,” Nathan said, stretching out the length of his body.
“Then come back here and kiss me again. We’ve got years to make up for.”
And that was Fitz. When the man was right, well, he was right all the way, and yes, just like Nathan had thought not too long ago at all—even when he shouldn’t, Fitz had found a way.
He’d won.
Nathan? He wouldn’t be complaining.
Epilogue
The rattling at his front door woke Nathan far too early on Sunday morning. Of course, on his one day off, any time before noon was too early. More so when Fitz shared the space with him, splayed out in a loose sprawl with what seemed like more arms and legs than he should have wound around Nathan, radiating the warmth of a coal fire. Mmm. That’d be nice on winter mornings in the mountains…
A hard, determined rat-a-tat-tat startled Nathan out of the doze he’d slipped into. He cracked one eye open and squinted at his bedside clock. Nine a.m..
He groaned and yanked the covers over his head. “Day. Off,” he muttered.
The caller added a rhythm to their knocking. “I have coffee,” a woman called. “I also have a key, and I know how to use it.”
He hadn’t realised Fitz was awake until the man laughed quietly and burrowed his head against Nathan’s shoulders. “Let me guess. Chelle?”
Nathan scooted backward, pressing himself closer to Fitz. “God, she’s sadistic.”
“Sounds like.” Fitz had heard all there was to hear about his colleague, and then some. Only fair, since she’d heard years of tales about him. “Better let her in.”
“Nope. Five more minutes.” Nathan attempted to bury his head under the pillow.
Fitz pinched his ass, laughed at Nathan’s yelp, and added a light slap by way of a bonus. “Uh-uh. Go take care of her. I call the first shower.”
“That’s a change.” Nathan gave up on the idea of sleep and turned, then raised himself to rest on one arm, looking down at Fitz and his unrepentant grin. He drew his thumb across the plush fullness of Fitz’s lip.
Something of what he was thinking must have betrayed itself on his face. Fitz frowned. “What?”
“Nothing bad.” Nathan bent to brush his mouth over those lips. “Just thinking that the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Fitz’s good humour eased back in, slacking off the tension. “Not a bad thing, is it?”
“Not at all.”
Nathan had occupied himself kissing Fitz for a third time—the goal being to lose count—when he heard the thunk, jingle and crash of Chelle’s monster keychain with dozens of tags and toggles. “Shit!”
Fitz ch
ortled as they tumbled apart, bedclothes flying. “Told you.”
“Yes, you’re very smart.” Nathan cast about for a pair of jeans before remembering a folded stack in a wicker basket by the door. Clean, still smelling of dryer sheets. He stumbled his way in, tripping as he caught his feet. He hesitated. This, they’d talked about. At great length. “You know she’ll want to—”
“I know a lot of people are going to want to.” Fitz rolled his shoulders. “Go. We’ll see it through.”
Nathan drew his lip between his teeth and bit before nodding, decided. Fitz might not look quite as happy as before, but he was no less determined. If you looked at how far determination had taken him… Well, Chelle might still be a challenge, but he thought Fitz could take her.
Nathan took pleasure in sauntering out with a clean shirt in hand—Fitz and the laundry basket again—and his hair finger-combed into a semblance of order. Chelle left off gaping at the house to stare at him. “What happened?”
“Hmm?” Nathan pretended to glance around. “Looks the same to me.”
“Not close.” Chelle held a cardboard cup, clearly forgotten, in a grip just shy of being loose enough to drop and spill. “You cleaned. Put your laundry away. Dusted. There’s fruit in a basket.”
Nathan had never had much of a poker face. He didn’t bother trying to maintain a façade now, enjoying her surprise too much. “What? Weren’t you reading me the riot act about this on your way out of town?”
She snorted. “Yeah. I told you that you should get a wife, not Martha Stewart.”
Oh Lord. If ever there was a straight line Fitz wouldn’t be able to resist…
Fitz sauntered around the corner. He’d been listening, the sneak. “I’m much prettier than Martha.”
Called it, Nathan thought, amused.
“Yes, you are, Arthur,” she replied, still blank with surprise but quick of wit as ever, and her shock fading fast. “Mike Smith, I presume?” She put her purse down and crossed her arms. “I wondered.”
“If you had money on it, you win.” His partner—past and present—didn’t let Nathan down. “Also known as Fitz.”
Chelle’s lips formed a thin line.