And are you coming home tonight?

[maculategiraffe]

I started this scene a while ago, and I just dug it back up because I got a couple of comments on Jer lately that made me think of it. (Comments spawn fic! It's not just an urban myth!) This is the first night Jer spends at Holden and Alix's after Argounov kicks him out.

*runs to catch up on comments*











"I'm going to burn this fucking thing," said Holden as he pulled the white tunic with controlled violence over Jer's head. Jer, having submitted passively to being undressed, waited naked on the edge of the bed as Holden hurled the offending garment into a corner, undressed himself with lightning speed considering his trembling hands, and pulled Jer down to lie beside him on the bed.

"Baby--" His hands moved over Jer's face, slid to his shoulder and into his hair, his gaze taking in every familiar feature, every line he'd watched form in time-lapse over the last two decades. "Jer-- gods, I can't believe you're really--" Mine. A catch in his throat wouldn't let him say it.

"I'm here," said Jer without much affect, watching him back. "Master."

"After all this time. You know how long I've wanted you-- missed you-- wanted to touch you-- gods, and now I can touch you everywhere-- kiss you-- fuck you--" He laughed dizzily. "Get fucked by you--"

"Your little blue-eyed boy doesn't top?" Jer asked coolly.

"Sure he does," said Holden, momentarily arrested at the mention of Yves. "If I want him to. He's great, Jer-- I mean, I know you know him, but you'll like him-- living with him, I mean. He understands-- how important you are to me."

"Am I."

Holden took Jer's face in his two hands, making Jer's eyes meet his. "You know you are, Jer. What's wrong, baby?"

"Nothing, master," said Jer, looking him straight in the eyes.

Holden shook his head and grimaced. "I'm being such an ass. You aren't in the mood for all my--" He gestured vaguely at the air between them. "When did he spring this on you? Did you know he was writing to me?"

"No," said Jer. "I didn't know until Alix arrived to pick me up."

Holden hissed out a few colorful blasphemies under his breath. "Jer, fuck, you must be-- and here I am running my mouth. What the fuck is wrong with him?"

"He said he didn't want to tell me he was writing to you until he'd heard back from you," Jer explained, and added, like a child reciting a memorized lesson, "He didn't want to raise my hopes, or worry me unduly."

"Shithead," said Holden, and Jer almost smiled at him.

"It's not like it came out of nowhere," he said, as if to soothe Holden. "I mean, I can count. And I've got a mirror."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Holden demanded.

"That I'm aware I'm not exactly the prettiest plum on the plate. Master."

Holden furrowed his brow at Jer, wondering whether to laugh or not. It was funny-- but then again, it wasn't.

"You're the only thing on my plate tonight, love," he said, and Jer winced at the last word, his eyes closing, then opened them again, his expression flattening out as if an iron had passed over it. The flicker of pain felt like cold water on Holden's own face.

"Jer, baby," he said quietly, "this is a shitty night for you, I know. That's okay. Just tell me what you need. I can tell I'm doing something wrong."

"You're not," said Jer calmly. "How could you be? You're my owner. There's nothing you don't have the right to do to me."

Holden ignored that. "Jer, you're hurting, and if you need to just-- I'm crazy to fuck you, baby, but I can wait if you need me to. This is all a big shock-- and it's easy for me to just-- Jer? Just tell me what you need, okay?"

"I don't need anything," said Jer, rolling over on his stomach, his head turned away from Holden. "Please, master, take me. I'm here for your pleasure."

Holden stared at the back of Jer's head, the sienna brown hair lightened with gray. "That's how you talk to me, now?"

"You're my master," said Jer, still not looking at him, "and that's how I talk to my master."

"That's how you talk to fucking Argounov," said Holden. "Not-- Jer, come on, look at me. Are you mad at me or something?"

Jer rolled over again obediently and looked at him-- technically, although Holden was far from sure the flat, hard gray eyes were really taking him in.

"What could I possibly have to be mad at you about, master?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Holden, meeting the marble stare, "but you could tell me. Instead of acting like this."

"There's nothing to tell, master. I'm sorry my master is displeased with me. I accept any punishment my master is pleased to give me."

Holden considered this for a few moments, while Jer waited without twitching.

"Is that what you need?" he asked finally. "To get hurt?"

"I told you, master, I don't need anything," said Jer, with just the faintest edge of irritation to his politeness. "I welcome whatever pain or pleasure you give me."

This was so obviously insincere that Holden automatically reversed it and came up with-- "Do you want me to just leave you alone tonight, then?"

"No!" said Jer, the unreadable stare shifting so quickly into naked panic that Holden took in a sharp breath that was nearly a gasp. "No-- please. Not tonight. Please-- I'll-- I'll be-- however you want."

"You be however you need to be," said Holden gently, frightened by the sudden desperation, but strangely relieved that Jer's facade of stony deference had cracked. And if that raw pain and fear was what was behind it, no wonder he was working so hard to keep his shields up. "I won't leave you, Jer, I promise. But-- do you want me to-- not talk?"

"I wouldn't presume to dictate my master's actions," said Jer, the mask back in place as suddenly as it had lifted, "but I thought you wanted to fuck me."

"I do, but not if you don't want me to."

"Of course I want you to, master," said Jer. "My body is yours. What could I want more than to give you pleasure?"

"Jer, don't-- don't do this talk." Holden found himself nearly pleading. "I know it's been a long time and I know it's been rough, but don't make me the enemy. I was-- we were pretty good friends, weren't we?"

"Friends?" Jer repeated, as if trying to remember the meaning of a quaint idiom in some other language.

"Yeah, friends," Holden insisted steadily. "You looked out for me, I looked out for you? We fucked each other senseless at night, or if we were too tired, we just fell asleep together, and you held me when I had nightmares?"

"I remember," said Jer tonelessly.

"So," said Holden. "This is your nightmare, right? Will you let me-- look out for you?"

"Anything I can do for my master is his already," said Jer, "but I'm sorry, master-- I don't understand what you want."

"Fine," said Holden after a moment. "If that's how it needs to be tonight, fine. But I'm sure as hell not going to fuck Argounov's good boy. That's just creepy."

"I'm not Argounov's," said Jer. "I'm yours, master."

"I'm not going to fuck my good boy, then." Holden reached out a hand and stroked Jer's arm. "I'd like to fuck Jer, but I can wait."

Jer was moving, almost writhing, under his hand. "Master--"

"Stop that." Holden's hand went still; Jer's ingratiatingly seductive response to a simple gesture of comfort was profoundly unnerving. "Can I not even touch you?"

"Please," said Jer, and though Holden couldn't tell how much of the sudden desire in his voice was feigned and how much was real, he was almost sure there was real hunger there, if not actually for sex, then for-- something. "Please-- need you."

That much was true, Holden thought, and slowly, reluctantly, he started caressing Jer's arm again, allowing a little of his own desire into the movement. If that was what Jer needed--

"I'm here," he said softly. "I'm yours, Jer."

Jer shook his head, sliding closer with practiced sensuality. "I'm yours."

"That too." Holden wrapped his arms around the other man's body as Jer curled closer, leaning in to kiss his neck. "Jer, hold still a minute. You don't have to try this hard. Check what's poking into your leg right now."

After a startled second, Jer laughed, and Holden thrilled to the sound; Jer actually sounded amused, and not in a calculated yes-master-you're-a-riot way.

"You horny bastard," he said with sudden rough affection. "Fuck me, then!"

"I want to, but--"

"But what? If you can get it up, you can get it in. I'll turn over. You can pretend I'm--"

"I don't want to pretend anything," Holden protested weakly as Jer rolled over and spread his legs. "Jer, are you sure--"

"Will you just stick your fucking cock in my ass, please, master?" said Jer, and Holden, bewildered and amused and disturbed and aroused in more or less equal proportions, reached obediently for the lubricant in the drawer beside the bed.

Jer moaned softly as the first oiled finger slid into him, then the second, pushing back slightly against Holden's hand. Holden coated his own cock liberally before he pushed inside and heard a half-anguished, half-ecstatic cry that he failed at first to identify as his own.

"Jer," he whimpered, sliding deeper, too aroused to thrust as fast and hard as he wanted; he would die of frustration if he came that quickly now. "Jer-- fuck-- don't move, don't move, I can't--"

Jer, who had been pushing back with real or simulated eagerness against him, went still immediately, and Holden tried to clear his mind as he fucked his old lover slowly and thoroughly, adjusting his own body to the sensation and his mind to the ferocious joy of getting his cock in Jer again, feeling the other boy-- but they weren't boys any longer, he remembered now; no matter-- solid underneath him, thinking ahead to the night with Jer beside him, and how many more nights, because Jer was his now, and whatever defenses Jer had thrown up between them couldn't possibly matter because nothing was between them now. His fingers were digging into Jer's shoulders, his cock buried to the hilt in the warmth of Jer's body, sweating to contain himself because he couldn't bear to stop, not yet, not yet, he wasn't done, he'd never be done fucking Jer right now, no matter how many more times he'd be doing this, for the rest of their lives, now that Jer was his.

But he couldn't stop thrusting harder and faster, either, and he was driving into Jer hard enough to hurt him, even though he didn't want to hurt him-- did he?-- he just wanted, he wanted still to be in Jer after he'd pulled out, a pain and a pleasure (whatever my master is pleased to give me), the afterburn of his cock in Jer's ass for the rest of the night and when he woke up in the morning in Holden's arms and for the rest of-- He wanted to bite, he wanted to bruise, but he wouldn't do those things tonight, he'd just fuck and keep fucking until he couldn't hold back any longer, and he might have to stop eventually, but by the gods he'd make it count.

And with that thought he slammed in so hard Jer groaned and tightened up in what could have been surprise or pain or pleasure or all of them, and at the groan Holden pushed harder and saw white light behind his eyes and cried out again, ecstatic, furious, racked by orgasm, "Jer--"

Dragging in breath, he waited until he could see again before he licked his lips and eased himself out of Jer, trembling. The mad hunger to possess having subsided with orgasm into something closer to mere everyday grabbiness, he lay down and yanked Jer into his arms.

"I love you," he said deliriously. "I love you so much, Jer, baby, fuck, whatever it is, it's okay, or it will be, you're mine, you're fucking mine, I love you so fucking much, Jer--"

"You wanted me," said Jer in an incongruously small, tentative voice. "You really--"

"Wanted you?" Holden laughed. "Only for twenty goddamn years. And I could go again in about five minutes if I keep on holding you like this-- though maybe we should pace ourselves, we're only forty-one, with luck we've got about forty more years to make up for lost time-- and you're tired, baby, I'm an ass, go to sleep, I can wait until morning, I'll just-- you don't mind me holding you, do you, can you sleep like this? Please say you can sleep like this. I'm not sure I can stand to sleep any other way tonight."

"I can sleep-- however it pleases--" Jer began mechanically, and then, "Holden? This really-- I really-- you're really-- this happy? To-- that I'm here?"

"I am so much happier than you can possibly realize," said Holden, crushing the other man closer, then pulling back to stare at him with unabashed rapture. "I don't even care that you're not. I'm too selfish to care. Speaking of me being selfish, did you come just now?"

"Yeah," said Jer after a moment.

"Okay, good." Holden pulled him close again. "So can you sleep like this?"

"Yeah," said Jer again, in the same neutral tone. "I think-- yeah. I think I can sleep-- like this."




Shout Out Louds, "Time Left For Love"