#redrites

[redmyeyes]

Arthur? Or Lancelot?

“So, come on,” Merlin says to Gwen, “just for the sake of argument. If you had to, Arthur or Lancelot?”

“But I don’t have to and I never will.”

“Oh, you are no fun, Gwen.”

Gwen looks at him, eyes sparkling, then looks back at the boys, their big strapping heroes in chainmail at the head of the high table. “Alright then, you first. If you had to. Arthur? Or Lancelot?”

Merlin raises his eyebrows, impressed. He wouldn’t have guessed Gwen had it in her, to even consider a scenario of such… depravity. He licks his lips, considering. “Hypothetically?”

“Hypothetically. Of course.” And it’s said with such innocent blandness that Merlin has to reconsider, yet again, just how much Gwen really sees.

“Hypothetically… Lancelot. Obviously. I mean, look at him.” Merlin does look at him, and at Arthur, too. The golden boy and his new dark-haired knight, side by side. What a pretty pair they make. “He’s like… a labrador. So obedient, so eager to please. Now there’s a boy who takes direction well. He’d pound you into the mattress in any position you want and be grateful for the pleasure. Wouldn’t come until you gave him permission, bet he could go for hours.”

“Gods, Merlin!” Gwen exclaims, hand covering her mouth, but clearly delighted. Merlin grins.

“Unlike that spoiled prat,” Merlin continues, eyes zeroing in on Arthur, those full lips. He imagines him sometimes, chained spread-eagle to that obscene four-poster bed of his, his eyes blown wide and helpless as Merlin feeds his cock to those plush lips. Gods, it’s enough to make him shudder, right here in the Hall of Ceremonies, dozens of people milling around them. Good thing no one pays attention to servants.

“Bet he just lies there like a dead fish, expecting his partners to do all the work for him,” Merlin affects a posh accent, continuing, “as his princely due.”

“I don’t know,” Gwen says, bumping shoulders with him, her eyes still trained on the boys, “he certainly seems… active enough. On the training grounds.”

“Sure, but you don’t see him in private. Incapable of doing anything for himself. ‘My boots need cleaning, Merlin’,” Merlin says, affecting that posh accent again. “‘My clothes need washing. My dogs need exercising. My fireplace needs sweeping. My bed needs changing. And someone needs to suck my cock.’”

Gwen chortles, spluttering around her drink. “He does not.”

“He may as well,” Merlin grins, downing the rest of his tankard. A server passes and he switches out his empty for a full one. That’s another fantasy. Merlin dreams of how he would flip the tables on that one.

Maybe he’d sink to his knees the next time Arthur orders him to polish his boots. Look up at him with wide eyes from beneath his lashes, his mouth level with Arthur’s cock as he says, Right now, Sire? Anything else you need, Sire?, just to watch his face flush red, his words stammering underneath all that noble denial. Maybe he’d make Arthur confess, in explicit detail, every little thing he does want. Maybe he’d reward him by complying.

“Probably gets off on being called ‘Sire’ in bed,” he muses.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Gwen turn to look at him assessingly, but his gaze is still locked on Arthur. He can’t help it.

“Are you sure your choice is Lancelot?” she asks, amusement clear in her voice. “You seem… awfully fixated.”

“Too much work,” he says, still not looking away. “Hypothetically, of course.”

“Of course,” Gwen echoes, sipping daintily at her tankard.

Arthur looks up and catches his gaze from across the hall, his eyes narrowing questioningly, as though he can read Merlin’s thoughts. Merlin hopes he can, tries to project them louder. Someday I’ll have you on your knees. You’ll take my cock and like it.

Lancelot catches his eye too, and grins, pure eager puppy. Merlin grins back, relishing the way it makes Arthur’s brow furrow. Looks like he’ll be having a fun romp tonight, after all. And if it makes Arthur jealous, bonus.

[dadfuckeddean]

DAD

john/dean, M, 450 words

for @spnflash, "present"; for @dadfuckerfest, "baby's first snowball"

That year you buy him a hunting knife for Christmas.  Pocketknife, for close work, with a silver coating you made yourself—swiped the jewelry, melted the metal, brushed it on.  Took a few tries to get the thickness right.  Bullets are easier.  You wanted to get it blessed by Pastor Jim, so it sat tucked away in your duffel for a few months while you waited for a job to come up Southeast and an excuse to go visit.  You wait until your brother is out—off playing normal families at his girlfriend’s Christmas dinner—before you give it to him, unwrapped, no fanfare, because that would make it weird, and you shrug off the look he gives you when he flicks it open to reveal the three letters you’ve etched into the blade.  Think I’d forget? he asks, and you shrug again, embarrassed.  You say, I’ll keep it if you don’t need it, and he cuts off your stammering, I like it, bud.  I like it.  Then he says, c’mere, and pulls you close with a hand fisted in your tee, and he’s staring down at you—always down, though you're the same height now—and slides the knife up underneath your shirt, slow, the spine icy against your skin.  The tip pokes up through the fabric and he rips it clean down.  Like butter, he says, grinning like you're both getting away with something.  The knife goes clattering against the table, and then he’s pulling the remains of your shirt up and over your head, holding your arms high in the air as he ties them into a quick knot.  Keep ‘em there, he says, then pushes you onto the bed, the mattress squealing.  And as you grin up at him, he sinks to his knees before you.  He undresses you.  Boots, one by one, then socks.  You can’t help raising your head to watch, stunned, your abs clenching, hands pinned to the bed by will.  He unbuttons, unzips your jeans, says, up, then drags them down and off, along with your underwear.  He hooks his hands behind your knees and drags you to the edge, until you’re—right there.  His face, there.  His beard.  His lips.  His mouth—and he—worships you.  He worships you.  He worships you.  He’s never done this, not with you, not for you, and you’re driven to the edge so fast you know there will be jokes, later, and his hands are on your thighs, your hips, spreading you, and your hands twist in their bindings, wanting— and you spill—god, fuck, dad—into his mouth.  You’re still breathing hard when he crawls over you, angling himself for a deep, sucking kiss that empties himself back into you.  You swallow him down.

[ao3feed-buckybarnes]

Alternate-Captain America Civil War Bunker Scene

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2Jyd2oH

by RedRite

Title says it all. It's a what if based on the scene in Siberia. It's probably not completely accurate in the beginning and it's definitely not compliant at the end. Again warning - not a happy ending and there is a major character death.

Words: 861, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel, Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Iron Man (Movies)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Major Character Death

Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, The Soldier, Helmut Zemo, Friday (Marvel)

Additional Tags: Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Tony Stark-centric, Tony Stark Feels, Team Cap Critical, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Not A Fix-It, Warning-Not a happy ending, Probably a Civil War Team Iron Man, One Shot

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2Jyd2oH

[redmyeyes]

more.

Tim, drunk, was a study in contradictions. He could be as fiery as a housewife and petulant as a teenaged boy, or, like now, loose-limbed and soft, as he let Hawk drink and drink and drink from his mouth, his face cradled in Hawk's hands. So soft. Pliable as warm putty, the way he leaned bonelessly forward to let Hawk worship.

Around them, the chatter of The Cosy Corner was distant and muted, as though they were underwater. Tim's mouth was soft and open, his tongue lazy, and Hawk had long ago lost all track of time. What did it matter? In this moment, Hawk felt like he could keep kissing Tim forever. What a luxury it was to forget.

More than the alcohol, Tim seemed drugged, thick lashes fluttering as his eyes refused to open. His arms hung heavy by his sides, as if he had no energy—no purpose—for anything other than this. Hawk had never seen anything like it. There was no one like this boy, no one so responsive. No one so easily sent down, beneath the fog he was currently under. Hawk groaned into Tim's mouth, diving deeper as though he could suss out the contradictions of him by taste. That strong, fiercely intelligent, passionate mind. This willing submission. A gift. The boy was a gift. So ready to obey, even from the moment they'd met. So instantly receptive.

Hard enough in times like these to find a quick fuck. Harder still to find someone willing to accept the kind of control Hawk liked to dish out. This wasn't just willingness. This was a gift, offered up like something sacred. He was a delight, a rarefied breed, willing and responsive and god, Hawk could drown in him, he really could. This boy. His boy. His Skippy.

"You would drop to your knees and blow me right here if I told you to," Hawk said, marveling at the realization. He nipped at Tim's lower lip, sharp, then bit down and pulled back, so that Tim was dragged even further out of his chair towards Hawk.

"If I told you to get under the table and keep my cock warm. I could be having dinner with Ike himself, and you'd be on your knees blissed out of your mind, mouthing at my cock just like you're mouthing at my tongue now. Utterly shameless." The words were murmured between soft licks and nips and still Tim had not opened his eyes. He did, however, make a barely audible keening noise that made Hawk grin, feral and predatory. "Like that idea, don't you. Like being my shameless boy."

Here, he pulled back, just enough to focus on the soft angles of Tim's face. The boyish fullness of his cheeks and lips. His nose and his ears were too big for his face, by classical proportions. His grin too wide, his hair a foppish mop that refused to be tamed. His eyes, when they opened, slow-blinking at Hawk in confusion through his thick glasses, were simply brown. A brown that, when his glasses were removed, became rich chocolate pools that glittered with playfulness and softened with fondness. His mouth, always so alive, twisting up into a wry questioning smile as Hawk drank him in. His boy. "Shameless," he said again softly. "You are, aren't you." A soft press of lips just below the rim of his glasses. "Without shame." A kiss to the opposite cheek. "Because you want whatever I'll give you."

Back to the other side, behind his ear, to that spot that made Tim's pulse race and his breathing come fast. Lingering sucks and soft nips as he worked his way down Tim's neck, but never enough to mark. How he wanted to though.

Hawk pulled back again, taking Tim's chin in hand and giving it a gentle shake. "Tell me," he said, and watched Tim's eyes flutter slowly open.

"I want it," Tim breathed, sounding half-delirious. Fascinated, Hawk slid his thumb over Tim's lips, watching as his tongue darted out to lick at the pad, then drew the thumb between his lips to start suckling.

Mesmerizing. Hawk was mesmerized. He allowed the indulgence for a moment, then drew his thumb out shiny-wet and tapped Tim's lips in playful reprimand. "Tell me what you want," he corrected. "Be specific, you might get it."

"More. Everything. I want everything," Tim said, breathless, his big brown doe eyes watery and pleading, and, god, if he didn't sound one hundred percent sincere.

Hawk stood, his hand resting heavy on Tim's head, and tilted Tim's neck back so he was forced to look up. "My beautiful boy," Hawk said, combing his hand through Tim's hair. He edged closer, nudging Tim's knees wide as he stepped between them. "Tell me you wouldn't. Every soul in here would turn and watch. The band would stop playing, just to stare. You'd have a captive audience, a full house."

Tim blinked, his eyes darting around as though just now remembering where he was. He licked his lips unconsciously, his mouth dropping open, and Hawk's lips curled into a pleased smile. "My god, you do like that idea. Someday, I'll take you to a place where we can make that happen."

All at once he dropped Tim's head and stepped back. "Up," he commanded, nodding at Tim. Warily, Tim stood, and Hawk let his eyes drift slowly over the reedy length of him, his disheveled appearance, the loosened tie, the ill-fitting brown tweed— and yes, quite the obvious hard-on, tenting his trousers. "Follow me."

Hawk scanned the room out of habit as he walked, not looking back to make sure Tim was following. Up the curving stairs to the second balcony, past the shadowed alcoves with couples scattered among couches and comfy chairs, onto a narrow walkway along the side that overlooked the main floor. Here, he stopped, sliding back against the wall between two large columns. When Tim looked at him in confusion, Hawk simply nodded wordlessly, directing Tim to his knees with a raised eyebrow and quirk of his lips. Well? the look said.

Tim shuddered visibly, darting a quick glance over his shoulder at the room beyond. They were high enough up that they wouldn't be seen from below, pressed back between the columns, but the low murmurs of people chatting, the clanking silverware, the velvet singing underpinning it all—it was all so present, so whole and sharp. And, as out of the way as this spot was, there was always the possibility that someone could walk directly past. Hawk watched Tim take all this in and then turn back to face him, meeting his eyes before slowly sinking to his knees. God, such a good boy.

Tim moved to take his glasses off, and Hawk interceded. "Leave them on," he said, cupping Tim's cheek. "I want you able to see me. Want you to see how hot you make me. All for you, Skippy."

Tim's eyes fluttered like they wanted to close, but he kept looking at Hawk as he worked open Hawk's trousers and pulled him out. His mouth dropped open and his eyes finally closed as he dove in, but Hawk let it slide, the warm wet shock of Tim's mouth too heady to do anything but react. God, his mouth. Inexpert but so enthusiastic. And getting better every time. Sometimes Hawk took his boy's head in both hands, fucked his mouth until he gagged, tears streaming from his eyes and drool from his mouth. Tonight, he made Tim do all the work, one thumb reverently stroking Tim's cheek as his other hand rested heavy on his head. Not pressing, not directing. Just— a reminder.

He tilted Tim's head back until his cock popped out of the boy's mouth, just to see Tim's lips swollen shiny wet and his lust-fogged gaze as he met Hawk's eyes. Tim gave a slow, deliberate lick up Hawk's length, all while maintaining eye contact, and Hawk shook his head, absurdly pleased. "That's it," he growled, low enough to reach Tim's ears alone. He ran his hand commandingly through Tim's hair. That gorgeous thick untamable mop of hair. "Show me how much you want this." Tim dove in again, and Hawk groaned. "Enough to get on your knees in a crowded public bar, huh. You hear them, don't you. Blissfully unaware of all the depravity happening right above their heads."

A minute more of the glorious sucking heat had Hawk spasming, clutching his boy's head and holding him close as Tim swallowed and swallowed around him. God. God. Who needed church when you had worship like this?

Hawk sank heavily against the wall. Tim, still kneeling, sat back on his haunches, hands resting on his splayed knees, his head hanging low. Hawk reached out with one finger, lifting his boy's chin. The look on Tim's face took his breath away. Not guilty, or regretful, as Hawk had supposed, but sublime. Reverent. Tears shining in his eyes and adoration on his face, and all at once Hawk felt the duty of care rock into him like a sledgehammer. He'd gotten in way over his head. Such delicacy of care, wanting not to shatter this beautiful precious fragile perfect boy. Too late. Far too late.

"C'mere," he said softly, nudging Tim's chin up. Tim got to his feet, shaky, and Hawk pulled him in and turned them around so Tim could lean back against the wall as Hawk licked into his open, soft, willing mouth, drinking down the taste of himself as if they had all the time in the world, until the taste was long gone and there was only Tim, his boy, his Skippy.

Slowly he pulled back. He waited for the fog in Tim's eyes to clear before reaching down between them, gripping Tim's cock firmly through his trousers. "Bet you'd like me to do something about this, huh?" he said, his voice barely a murmur. Tim keened, mouth dropping open as he leaned in to be kissed. Hawk indulged him for a moment before pulling back, releasing Tim's cock to grab both shoulders instead, pushing Tim upright and putting a few inches of space between them.

"Well, I'm not going to," he continued. "And you're not going to either. I want you wanting. Be a good boy for me?" He'd meant it to come out a command, but instead it turned soft and questioning. It made him uncomfortable. He didn't like the vulnerability running both ways.

But Tim, glorious empathetic Tim, who always, painfully, seemed to hear the undercurrents beneath Hawk's words despite Hawk doing his best to hide them, said simply, "I will. For you. For you, Hawk. I will." And leaned forward through Hawk's resisting arms to kiss him again.

[redmyeyes]

the gold of the dusk and the dawn

for @fellow-travelers-events Valentine's event: love language

The restaurant was dazzling. Tim could hardly breathe as he took in the spectacle—intimate lighting, candles and a single rose on every table, dozens of happy couples dressed to the nines and gazing adoringly at their partners. And were they to be one of them? It seemed unreal. He stood to the side as Hawk spoke to the maître d', trying to look broken-hearted, as Hawk had instructed. They spoke in murmured voices, but Tim caught the words “nephew” and “ended the engagement” and “table in the back, away from all the happy couples”, all delivered with Hawk’s easy charm.

They were escorted to a sectioned-off area that held only a handful of tables—a few couples and two parties of four. The room was able to be closed off entirely to host private functions, but the two sets of double French doors currently stood open to the main floor, making the space feel both inclusive and secluded at once. Quieter back here as well, away from the buzzing chatter of the tightly packed tables out front, and Tim let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Their table was set against the back wall of exposed stone, and between that and the flickering candlelight, it felt to Tim as though he were in a cozy mountain hideaway.

He threw Hawk an incredulous look across the table, too stunned to speak, and Hawk’s lips curled into a pleased smile, his eyes locked on Tim as he fished cigarettes from his inner jacket pocket. “Let’s see if we can do better this time, huh?”

Tim huffed out a laugh despite himself. Their last attempt at a public dinner together had been one of the most painful experiences of his life, not to mention humiliating, as he’d stormed out of the restaurant in tears. He seemed to do that a lot, where Hawk was concerned. The night hadn’t ended badly at all though. Tim flushed, remembering tied hands, overwhelming sensation, and tenderness, afterwards. Hawk smirked, as though he could read Tim’s thoughts, and took a long drag of his cigarette, blowing out plumes of smoke with a smile.

“How did you even— Hawk— what are we doing here?”

“Who says men can’t have dinner together, right?”

“On Valentine’s Day?”

Hawk grinned. “Is it Valentine’s Day? I didn’t realize.”

[redmyeyes]

...then why can't it be everlasting?

Fond, is the way Hawk feels about Tim Laughlin. He is fond of the boy. It was fondness that had him making mooneyes at Tim as he talked through his endless relatives, and it’s fondness that has him slinking back to Tim’s apartment on the night of the Executive Order, trying to figure out how to apologize. Fun. That’s all it was. That’s all it can be. He’d shoved Tim away with those words, annoyed that he’d had to say them at all, and he repeats them to himself now, as he waits in the bushes across the street for Tim to return home. He’s half-worried he’s missed him in the seconds he’s looked away. It’s better than the alternative—that Tim is out, happily moving on at The Cozy Corner. It’s what Hawk would do. Except that, for some reason, Hawk is here.

When he arrived an hour ago, he’d gone straight up to Tim’s apartment (the front door left open, again), knocked, and spent an embarrassingly long time listening for imagined breathing until he noticed there was no light coming from under the door. Since then, he’s been waiting in the bushes, staring at Tim’s front door. There’s a tidy pile of crushed butts by his feet. He’s not nervous. There’s every possibility that Tim will send him away without letting him get one word in, and he’d have every right to do so. It would be for the best. But Hawk needs to— not apologize. Not explain. He just needs to see him.

A hundred rehearsed approaches, and he still has no idea that the name he hadn’t spoken in over a decade would be the first word out of his mouth. Kenny.

And then a lie. I want to hold you tonight. What he meant was, I need you to hold me. Tim understands though, as he always does, waiting for Hawk to make his way slowly up the stairs after him, arms held open on the bed.

They slot together, tight, then tighter, holding each other, and Hawk inhales the scent of Tim’s skin, eyes clenched, as though he could block out everything in the world that is not this. His mouth scrapes up and down Tim’s neck above his collar, and his hand squeezes between them to tug at Tim’s tie.

“Thought you just wanted to hold me,” Tim says, cheeky as always, and Hawk wants to sob in relief that he’s—that they’re—back to normal. Normal for them. And the fact that he has a normal with anyone puts a lump in Hawk’s throat.

“Always better skin to skin, no?” He ignores the way his voice is thick and choked.

“You’re terrible,” Tim says, but his hands are clawing restless on Hawk’s back.

Hawk undoes Tim’s tie and the first few buttons of his shirt, just enough for him to pull both at once over Tim’s head. The sleeves get caught on Tim’s wrists and his glasses get pulled on top of his head, and the way Tim grins at him has Hawk wanting to keep him trapped like that. Maybe next time. Tonight, he needs Tim’s arms around him. He grins back at Tim anyway, silent promise in his eyes as he slowly unbuttons the cuffs and pulls the shirt the rest of the way off, one arm at a time. Then the glasses come off, followed by Tim’s too tight undershirt, and finally Tim is topless. Hawk scratches through Tim’s chest hair and tweaks a nipple, and Tim gives a delighted (and delightful) little yelp.

“How do you still have your coat on?” Tim asks, pushing it off his shoulders, and Hawk laughs. Why is it so easy with Tim? Always so easy, as long as they’re alone. As long as they’re here, in this room together, the rest of the world locked outside.

Shirtless, then pantless, then finally lying naked, facing each other on the tiny twin bed. Hawk’s never been so grateful for a twin bed in his life. Tim’s arm is around him, and Hawk’s arm is around Tim, and they’re kissing lazily, as though they have all the time in the world. Tim’s fingers are gentle and curious on his back, tracing up and down his spine and circling his scar. With their other hands trapped between them, their fingers intertwine and lock, squeezing. Tim is hard against his hip, but there’s no urgency to their movements yet.

Tim draws back gradually, trailing kisses, just far enough for them to look at each other without their eyes crossing. He says, too gentle, “Tell me about him?”

Hawk tries to pull away, to roll on his back, but Tim won’t let him, his arm firm around him, his hand squeezing Hawk’s. Hawk closes his eyes and exhales.

“Am I—” Tim starts again, and his voice cracks. “Was he— like me?”

That makes Hawk laugh, shattering the lump in his throat. “Not remotely,” he says. Then, after a moment, adds, “but in some ways, yes.” He blinks open his eyes and finds Tim’s stupidly large brown doe eyes staring back at him, bleeding uncertainty.

“His eyes were blue,” Hawk says haltingly, eyes closing again. It’s easier this way.

An hour later, he’s told him everything. About that match during the Junior Tennis Championships—not the one that won them the whole thing, but the one before, after the semifinals, when he’d kissed Kenny for the first time. About the way it’d felt like life and death. I can’t picture you, shy, Tim says, and Hawk rolls his eyes and tells him about how he’d been watching Kenny for a year before even speaking to him. He was really—sweet, he says, and I felt— wrong? Tim finishes for him when his voice won’t work. He says, we couldn’t stay apart after that, and tells him about the times he convinced Kenny to fool around in the school janitor closet and in the stairwell and once in the Vice Principal’s office when he was out for lunch. He was a bit of a closet exhibitionist too, Hawk says, something else you have in common, and Tim’s mouth twists, like he’s trying to be upset and failing. And then Hawk tells him about the time they got caught by Hawk’s dad. Does your mom know, Tim asks, quiet, and Hawk says, it’s not like we talk about it. But I suppose so. Yes. She’d have to. She’d seen him grieving Kenny, even before Kenny was gone. He wonders what she’d make of Tim.

“You know it’s not your fault, right?”

Hawk blinks at Tim. He must have gone silent for too long. He doesn’t want to think about Kenny anymore. He leans forward, and kisses him.

Tim pulls back, laughing, protesting, but Hawk is insistent, kissing him until Tim’s protests have changed to moans, to whimpers, his leg slotted between Hawk’s, their hips rolling together, cocks sliding slick between them. Better. This is better. Better than—I deserted him. and then he died—thinking about betrayal and desertion and the way he’d corrupted Kenny and would corrupt Tim too. Tim had invited him up, but Hawk could have stayed away, and now it’s too late.

“Skippy,” Hawk breathes, desperate, and pulls their joined hands down between them to fist them both together. “C’mon.”

They come together, just like that, foreheads pressed together and sharing the same breath, and their joined hands are sticky and gross and Hawk doesn’t want to move ever again. He licks into Tim’s open, panting mouth, his tongue lazy.

When he finally pulls back, Tim hums contentedly, but then his eyes clear and he says, determined, “Hawk. You know it’s not your fault. Right?”

Hawk rolls onto his back, pulling his gross, sticky hand away and wiping it on his chest. “Fault is relative,” he says. He didn’t put the bullet in him or start the war, but Kenny wouldn’t have been there in the first place if it wasn’t for him.

Tim scoots closer, not letting him escape, draping an arm over his stomach and pressing his lips to Hawk’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault,” Tim says, insistent, and then, “I’m sorry for your loss. Thank you for telling me about him.”

Hawk’s throat swells up, so he doesn’t say anything at all. After a moment, he presses his lips to Tim’s forehead in gratitude, blinking away tears. It doesn’t change anything. But he’s never spoken about Kenny to anyone, and it feels like a piece of the solid mass in his chest has been chipped away, floating downstream. He doesn’t know that that’s a good thing. Too long with Tim and he’ll be a soft, squishy mess, all of his carefully erected defenses eroded. It’s dangerous. And yet he’s still here.

It’s just fondness. It’s not love. He can stop anytime he wants. With that thought echoing in his head, he rolls back into Tim and burrows close, his arm locking tight around him.

[redmyeyes]

the thrill of your sweet embrace

1957

“Do I need to bribe you to get you to come back?”

“No. I knew this was going to happen the minute I opened your letter.”

Hawk, fully dressed but for his overcoat, laces tied on his black Oxfords, looked down at Tim, lounging in just his briefs on the makeshift bed in their private hideaway. First time Tim was here, but already Hawk was thinking of it that way—as theirs.

Three weeks, he had waited—from the day he’d arranged to meet Tim in Foggy Bottom—no, earlier—from the moment he’d received Tim’s telegram and dashed off a letter in response, before that interminable wait to hear from Tim in return. From the telegram to the meeting to three weeks later—to Now, waiting for the refugee office to finish its set-up so that Hawk would finally have an excuse to call him, to invite him ‘round for a congratulatory dinner— except Tail Gunner Joe had had the good grace to die, and Hawk had found Skippy earlier than expected. And all that time, just in case, Hawk had kept fresh milk stocked in the tiny fridge.

And now Tim was lounging on his bed. Their bed. A shabby mattress on the floor of an unfurnished apartment, and more priceless than any suite at the Sheraton.

Lying on his side, head propped up by an elbow, undressed but for his glasses, the watch on his left wrist, white briefs and socks, Tim was the picture of decadence. Everything else had come off in their scrambled haste for skin on skin, after Tim had shoved him onto the mattress. The man who had just fucked Hawk within an inch of his life was staring up at him like— like he’d just fucked Hawk within an inch of his life and knew it. Boy no longer. Beyond that, he looked like he’d orchestrated the entire thing, the chase and the waiting, and— and of course the telegram had been his first foray; he’d led Hawk by the cock and Hawk hadn’t even realized it. And now, having just come not twenty minutes prior, Tim was looking up at him with such heat in his eyes, Hawk felt incinerated.

Unbidden, he dropped to his knees at Tim’s feet, unable to resist leaning over to skim his face up Tim’s leg to his inner thigh where the musky smell of their previous round was stronger. Intoxicating. “My Skippy really has grown up.”

“Skippy,” Tim echoed dryly, threading his hand through Hawk’s hair, “Should you really still be calling me that?”

“What, now that you’ve deflowered me?” Hawk returned, nipping at the elastic band of Tim’s briefs on his upper thigh. He tugged, pulling that side down an inch. “You’ll always be my Skippy, Skippy. Unless—” he looked up, meeting Tim’s eyes as his chin rested on Tim’s hip, “unless you want me to call you ‘Daddy’?” He said it impressively straight-faced, full of mock innocence, just to elicit the wry twist to Tim’s mouth, a smile and frown battling for dominance on his face before the smile finally won out. Hawk grinned back, taking the waistband now between his teeth and yanking down.

“Thought you had a meeting.”

“It’ll wait, I’ll make some excuse,” Hawk said, nosing his way along Tim’s waistband. He continued his trek upwards, lingering in the delicious dip of Tim’s waist, up along his side where he was ticklish, tracing his lips just gently enough over the sensitive skin for Tim’s breathing to speed up. Tim lifted his arm, allowing it, and Hawk continued his crawl over Tim’s body, licking a wide stripe along the edge of his armpit and earning himself a groan. A bite to Tim’s shoulder, nosing him onto his back so he could bury himself in Tim’s neck again, licking and sucking until he was breathless from it, Tim’s head tilted wide to allow him access.

Allow. That he was allowed this. This body to worship. This man to worship, in the only way he knew how.

He made his way slowly across Tim’s neck, and down, lingering on his collarbone, his nipple, worrying it between his teeth, and further down, finally reaching the waistband on the opposite hip. He tugged it down with his teeth.

Hawk settled between Tim’s legs. Back and forth he went, and back, and forth, tugging each side of Tim’s underwear down an inch at a time, as Tim rested back on his elbows and just watched, his breathing barely speeding up even as his cock thickened. Finally Hawk mouthed at Tim’s cock through thick cotton, and Tim let out a tortured little moan. Hawk groaned around Tim’s cock in response, beyond turned on. He felt like he was lit on fire from the inside.

He dug his teeth into the center of Tim’s waistband, lifting it up and dragging it back enough for Tim’s cock to spring free. Then he let it snap. It caught the base of Tim’s cock, and he let out a strangled gasp that wasn’t entirely pain and Hawk grinned, lapping at Tim’s cock in apology and filing the information away for later.

One more tug on Tim’s underwear, Tim lifting his hips to assist, and they were off, slid the entire way down Tim’s long legs and off of his feet. Hawk had not once used his hands. He dove back between Tim’s legs, nosing into the center of him, that heady space between sack and hole. Tim pulled up one knee to give him space.

“Thought you’d had enough of me. For today,” Tim said, and now his words were starting to sound breathy. Good.

“Never enough, Skippy,” he managed, and sucked one of Tim’s balls into his mouth as though starving for it. They’d wiped off quickly after round one, using Hawk’s undershirt, but there was still the heavy scent of sex in the air, and nowhere more strongly than here, right at its epicenter. Hawk wanted to breathe nothing else as long as he lived.

He was still fully dressed. Why was he still fully dressed? Wordless, still mouthing at Tim, he stretched an arm up. Tim, always the clever one, took the hint and undid his cuff. Hawk exchanged one hand for the other, and finally, cuffs undone, Tim was scrabbling at his back, pulling his shirt and undershirt up and off. Hawk had to let go of Tim, but only for a moment. Then his mouth was back, sucking now at the very base of Tim’s cock where it met his sack. The spot which, twenty minutes ago, had ground into Hawk as deep as it could go. Hawk breathed out a shaky breath, overcome and worshiping.

Tim’s hand was roving tenderly over Hawk’s back, as though they weren’t right in the middle of something but already in the gentle slow aftermath. “Clean me?” he said, turning what could have been command into a service that could be offered. A gift. Taking care of his boy. His man. Hawk moaned in assent. Touch was so much simpler than words, in saying what he couldn’t say. Desire didn’t lie.

He’d never done this before, of course, not like this, and he hesitated a moment at the base of Tim’s cock. The smell wasn’t offputting, a deep muskiness that was only a bit stronger than usual, and he knew of other men who liked to be eaten out from the source, so he figured he wouldn’t die from it. After a few slobbery licks it tasted simply like skin, so he settled in to lick and lave away at the rigid length for as long as Tim would let him.

Eventually, although Hawk had yet to put his mouth fully around him, Tim’s breath started coming louder, and faster, the muscles in his glorious thighs tensing under Hawk’s palms. Hawk slowed even further, then eased himself back. “Flip,” he directed, raising one of Tim’s ankles to force him over. Tim threw him a puzzled look but complied, silently rolling over and allowing Hawk to pull him up by the hips until he was on all fours.

Without thinking about it too much, lest he chicken out, Hawk dove back in, licking a wide, wet stripe over Tim’s puckered hole. Tim squawked, lurching forward, then back, then collapsing down onto his elbows. “Hawk?” Hawk did it again, pulling Tim’s cheeks apart with his thumbs, and was rewarded with a long, low moan.

One hand wrapped around Tim’s waist, tugging at Tim’s balls, ignoring his cock except for that brush of knuckles. Tim keened, and Hawk had the courage to dive deeper, nipping and sucking and tonguing and doing whatever he could to draw more of those sounds out of his boy. He lost all track of time. There was only Tim, the full physicality of him, grounding and real to touch, to taste, to smell, sight and sound. Hawk was immersed in him. Subsumed. Consumed.

“Hawk, fuck me, please, please, fuck me—” a steady chanting that Hawk gradually became aware of, as buried as he was. He surfaced slowly, breathing heavily into the small of Tim’s back as he fumbled open his trousers one-handed.

Spit wasn’t lube, but it was better than nothing. He pressed in, in one long, steady thrust, scissoring his fingers to assist, until finally he was seated, flush against Tim, heavy against his back. They collapsed into the mattress together, groaning when the weight of their collapse nudged Hawk even deeper.

Hawk ground in, then rolled them to their sides, grabbing the crook of Tim’s knee and pulling it up so he could slide that fraction deeper. In and in and in and in. Tiny rocking thrusts, grinding deep into that spot inside Tim that made his keening rise to a pitch only dogs could hear. Hawk buried his face in the back of Tim’s neck, one hand pulling Tim’s knee ever higher and the other gripping his opposite shoulder from underneath, pulling him down so that he had leverage to rock deeper. One of Tim’s hands reached behind, urging Hawk closer still, his neck craning back to search for Hawk’s mouth. Hawk obliged with a messy wet kiss, then, panting, buried his face in the crook of Tim’s neck. “Come on. Come for me, Skippy. Come for me—”

Without a hand on him, Tim let out a strangled whimper, his entire body seizing in Hawk’s arms. Hawk could only hold on, as Tim clenched vise-like around him, waves and waves rippling through him as he tumbled over the edge.

When he came to, he was pressed sticky and sweaty to Tim’s back, collapsed on top of him. He tried valiantly to push himself up, and they both groaned at the overstimulation as Hawk slid wetly out.

He collapsed onto his back and reached for Tim, pulling his head onto Hawk’s chest. “Goddamn,” he said, still panting.

“Yeah,” Tim managed, pressing a kiss into Hawk’s chest.

“I’m staying. I can’t move.”

“What about your meeting?”

“Fuck it, we’re in mourning. And we’re— making up for lost time.” He shook his head against the pillow. “God, Skippy. I can’t. I can’t believe how much I’ve missed you.”

Tim burrowed into his side with an agreeable little shimmy, then said, softly, “Same.” His hand was running lightly over Hawk’s chest as though memorizing him by touch. Hawk pressed a kiss into Tim’s forehead, suddenly overcome. But Tim was here, now, in Washington, and Hawk couldn’t feel anything but grateful. They would make it work, this time. Somehow. He could manage everything, and Tim would stay. They would work together, they would be those two pals who just happened to be close friends as well as colleagues, and Hawk was married so they were beyond suspicion. He would take that hit for them both, and Tim would stay and they would make it work. They would make everything work.

He hummed contentedly, squeezing Tim closer. “You know, if it’s like this every time—”

“Every time?”

“—we’ll never get any work done.”

“I don’t want to stay away,” Tim said after a moment, his voice serious. “I don’t want to get over you.”

“I don’t want you to stay away, Skippy. I want you here. With me.”

“And Lucy?”

“Lucy is… necessary.”

“Hawk—”

“I don’t know, Skippy. I don’t know. I don’t— All I know. Is that before I met you my life was— in black and white. And the years since you left were the bleakest I’ve ever known. Worse than after the war, even. To have a taste of color and then to have it ripped from you…”

“You did it to yourself.”

“I know. I didn’t— realize what I was losing. At the time.”

Midday sunlight was streaming through the windows, and for the first time Hawk let himself wonder what it would be like—to have this, not confined to shadows and rushed meetings, but to have Tim as part of his life, out in the open, where anyone could see.

“I don’t want to live like that anymore,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “I don’t want you to not be part of my life anymore.”

“That’s a lot of negatives,” Tim said dryly, but he was smiling into Hawk’s chest.

“I want you in my life, Skippy. I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. Can we figure it out together?”

Tim pressed a kiss into his chest and hugged him close.

[redmyeyes]

superstition

for @wincestwednesdays

On bad nights, Dean takes the car out.  There's no memorial, no resting place, so.

He tried a picture once. After the crossroads but before the third breakdown. A therapist of a friend of Lisa's boss suggested it. Which means his level of fucked-up was enough to warrant four degrees of casual-aquaintance separation. My friend's co-worker's bf is a real mess. Lost his brother, poor guy. Any suggestions? 

Pretty impressive, if he does say so himself. 

So, the picture. You speak to a picture of, of the loved one, she phrased it. Tell them all the things you meant to tell them. You know.

Dean couldn't do it. Can't do it. The one picture he has of Sam is tucked safely away in a cigar box in the trunk, but he can't, still, bring himself to look at it, no matter how old and faded or unfamiliar or different from the way he looked when he—

When.

People think the legend of the crossroads is superstition. What they don't know is, they're right. And wrong at the same time. Started as superstition. Demons just got wind of it, and started taking advantage.

Sometimes you can make a superstition real, if enough people believe. 

That's what he tells Sam in the dark, when he's driven so far out into nowhere on a moonless night that he can almost pretend the shadows to his right engulf a missing person.  Like they're working a case. Like Sam will turn to him in the dark and say, Maybe it's just about finding the right demon to apply pressure, and he'll feel the heat of Sam's breath as the words come or he'll see Sam gesture with his ginormohands out of the corner of his eye. 

Well. Those days when Dean could still pretend are long past, so he mostly just sits silent now.  He's not delusional.  But this is sacred. This ritual. This… communion. Sitting in the dark on the hood with a whiskey.  Talking or not talking. 

Most days, Dean thinks this is the only thing keeping him sane. 

He takes two deep pulls of whiskey, and starts choking when one hits the wrong way. "I am not, shut up," he mutters around a cough. 

So much effort to keep putting one foot in front of the other; he doesn't know how people do it. He needs a project, something all-consuming enough to take his mind off— take his mind out. 

He's trying.  He's trying to put in the same effort to taking care of Ben, to the work, to Lisa, to friendship. All of these half-measures to replace one person and it doesn't come close.  Like filling in blanks with stick figure drawings of a copy of a copy of a picture. 

"Not replacing, you know what I mean," he says to the air.  

"I am trying though, I—"  Another swig of whiskey, it always takes him a minute to warm up to it.  "Today was a bad day, Sammy.  Guess they're all bad days but—"  Dean shakes his head.  He's careful to stay on his side of the hood, to keep staring straight ahead, or up at the stars.  They used to get like this sometimes, whiskey-loosened lips and the dark and the one person in the world who'll actually get what you're saying right there next to you…

"You remember that time in, uh— I dunno, Ohio I think. You woulda been about ten, eleven.  Same age as Ben.  Actually, you probably don't remember.  Woulda been one of a thousand to you, but— I remember it. So clearly, man.  First time I—"  A gulp of whiskey.  "You were out.  Me and Dad were off on a quick recon and got back—quicker than you expected I guess—and you were gone.  This was before Flagstaff, before things got real bad between you and him.  You snuck into the movies or some shit, or maybe you were at the arcade, I don't know. 

"I remember your face when you came in.  You were—happy.  Like, light.  Like a kid. Like, you didn't even get what was about to go down.  Didn't bother sneaking in 'cause you thought you'd done nothing wrong, and Dad was— " He huffs. "You don't need me to tell you how he was, 'cause he always was.  But you started arguing like the stubborn ass you always were.  Are.  And— Sammy, I remember the way you looked at me. Like— pleading for help or backup or— no, not pleading. Like— betrayal. Like I betrayed you. I— I don't know why that stuck with me. That stupid moment from when you were ten, when we've had shit a million times more serious gone down since then."

Dean's silent for a moment, and when he starts speaking again he's forced to clear his throat.

"I kept thinking... if he would just obey.  If he would just listen, just— shut up, sometimes. Just let Dad talk. As if that— was something of value. But you never could.  Always had to have your say, always stood up to him, and I didn't back you up and I kept not backing you up with Dad, and maybe if I'd done better you wouldn'ta left for Stanford in the first place, even though, I dunno man, maybe we were always destined to end up here anyway, but—"  

He cuts himself off and gets his breathing back under control.  Another swallow of whiskey, craving the burn in his throat.

"I saw that same look on Ben's face today.  From me.  He was scared of me, looking at me like— just like you used to look at Dad. Except without your piss-ass stubbornness. " A moment passes before he continues, his voice strained. "It's not just me here, Sammy.  I mean, you begged me to do this. To live this life, and I'm trying, I am, but— it's not just me, okay?  Lisa and Ben, they— you know. I was so messed up when I knocked on their door I'm shocked she didn't call the cops. I came to them. Because you wanted me to and they took me in and now they're just there, suffering, because I can't get my shit together and—"

His gut wrenches. It's a long time before he can speak again, and he has to uncurl himself to do it.

He takes a breath in.

And out.

Sam used to do this when—

Sam used to do this.

"Okay, yeah. Maybe that's a cop-out.  Maybe I just don't—"

He cuts himself off again and sighs, banging his head lightly against the windshield.  He survived forty years in Hell, you'd think he could do Suburbia.

"It's different.  Hell was survivable because I was there to keep you alive."  Not strictly true.  He tries again.  "Hell was… I thought you were okay.  I thought you were okay, and that made it worth something. And even when it wasn't, it was so intense that I— couldn't think.  Couldn't.   And that was a blessing."

I'm not strong enough for this, Sammy.  Not without you.

He can't say those words aloud yet.  To do that would be to admit— too much.

"I don't know how long I can keep doing this," he whispers instead.

Even that admission… it's enough.  For now.  It's enough to get him through the next however many days until things get so bad that he needs to come out here again.  Sam's silence feels like acceptance, and Dean breathes it in.

He's not resigned. Not yet, anyway.  He still hasn't given up hope that there's some way to get Sam out.  But, he knows, the moment that last shred dies is the moment he goes with it.

Until then, he'll keep talking to the dark.

"Call it superstition," he says.

[redmyeyes]

Dear Hawk,

It would have been so easy to stay. To let you take charge, take care, like you were always so good at. I wanted to. You don't know how I wanted to. A bus ticket after fourteen years and I was right back there. We were right back there. Except of course how we weren't.

I wanted a taste of who you are now— a father, husband. I wanted to know the twelve-year-old version of you that lived on in your son. I watched through the window as you danced in golden light, and in that moment felt such a vicious stab of jealousy I thought I deserved nothing good to ever happen to me again. How was that love, to deny you an obvious source of joy and comfort, just because the source was not me nor mine? When I realized that they, too, were only allowed slivers of you, I didn't know who I felt sorry for more—them or you or me or the whole sorry lot of us together. It put things in perspective. How embarrassing, to be competing with a twelve-year-old for your affection. No matter how much we wanted to pretend that you had room enough for both.

You probably think this was a drastic measure to take, even for me. Lock myself up for the next decade, just to keep myself away from you. Let me assuage your guilt and ego both: yes, but only in part. You don't want me to martyr myself to a cause? This is the greatest cause I can think of. I can't be around you without losing myself. I won't be responsible for causing that kind of pain in someone else.

I'm sorry for not saying goodbye in person.

I'm sorry for saying it wasn't real.

Yours,

[redmyeyes]

Pretend

Hawk left the election-night party hungry for brown doe eyes and a wide smile with milk-stained lips.

For a moment, when he had brushed past the boy on his way out, Hawk had been sorely tempted. A single nod, and the boy would've followed him out, Hawk was sure of it. They had locked eyes when Hawk was at the door, and the look of unabashed hope on the boy's face had Hawk nearly breaking every rule he'd laid down for himself. First and foremost, never fuck around in the political circles. Or, as they said in the war, don't shit where you eat. Still. He could've had the boy on his knees right this second. Or pressed against a wall. On all fours… He seemed so young. Hawk might have been his first. What an intoxicating thought. To ruin a boy so innocent.

The boy in the bathhouse, from a distance, had the right look about him. Young, and with his cap pulled low, his ears stuck out a bit, almost like— his. Close up, the illusion faded. Face too pimpled, eyes not nearly as luminous, hair too curly, not the adorable mop of straight brown he wanted. Still, when Hawk gripped his jaw and plundered his mouth, he could almost pretend the the boy's moans were from someone else.

Skippy. The name came to him out of nowhere, memory of the boy toasting him with a full glass of milk playing on repeat in his head. Those wide glasses, the milk, the oversized tweed jacket and bowtie. The boy could've been all of twelve years old except for the way he'd looked at Hawk with such playful heat in his eyes. Christ, the way he'd doubled down on that glass of milk when Hawk had given him an incredulous look. That stubbornness. Flirting, without saying a word. And the way he'd basked in Hawk's attention, like he was lit up from inside.

"Your place. Now," he growled into the substitute's mouth. He could pretend, for a little while.

It was too easy to get the kid to take him home. Hawk wanted more of a dance. He wanted protests of, I could never, maybe demands that he be taken to dinner first. As if that were the way of things. Still, the kid was willing, and he got out of his clothes fast, and soon enough Hawk was thrusting into him from behind, as the kid gripped the bedposts.

His Skippy would be tight, not prepared in advance like this grifter. Hawk would have to prep him slow. He'd keep the boy on edge for hours as he worked him open. He'd look at Hawk with those big, wet eyes and beg and beg and beg and Hawk would finally relent, pushing inside so slow as Skippy clawed at his back, his back arching, his eyes clenching shut and Hawk would pause until those eyes opened again, whisper, look at me, keep looking, and he would hold him close, keep grinding in and in and in, breathing each other's air open-mouthed until the boy was moaning and clenching and shuddering and—

Hawk slammed home one last time as he shuddered through his own release, then pushed the kid off him and onto the bed. He was pretty sure the kid had come. He didn't much care.

Hawk sat on the edge of the bed and fished out a cigarette as the kid cleaned up behind him. Outside, the world was dark and silent. Skippy would probably be asleep by now, if he wasn't still at the party. He probably said his prayers like a good Christian boy before he went to bed. Hawk wondered if his face had crossed the boy's mind tonight as he lay there trying for sleep. If he'd touched himself, imagining what could have been.

Hawk took a puff of his cigarette and blew out acrid smoke. Stupid to think about. Fuck, the high always faded so damn fast.

Behind him, the kid started yammering, and Hawk pulled on his clothes, eager to make an exit. Better to forget. Better, always, to forget. To move on as quickly as possible. That was how you survived in this world.

Still, as Hawk shrugged on his jacket and made his way down the lonely nighttime street, he paused and looked up at the sky. The stars were obscured by clouds and light pollution, and for one painful heartbeat he yearned to see them. He thought, if he did ever see his Skippy again, he might have to take it as a sign from a god he didn't believe in, and act.

[redmyeyes]

Mad about the Boy

I know it’s stupid to be mad about the boy. I’m so ashamed of it, but must admit the sleepless nights I've had about the boy…

— Noël Coward

It shouldn’t have made Hawk so giddy. Missing Tim’s birthday should have made him ashamed of himself, letting the triviality of complete career ruin get in the way of the fun they’d been having. Instead, he felt stupidly giddy, fifteen and sick at heart with his first crush, because, according to Marcus, Tim had noticed. Which meant that Tim had expected Hawk to win him back, despite his principles and high-minded speeches and his “last dirty thing I’ll ever do for you” and his slamming the door on the way out. Silly, stubborn boy. He could have come to Hawk himself instead of running to Marcus, and Hawk would have let him apologize. Probably. He was generous that way. Especially when the apologies involved Tim on his knees.

Hawk had been planning on getting Tim out of his head this weekend once and for all, replacing him with multiple quick fucks. Multiples of multiples. This was a numbers game. Quantity over quality. That was what he’d told himself anyway, despite how the idea rang hollow, and despite the way he���d been unable to get Tim out of his head for one minute over the past four weeks.

But the way he’d latched onto the idea of taking Tim to Rehoboth Beach instead, once Marcus had inadvertently let him know it was a possibility, had Hawk realizing he was well and truly in over his head. Of course it would have been much easier to let this break be a clean one. To separate entirely, go back to conquests that were much easier let go of. Easier, and safer, and a hell of a lot less confusingly painful. So why the hell was he so giddy?

The look of unadorned shock on Tim’s face when he opened the door out of the judicial session and found Hawk standing there made all the uncertainty worth it. He was adorably flustered in that squirmy, self-conscious way of his, trying badly to hide it and to hold onto his anger. Readable as a picture book. Hawk’s heart swelled with delighted affection. Why did he ever think this was a good thing to be giving up? He wasn’t Catholic, and this wasn’t Lent. Besides, he always had enjoyed a bit of measured risk.

“Where are we going?” Tim asked as he slid into Hawk’s Ford precisely fifteen minutes later.

“You’re late, Skippy,” Hawk admonished, teasing, and was rewarded with the look of hot affront on Tim’s face.

“I don’t have— a change of clothes, you know. I don’t have anything to sleep in.”

“That’s a problem?” Hawk asked mildly as he glided the car into D.C. traffic. Not quite early enough to beat the rush. He’d wasted time coming to get Tim.

“You make presumptions,” Tim said, but he was grinning.

“You’re already in my car,” Hawk pointed out, grinning back.

“Why now, why— it’s been four weeks.”

“It’s come to my attention only yesterday that I missed your birthday. Can you legally drink now, Skippy?”

“I’m twenty-three,” Tim said, with a look of rebuke only someone in their early twenties would have for being mistaken as younger. Hawk rolled his eyes.

“What did you end up doing? On the day,” he clarified at Tim’s confused look.

“I… nothing special,” Tim said after a moment. “Mary…” he started again, and trailed off, and Hawk felt something tighten in the pit of his chest. He darted a glance over, but Tim was staring out the window. “We thought it best we not be seen together right now. For verisimilitude.”

“Right,” Hawk said, clearing his throat. It was for the best, he reminded himself. Losing Mary would have been crushing for Tim, of course. The two had gotten close quickly, and from what Hawk had gathered, she seemed to be the only close friend Tim had in the city. Every time Tim spoke of her, his eyes had glowed with genuine warmth and affection. Every time Hawk saw Mary in the office, he was treated to a look of badly concealed rebuke. Even seeing her every day, Hawk had not once thought about what the loss of her friendship would mean for Tim. He felt uncomfortably ashamed of that now.

“I talked to my mother,” Tim continued with a shrug. “The family is doing well. Except for Uncle Ronald, who apparently needs to be locked up for his own good. She says.”

Hawk gave a grunt of acknowledgement and concentrated on the road. They sat in strained silence in the slow-moving traffic for the next ten minutes, while something incongruously upbeat and poppy played at low volume on the radio. At last they made it out of D.C. proper, hit the parkway and sped up to a decent cruising pace, at which point Tim turned to him with that too familiar look of determination in his eye and asked again, “Why did you come get me?”

Hawk sighed. Tim never was one to let things go when he got an idea stuck in his head, and here they were stuck in a car together for the next two hours. Hawk reconsidered whether this had been the best idea, after all. He said, “Maybe I wanted to give you a present.”

“You didn’t even know it was my birthday.”

Hawk looked over at Tim, and back, and back again. The looks lasted longer than they should have, given that he was driving, but all he wanted was to drink Tim in. He’d brought his camera. He wished he could immortalize this moment, too: the adorable pout on Tim’s face, mixed with that fierce determination and equal parts hope and hurt in his eyes. It was a potent cocktail, and it tugged at Hawk’s heart. “You want me to say I missed you? I missed you. I missed you, Skippy.” Then, more truth slipping out as he saw the skepticism still on Tim’s face, “Thought maybe you were too high-principled to ever speak to me again.”

That seemed to settle something, Tim’s face twisting into that smile he sometimes got where he seemed on the verge of tears. “Hey, c’mere,” Hawk said, and stretched his arm along the back of the bench seat to pull Tim towards him. It hit him only then, as Tim slid closer and collapsed into him with a little moan, that they hadn’t touched in four weeks. He buried his nose in Tim’s hair, sinking into the comfort of the familiar smell even as he tried valiantly to keep one eye on the road. “God, I have missed you, Skippy.”

Tim settled closer with a contented little shimmy, head pillowed in the crook of Hawk’s shoulder as Hawk’s hand combed through his thick hair. Tim’s hand skimmed over the fabric of Hawk’s shirt, slipping inside Hawk’s jacket as though he couldn’t help himself. “Tell me,” Hawk said, tilting Tim’s head back to give his forehead a quick kiss, “what does my boy want for his birthday?”

“Am I still? Your boy?”

The question sent heat lancing straight through Hawk, especially with the slow-blinking wide eyes that accompanied it, and he shifted to accommodate the sudden rush of blood south. His hand tightened on the wheel. Thank god for automatic transmission and a surprising lack of traffic on this rural two-lane highway. His voice dropped an octave as he answered roughly, “If you want to be.”

Tim’s hand continued to rove over Hawk’s chest with the barest pressure. His eyes didn’t leave Hawk’s face. “I ask Marcus about you sometimes. When I can’t help myself.”

It was said so easily. Tim had this way of stating the most vulnerable, damning things as simple truths. Like it didn’t even hurt him to be that open. Maybe it was the habit of confession. Hawk wondered what else he could be made to confess. Then his expression darkened. What else he could be made to confess could get them both into a world of trouble. That’s what had gotten them into this whole mess in the first place: Tim’s inability to lie. He shook it off. Tim would learn eventually. He’d have to, if he wanted to survive. Until then, Hawk would keep them both safe. And in the meantime there was no sense in not taking advantage. “What else can’t you help yourself from?”

Tim pulled back a little. “You’re making fun of me,” he said, but he sounded unsure.

Hawk nodded significantly at his lap, where his erection strained at his trousers. “Does it look like I’m making fun of you? It’s a long drive, Skippy. Maybe I just want to hear about how you touch yourself at night, imagining me there with you. What kind of things do you imagine? Confess.”

That last got a reaction, a shuddered breath that Hawk felt on his neck, followed by a catlike flick of Tim’s tongue. “You and your presumptions.”

“Mhmm, so you’ve been celibate this whole time, then.”

“What about you?” Tim said, poking Hawk in the side and eliciting an undignified yelp. “I know you haven’t. And I know you’ve used more than your right hand.”

“Didn’t expect me to wait for you to come knocking down my door, did you, Skippy?” Hawk shrugged, easy. “I have been known to indulge, on occasion. Did you want to hear about my hollow bathhouse conquests?”

“If they’re hollow, then why—”

“Same reason you’re not celibate, I imagine. Because… it’s better than nothing.”

They were silent for a moment, Hawk moody with things he didn’t want to be thinking about, and Tim’s expression gone contemplative. Then Tim relaxed into him again and said, hesitant but deliberate, “I do think about you.”

Hawk hummed in approval, the moodiness swept away like clouds before sun. “Oh? Do tell.”

“I think about… the night of Alsop’s party. Before the party. When you… when you made me—”

“You like to be made to do things,” Hawk said, which felt true even if it had been Tim calling the shots that entire night.

“How did you know? I didn’t know.”

Hawk considered that. “Didn’t know. Had a sense, maybe. That you’d be… receptive. Little things. Straight away, election night, you let me order for you. A lot of men wouldn’t. They’d get offended or put up some macho bluster… You gave me your number when I asked. And then that first night, our first real night…” he shrugged. “I like being in control. And you seemed so eager to please.”

Tim flushed, a heat that Hawk could feel as his fingers skimmed over Tim’s cheek. “You make me sound like such a, a—”

“Didn’t mean it as an insult, Skippy. Nothing gets me hotter than an eager boy.”

Tim turned his face into Hawk and shuddered out a heavy breath. His hand was rubbing firmer circles now over Hawk’s chest. “It’s not about being forced, or made to do things, it’s… you told me what you wanted and that made it easy. I could do it and I liked… seeing how far I could push before you cracked. I like making you lose control.”

“Better watch it, Skippy. Making me lose control already and we’ve got a fair bit of driving to do.”

Tim’s hand had slid down to Hawk’s thighs, and was now inching upwards, skirting the area where Hawk wanted him most, of course. “Does that— is that a turn on for you? Trying to hold on to your composure while you’re losing it?”

Hawk blew out a measured breath, eyes firmly on the road, as Tim’s hand slid up his inner thigh, into the junction between thigh and hip, and started kneading. Still not where he wanted him. His foot had gone heavy on the accelerator, and he eased the car back to fifty. “You’re playing a dangerous game, boy.”

“Answer the question.”

Hawk darted a quick glance over, and Tim’s eyes glittered, locked on his face. Hawk grinned, predatory. “Alright then. Just remember who started this.” Another slow exhale to get his pulse under control and he eased off the gas again. His hand threaded gently into Tim’s hair from the nape of his neck. “Take me out.” When Tim hesitated, he added, “Don’t start something you can’t finish, Skippy. Do it. Or get back on your side of the car.”

A moment’s pause, then Tim obeyed, undoing Hawk’s belt, and then trousers, one-handed. Hawk tilted his hips to make it easier. He wished he had a cigarette. And another hand. Hawk was barely uncovered, only a few inches of him peeking out from the waistband of his boxers, but it was enough that it would be a challenge to cover up quickly if anything happened. “Go on, then,” he said.

Tim met his eyes, as if gauging what Hawk wanted, then licked his lips seemingly unconsciously and lowered his head.

That first touch of wet heat and suction had Hawk bucking up into Tim’s mouth. “Ahh— slow down, Skippy. Slower. That’s it,” he sighed as Tim eased back, mouthing wetly at the head of his cock. “Settle in, that’s it.”

Tim settled into his lap, as Hawk grazed the backs of his fingers over Tim’s cheek. “Now take yourself out.” There was a muffled moan as Tim nosed deeper, but he complied all the same, clumsy fingers fumbling at his own trousers. His other hand slid behind Hawk to grip Hawk’s left hip. “I don't want to see your hand stop moving,” Hawk said once Tim had gotten himself out. The head of Tim’s cock was shiny wet and dripping, challenging Hawk to keep his eyes on the road.

“Wanna make me lose control? See how long you can keep us here. On the brink.” Tim moaned around Hawk’s cock, his hand speeding up. “Love this, don’t you? You’re so hard just from sucking me off. Bet I could make you come untouched. Something to play with later. Ah— easy, easy.” That last was in response to Tim taking him deep, his throat convulsing around him with blissful pressure as he swallowed.

“God, Skippy,” Hawk breathed, forcing himself to relax. “You drive me crazy.” His hand moved from Tim’s cheek to his throat, squeezing gently. He could feel himself, inside. Tim moaned again in answer, his hand still moving. What a picture he was, his head buried in Hawk’s lap, hair a mess, glasses askew, body sprawled and twisted on the white leather, cockhead angry red as it peeped between his moving fingers. “I could keep you here for hours if I wanted. So hard, for so long, until you’re sobbing for me to let you come.”

Tim made an urgent noise, his hand stilling on his cock as he squeezed tight. “I said keep moving, Skippy.” Hawk’s cock slipped out of Tim’s mouth as he gulped for air, but his hand did start moving again, slowly.

“Hawk,” Tim panted, turning his name into a strung-out needy groan.

“Need some help there?” Tim shook his head, his mouth finding Hawk’s cock again, and Hawk blew out a heavy breath. “That’s right, want to do it all yourself, don’t you, boy? Get me hard, make me come, make me lose control.”

Hawk had slowed down enough that a car was about to overtake them on the left. He gave the family of four a sedate nod as they passed. “Imagine what they’d think if they could see you,” he murmured, hand stroking Tim’s throat. “My shameless, needy boy.”

Tim’s high-pitched keen was a thing of beauty. Up ahead, the family station wagon was taking an exit, leaving a long, open straightaway. Enough. “C’mon,” he said, his hand sliding into Tim’s thick hair, urging him faster. Tim’s hand on himself sped up, his other hand digging into Hawk’s hip hard enough to bruise.

Hawk’s head dug into the seat back as he panted open-mouthed, every muscle in his body tensed. The speedometer was creeping past eighty, so he took his foot off the gas and planted it, forcing his eyes open as Tim bobbed in earnest now. “That’s it, come on, c’mon. Make yourself come, I want you coming with my cock in your mouth, knowing you love it.”

Tim spluttered, convulsing in on himself as Hawk flooded his mouth. Didn’t let any spill though, good boy, swallowing around Hawk and then lapping, suckling, as they collapsed together, boneless.

Hawk sank back in the seat, laughter in his heart and bubbling up through his chest. “God, Skippy. God. The way you make me—”

Head pillowed on Hawk’s lap, hand curled protectively against his own stomach, Tim turned his face to the sky and laughed in wild, pure joy.

[redmyeyes]

Dear Hawk, (chapter 1, on ao3)

Dear Hawk,

             It would have been so easy to stay. To let you take charge, take care, like you were always so good at. I wanted to. You don't know how I wanted to. A bus ticket after eleven years and I was right back there. We were right back there. Except of course how we weren't.

             I wanted a taste of who you are now — a father, husband. I wanted to know the eleven-year-old version of you that lived on in your son. I watched through the window as you danced in golden light, and in that moment felt such a vicious stab of jealousy I thought I deserved nothing good to ever happen to me again. How was that love, to deny you an obvious source of joy and comfort, just because the source was not me nor mine? When I realized that they, too, were only allowed slivers of you, I didn't know who I felt sorry for more—them or you or me or the whole sorry lot of us together. It put things in perspective. How embarrassing, to be competing with your children for your affection. No matter how much we wanted to pretend that you had room enough for both.

             You think this was a drastic measure to take, even for me. Lock myself up for the next decade, just to keep myself away from you. Let me assuage your guilt and ego both: yes, but only in part. You don't want me to martyr myself to a cause? This is the greatest cause I can think of. I can't be around you without losing myself. I won't be responsible for causing that kind of pain in someone else.

I'm sorry for not saying goodbye.

I'm sorry for saying it wasn't real.

                          Yours,                           Tim

[redmyeyes]

Dear Hawk, (chapter 4, on ao3)

                                   Jan 21, 1969

Skippy,

What did you write me? What does Lucy know, and how long has she known it? At least tell me that, before I humiliate myself confronting her.

Are you blackmailing me into honesty? I’ve never lied to you. Omitted maybe, but never lied. Not about anything important.

Here’s a truth. I turn 50 this year. The last time we saw each other (before the last), I was the same age as you are now, which is unsettling to think about. It feels like an eon has passed, and yet I'm frozen in place.

I keep waiting… for things to start making sense. My life. The choices I’ve made and what they’ve led to. Always in pursuit of that “goal”, and now… not only do I not know what the goal is anymore, but it feels like every single day is a step in the wrong direction. I am treading water. Barely. Seeing you again made that painfully clear.

You asked me once if I liked my life this way, and I thought I had it all figured out. The goal, the plan, the path to freedom. How is it that I'm eleven years ahead of you and still running to catch up?

Skippy. This is the fifth letter I've started. The others were full of misdirection, innuendo and half-truths. Let this be honest enough. You already have me stripped to the bone.

You do know me. I wonder if I ever knew you, or just the person I wanted to see. So much about you surprised me, when we saw each other in November. My memory of you has stayed frozen in my mind. Instead, you’ve changed, you’ve lived, and I’ve found myself cursing those lost years. We've missed so much. We don't have to keep missing it.

Tell me about — anything. Your mentor. How you met. Your time in Seminary. Your life now. What you eat for breakfast and what time you sleep and what you’re reading. I don’t have faith in the prison library, so name something and I’ll send it. I want to know you. Everything about you. I miss you telling me about your family, even if I was too distracted sometimes to listen.

Yours.

p.s. I’m sending this along with the book you “loaned” me ages ago. Consider this a loan in return. Keep it safe, I expect it back.

[redmyeyes]

My baby just-a wrote me a letter

Hawk pulled out the familiar cherry blossom paperweight from its hiding spot in the back of his locked desk drawer. He had moved it when Lucy offered to help him pack up his apartment, not wanting her to question its place of honor on the mantle. His thumb brushed over the plastic, wiping away imagined dust. The memories it evoked were tangled now: sweet Kenny, and his shy smile when he picked it out, and again when he had pressed it into Hawk's hand, saying, remember me, tangled now with Tim, who had been immediately drawn to the strange piece on the mantle on his first visit.

Tangled further with the merging of the two, with Hawk saying Kenny's name for the first time in a decade, all because Tim had asked. The way his heart had cracked with that confession of betrayal, never before spoken aloud. The way Tim and his endless empathy had rushed in to fill it, at a time when they would have been much better off separating. The way they had simply held each other all night on Tim's rickety twin bed. All of that was now contained within this small piece of cheap plastic. Hawk was deep in this state of reminiscence when he heard the whisper slide of paper at the door and thought immediately, achingly, Tim.

Which was nonsense.

Still, he walked to the door of his apartment and saw, slid underneath, an envelope. Heart pounding, he bent to pick it up, noting the familiar scrunched cursive. His mind blank, his thumb brushed over the letters of his name for a precious wasted moment, before he had the presence of mind to open the door and look out. Empty. He rushed to the window. And there, just exiting the building onto the street and towards a waiting taxi cab, was Tim.

As though summoned, Tim turned, looking back over his shoulder, then up, and their eyes met. Hawk's heart was in his throat. He couldn't move, frozen with shock. Unthinking, his hand reached up and pressed to cool glass. Tim's mouth quirked up in that too familiar, pained half-smile, and he raised his hand in response. Then he turned, got in the car, and was gone.

The sight of Tim, after all this time—what had it been? a year and a half?—it was like being dropped in ice water. He'd looked— older. Maybe it was the uniform. Maybe it was the bangs, now swept to the side neatly instead of the mop of untidy hair he was familiar with. And yet he had looked, painfully, the same. And all of those tangled feelings, inadequately buried, came rushing back to life.

It took Hawk a full frozen minute to remember the envelope in his hand, and then he couldn't open it fast enough, scrambling for the letter opener still, thankfully, on his desk.

Dear Hawk, it started, and Hawk had to set it face-down on the desk, backing away a step and eyeing it as though it were a scorpion set to sting. He breathed out. Then he poured himself a whiskey, grateful for his foresight in saving the bar for last. He shook himself off, cursing himself for the nerves. It was just a letter. One single sheet of paper, with nothing on the back. It was probably just— Swearing again, he sat down, flipped the sheet over, and tried to absorb it all at once. He caught the I still love you first and shut his eyes. One more slow, deep inhale and exhale to steel himself, then he opened his eyes and began to read, slowly, from the top.

⸻

Dear Hawk,

       I went into the army to get away from you. I thought time and distance would help. But it hasn’t. I still love you. But I’m hoping to find something else… maybe a deeper faith someday… to take your place.

                     Yours,                      Tim

⸻

Well. Not writing back was not an option, despite the fact that Hawk had no idea where to address a letter to Tim. What he did have though, was Tim’s old contact information somewhere on file with HR, from which he could get the phone number of his parents, to whom he could call with a made-up excuse about— old tax files or something and request a forwarding address, and then, easy peasy, a confidential stamp on a manilla envelope and the letter slipped in between some boring-looking office files, and done. Letter sent.

Without pausing long enough to consider whether this was a horrific idea or just a very bad one, Hawk picked up his pen and started to write.

⸻

Dear Tim,

       I had assumed that the promise you’d extracted when last we spoke was a mutual one. Now that you’ve broken it, I hope you’ll forgive me for not holding up my end.

       I wouldn’t think replacements necessary, for someone with as big a heart as yours. Hold both. I have.

       I’d like to see you again. If you can. Either way, I’ll be looking for your response.

⸻

Here, Hawk paused. He wasn’t sure where he should have Tim write to. The apartment would soon be sold, the office was out of the question, and Lucy’s house—his house—was a risk, despite the innocuous content. Still, it was the best of the three. He’d just have to lay the groundwork first, tell Lucy he’d just heard from an old Army buddy, that he might be expecting a letter or two back, and then try to intercept the rest.

That decided, he added the house’s address to the letter, then paused again, debating how to sign. Tim had signed his, Yours. Generic and meaningless, to anyone who wasn’t Hawk. Hawk shook his head, then took up his pen again and signed,

                     Always,                      Hawk

[redmyeyes]

some kind of murder

for @wincestwednesdays

"How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it's some kind of murder?"

― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

You tilt the flask into your palm and wait, jittery, for the last drops to fall. 

There must be some left. A single drop. Just enough to tide you over. It's been days since she's come and she knows you're dry and she's not answering the phone and you even tried praying but demons don't answer prayers either.

Where is she?

A commercial for Heinz Ketchup when you were a kid—there's this girl, pretty girl in a sundress, with curly brown hair you wanted to sink your hands into, even then.  She's standing on a fire escape outside an anonymous brick apartment building, her hip leaning daringly against the iron rail.  On top of the world, and no fear of falling.  It's summer.  The breeze rustles her thin dress, revealing tantalizing glimpses of tanned thigh.

She's flirting with this blur of a guy—you don't remember this part well—some guy who wants her ketchup.  Metaphor.  

She extends the bottle over the edge of the fire escape, as though holding it hostage.  One wrong move and the bottle gets it.  And then she smiles, tilts it upside-down invitingly.  You want my ketchup?  Run and claim it.  Blurry guy runs three flights down, just in time to catch the precious falling drops on his bun at the bottom. 

Splat. 

It feels like that, this wait, though the fall is only inches.

It needs to be on your palm before you suck it down. You can't just knock the flask back like whiskey, you need to see it first, to make sure. You've long since stopped thinking of it as what it is. It's simply— necessary.

Wait.

Nanoseconds stretch into eons.  Your focus zeros in on the lip of the flask, a drop of brilliant red hanging there, suspended.

Wait.

When the drops finally fall, 

—lightning, a nine-volt battery to the tongue, an electro-charged cymbal crash, and an immediate, hollowed-out wanting, and you shut your eyes tight against the sudden cacophony of sound and sight, a world on fire—

you inhale them from the palm of your hand like a starved dog, feral and ravenous.

Breathe.

The blue-white lights in this motel parking lot scrape your retinas; the hum of the vending machine next to you amps up to a jackhammer.  And drowning out all the rest is the all-consuming, life-affirming thump of your heart:  da-DUM.  da-DUM.

The taste lingers on your tongue, spicy and dark with undertones of old copper.  You're developing a palate.

You close your eyes to feel the familiar surge of power course through you.  Making you stronger.  If he understood— if he could just understand the necessity of this—the potential—but his thinking has always been so black-and-white.  You need to be strong enough— enough to convince him, to make him see, and then he'll— 

It's her words in your head, her lithe body pressed up against you as she whispers low into your ear—it's okay, Sammy. Big brother would be so proud. 

The voice is far away when it comes, muffled and unimportant compared to the bass drum thump of blood in your veins. When the fog clears, it registers, distant: someone saying your name.  

"Sam."

You spin, wild, and— he's there, Dean, your brother, and for a suspended second, you're elated.  Nevermind that you saw him two minutes ago as you were sneaking out of the motel room (sleeping, his mouth softly parted, arm stretched towards you across the canyon between the beds), for that fraction of a second, every time is the first time. A split soul recombining like beads of mercury.

"Dean," you say, breathless, a smile tugging on your lips.

Then you catch the frown on his face, his crossed arms.  "Dean, hey, I was just—" You clutch the flask in your hand, gesturing with it, then curse your stupidity.  "A soda."

His eyes flick towards the flask then back to you.  His brow furrows.  It could be anger or— "Long time for a soda."  —it's fear.  You're a connoisseur of Dean's expressions.  It's the type of fear he's always tried to hide.  It's worry.  For you.

You're flooded with affection suddenly, and the past horrible year—years—melt away like ice-cream on August pavement. 

—he loves you he cares for you he protects you don't have to worry about a thing—

You're nine years old again, a VHS tape rewinding on triple speed undoing all your mistakes—failure after failure all the way back to—

—and he wants you—

You grin, giddy, something like a giggle escaping your mouth.  It's not anger on his face, but care.  You've always needed his attention on you and in this moment you have it, undivided.  Intoxicating.  

"It's okay, Dean.  You don't have to worry."  You move closer and he moves back, until he's pressed against the dirty concrete wall in the dark alcove between the vending machine and the stairs.  "I'm okay, don't worry."

"Sammy…" A token protest, his arms coming up to press against your chest, but you're familiar with this dance.  He'd needed convincing the first few times, in those early days.  As though he wasn't desperate for it too.

"Dean."  You pour everything into that single word, love and hate and desperation and you see the flicker in his eye as it registers.  He shudders out a breath, his eyes closing, and you move in closer, bending down to nuzzle into his neck.  His pulse beats madly against your lips.

"Dean…"

His hands slide down to grip your hips.  You press him back into the shadows, your blood rushing rushing rushing, and you nose under his chin, inhale his scent.  God, but you have missed this.

You haven't, since— before. Before, before.  Unless you count that never-ending series of Tuesdays where things got— real desperate, for a minute there, but you don't count that, you were out of your head, driven mad.  It can't be counted if only one person remembers anyway, and you thank god, thank god, thank god for that simple fact.

You've missed this, missed him.  Since he's been back he's been so— distracted.  Wary, even.  Almost like— 

It's natural.  Normal.  You've been telling yourself that since the first moment he walked through the door, alive and whole, shocking you so much you barely knew how to respond, your body awkward as it went in for a hug, muscle memory operating without your conscious input.  It's normal.  It's trauma.  Maybe even, still, thinks he's trapped there sometimes.  Of course he's going to be shying away from you, especially with the voice of the devil—hah—whispering in his ear.  You've taken Psych 101.  And you've done your own reading, when you were in college and still thought you could work your way through your own trauma just by understanding the mechanisms of it.  No way through but through.

One of your legs slot between his, easy. "Cowboy legs," Dad had once slurred out when he was drunk. "Made for riding." Dean had flushed pink. 

He's hard against your hip, and the triumph of that surges in you like the— no, better than.  If only you could bottle this…

You're struck suddenly by how much bigger you are, even since last year.  Your bodies slot together in an entirely new way.  You tower over him, encompass him.  Does he like the fact that you're bigger, that you can crush him against the wall and he has no chance of escaping?  His hands are still, not pushing away, but not encouraging either. When you pull back enough to see, his eyes are screwed tight. You nuzzle down further, try to make yourself small, and finally his hands crawl up your back.  Feels like he's hanging on to the edge of a cliff, the way his fingers dig in through the corduroy.

Your room is only two doors down, but the thought of relocating doesn't even enter your mind. To prise yourself from this spot in the shadows of the stairwell seems impossible.

You're connected in this moment, and it's been so long.  So very very long.

You're connected, blood still pulsing loud through your veins, the same that runs through him, except— no, you know you can convince him.  It's making you strong.  It's a tool, just like all the other tools in your arsenal—the guns, the salt, the holy water.  It's not like before, with your ever-increasing powers, where there was a danger of— where the purpose was controlled by— it's different this time.  It's a tool to be used, otherwise—

Otherwise, otherwise.  You can't let yourself think that the purpose has already passed, pulled like a rug out from under you the moment Dean walked—unassisted by you—out of a grave and back into your life.

To think that would be to admit the impossible.  That this is no longer a choice, but a need—

Burrow down, tuck your head up under his chin, you've missed feeling small.  Taken care of.  Didn't appreciate it at the time, of course.  You've been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders for too long, a lifetime trying to prove yourself and you just want to set it down for a second.  Just for a second.

"Sam, stop this."  His voice is ragged, his hands a vice grip around your arms now as you paw against his chest.

Burrow down, burrow in, nose against his sternum.  Worn flannel against your cheek, smell of—leatherwhiskeygunsalt—Him.  That's how it was when this whole thing started, Dean a head taller than you, but you shot up fast.  Your shins ached for months. 

"Getting a soda," he says, echoing your words from a lifetime ago.  Sounds like he's spitting out something foul.  "Taking a phone call.  At all hours of the night.  Sammy, you think I don't know what's going on?"  Then, his hands digging in painfully and his voice dangerously low, "You think. I don't know."

Rage surges up, strangling, and you push it down down down, locked tight, but you've flattened Dean against the wall so hard you hear the breath knocked out of him.  You can't breathe—in sympathy, you think for a moment until you realize his thumbs are in your windpipe, cutting off your air supply.

You fall to your knees, mouth gaping like a fish out of water.  That's the first thing you ever watched die—consciously, anyway—Dad attempting to impart some kind of lesson when you were five or six, hauling a caught trout onto the deck and making you watch as it took its last non-breaths. A moment heavy with solemnity, you remember the proud weight of it, that you were old enough now in Dad's eyes to experience this.

The only thing remaining is that image embedded in your brain—the fish flopping on the rain-weathered wood, the way it wouldn't stop wriggling for what seemed like ages, iron hook pierced through its cheek.

You gaze up at your brother, eyes burning.  The flask goes clattering loud against the concrete—have you been holding it all this time?—as your hands come up to wrap around his wrists.  Not pulling, just— holding. His thumbs inch deeper.  Your mouth gulps for air.

You shove the voice down deeper, the one that wants to rage up against the unfairness of it all—that Dean could die, willingly, sell his soul and leave you alone to deal with the guilt of it, and you can't even— it was justified!  Everything is justified when it comes to saving one another, you thought that was part and parcel of the whole deal.  And yet he's looking at you, he's been looking at you— with disappointment.  Betrayal.  Disgust.  

And the voice you're really trying to ignore—the voice that has a hold on Dean's wrists but isn't making him pull away—is the one that agrees with him.  Your self-worth is so wrapped up in what he thinks of you, tugged on the end of a fishing line with the hook dug right through your chest, yanked between validation and disappointment—and let's be real it's mostly been disappointment—and the you from four years ago that thought you were finally free and clear, on the cusp of a new life, would look at you now and feel… pity.

Pity and disgust, same as the eyes looking down on you now and it would all be warranted because—

Because what you felt, in that instant Dean walked through the door—before the hug, before the thaw of shock, just for a split second, but real and preserved in amber way down deep where you've buried it—was not joy, or gratitude or relief, but— fury.

Because it should have been your win and it was stolen from you.  You were supposed to save him, it was the only thing that would have made things right between you, and what was all this suffering for, if not for that?  The entire summer, getting stronger and stronger, justifying away— everything, because everything was allowed if it was for That, but now—

You were preparing.  You were ready.  And then he just walked through the door.

All of that energy has to go somewhere.

Dean wrenches his hands away with a sob and collapses against the wall, sliding down until his head is buried in his knees, hands fisted in the hair at the back of his head.

You gulp in air, sitting back on your haunches as you stare unseeing at the ground.

You take a deep shuddering breath in, let it out slow.  Force your breathing back to even.  Your blood pounds in your ears.  th-THUMP. th-THUMP.

"You don't know anything," you say, but your voice is muffled under the rush of blood, like you're speaking under water.  That moment in amber, shattered and laid out finally for you to see, has sapped all your energy, your limbs heavy and sluggish.

It changes nothing.  You've already invested too much to back out now.  Sunk cost fallacy.  The term burbles up from the back of your mind, and you almost laugh.  If only you were playing with something as absurd and abstract as money.

You haul yourself to your feet, leaving Dean huddled there on the pavement.  "You don't know anything," you say again louder.

You'll make him understand, or— there is no 'or'.

Somewhere in the far distance, an ambulance wails.

[redmyeyes]

transience

People always ask where you're from. And they don't trust you when you say, I'm not really from anywhere, even if it's the truth. My brother and I used to have whole conversations with people and pretend we were in the circus, or pretend we were orphans, or just practice European accents on people because there's really no reason not to. You're not hurting anyone and they'll never believe you anyway. This one school, we thought we were only going to for a few weeks but we ended up there for three months and Dean had to fake an Irish accent the whole time.

24-hour gas stations at three a.m. are straight out of a David Lynch movie. One of the weirdest feelings is rocking up in the middle of the night, catching a few hours shut-eye because you're too broke that week for a motel, and then wandering into the lurid candy-brightness in flip-flops and sweats and your hair all fucked up, using the bathroom, and then flashing a peace sign at the bored attendant on your way out. Maybe they're used to it, I don't know. Who else uses a gas station at three a.m.? Dean said those years when I was gone and Dad shipped him off on his own, he didn't use a motel once, that whole first summer.

If you get in legal trouble, no one can really do anything to you unless you go back to that county or city or state. That goes double if you're a minor, as long as you don't go back until you're an adult. If you have a fake ID from a different state and they try to run the numbers, they'll almost always assume it's a problem with their system pulling records from another state and just write it down and let you go. That's why most of our IDs were from California. I don't know if Dad had some kind of grudge against the coast or whatever but it's the only one of the lower 48 we never went to. Why do you think I picked Stanford?

If you don't have a shower for a few days, you can always find a restaurant or gas station bathroom with a locking door. Always leave stuff nice so no one notices.

It's possible to eat well on the road, but you have to really really try. And also have more money than you know what to do with. Why buy gas station produce that'll give you diarrhea nine times out of ten when you can just stock up on jerky that'll last you for months? We always kept emergency rations of jerky and gatorade in the trunk. Gatorade is even more sickly sweet at room temperature, but it never goes bad and it keeps the jerky from sticking in your throat.

Carrying extra water is also a must. A lot of motels use gray water and most people don't know about it. If you shower in that, you'll smell like sewage for days.

Sometimes though. Sometimes you'll be flying down one of those endlessly straight desert roads at 120 mph, with the baked-in heat radiating off the dirt in wavy lines you can actually see, and you've been on the road five hours already with another 300 miles to hit before dark, and you'll look over and your brother will give you this grin and cock his head back, and close his eyes and take his hands off the wheel—

And you'll wake up pre-dawn on the side of the road when the sky's just beginning to turn from deepest black to navy to palest pink on the horizon, and you'll exit the car quiet so your brother doesn't wake up, and stretch and piss into the cold desert air with not even a rabbit watching, and feel like you and him are the only two people left on the planet, and you'll think, I'm from nowhere. I'm from here.