Okay, so you have to be one hell of a bitch to make up for it, just to ward off the cocky bastards who think that just because they can see over your head they can lead you around by the balls. So you have a hell of a time finding clothes that don’t make you look like a kid playing dress-up. So you have to deal with snide comparisons between yourself and a certain French military leader with a penchant for stupid hats and sticking his hand in his shirt.

But. I digress. It has upsides. Short people can lay down on couches without twenty years training in yoga and a chiropractor standing by. It’s come in handy all those times I get thrown out of bed or end up retreating to the living room to work so he could get some decent sleep for once.

Such as now.

Getting the adaptation rights for the book seemed like a good idea at the time, but that time was probably when I was sleep deprived. The few times I haven’t been sleeping, working or running around in circles howling, I’ve been going through that unique hell that is writing. I’m a genius when I write the first draft, and a fucking idiot when I edit it. It’s an interesting phenomena.

The door cracks open, letting a draft into the still of the room. Cloth whispers as Tim slides through and shuts the door behind him. His bare feet pad across the room, then stop just behind the couch. He looks at the tv, looks at me, then climbs over the back of the couch and drops himself with a grunt into my lap.

I lower the book and give him a weirded out look. “Can I help you?”

Squirming between my legs until he’s comfortable, he leans back against my chest and gives me an innocent smile. “I was drawing, but my hand cramped. And it’s too quiet upstairs. And you’ve got the best view of the TV.”

“Uh huh.” He’s been ignoring me for most of the day, wrapped up in his sketchpad, mumbling and swatting at me every time I got too close. It’s not that unusual. He runs hot and cold; one second he doesn’t seem to notice that you’re there. The next, he’s all snuggly on you.

Hell. Maybe he just wanted the couch and didn’t care enough to argue me off.

So, I do my best to ignore him while he squirms and nuzzles and shifts his bony ass until we’re spooned together, a tangle of limbs. Then, with a melodramatic ‘o, the black depths of my angst’ sigh, he lays his head on my chest and closes his eyes.

“Are you quite comfortable?”

Tim opens his eyes and gives me a genuinely bewildered look, like he can’t figure out why the fuck his mattress is trying to hold a conversation. Knowing Tim, that might be less confusing. Then he smiles a sweet, crooked smile. “Are you?”

“Not particularly.”

“Okay. Then, I’m comfortable.”

“Bitch.” I bend, sniff at his hair as subtly as I can, then kiss the top of his head. “What’ve you been doing all day?”

“Working. The Shockwave people called, they want another season of Stain Boy.” Letting his eyes drift half closed again, then spreads his fingers on my hip. “They want me to write an exclusive thing for them. Just, y’know. To increase traffic or whatever.”

The Shockwave people like Tim. From what little I saw of them, they’re his long-lost people, a society of those who forget mid-sentence that nobody can read their minds, or who haven’t seen the business end of a brush since sometime in junior high.

Although ‘business end’ is a debatable concept. I seem to recall him draped across my lap one night, pressing a brush into my hand. It didn’t quite get used the way it was intended, but pale skin goes red so nicely with a couple of swats. And fuck, the way he moans…

Hmm. Seems I’m a fucking pervert. Imagine that.

“Are you going to?”

He shrugs, managing to jab me with his shoulder. The man doesn’t eat, even when he does have a keeper. “Maybe. Not right now. I’m still working on not hyperventilating when the final numbers from the box office come in.”

A hand on his shoulder, a little press of my thumb… and, yes. He squirms, his head lolling back against my hand, and lets me knead at him for a while. His shoulders are cat-tense. Ironic; he hates cats with a passion.

“You did fine.” I’ve found that if I let my voice go low, let it catch and drag like smoke, I can talk him into damned near anything. Or so he lets me believe, anyway. I’ve never been clear on that. The brush of warm breath in his ear makes him tilt his hips back a fraction and purr. “Don’t worry about it. For fuck’s sake, you beat out Batman for opening weekends. Might even make the Academy bitches choke when they have to nominate you. You can’t ignore a blockbuster.”

“They have before.” Tilting his head back, he looks at me upside down. It’s strangely endearing. “I don’t have enough artistic merit for them. Quit using the sex voice.”

“Me? I have sex voice?” Questions like that are, naturally, best delivered in the sex voice.

Tim wrinkles his nose, then swats me. “’Do I have a sex voice’?” he mimics, rolling his eyes, then holds out his hand. “Remote, please?”

“Wouldn’t you rather-“

“No. Gimme.”

Like I said. He’s a bitch. But he’s my bitch, so I reach behind me, grab the remote, and drop it into his open palm. “Fuck. You’d think we were married.”

He gives me that half-crazed laugh that never fails to make me want to drag my tongue up his spine and sink my teeth into that pretty pale skin, then turns to kiss my fingers and grin at me. “I thought you had work to do.”

“Yeah, well. I never claimed not to be a slave to my hormones.”

Leaning up a little, he kisses just under my chin and smirks when I shiver. The stubble from not shaving since sometime yesterday drags along my skin. Fuck. It’s been way too long. “Hmph. You couldn’t have been slaving after your hormones an hour ago?”

“No. An hour ago I was on the phone with Steve.”

He makes a face and, unfortunately, stops nuzzling my throat. Damn. “Okay, I take that back.”

“Thought you might.” Hooking an arm around his chest, I resign myself to the fact that my ass is going to be numb within ten minutes and settle back against the couch arm. I’m comfortable for about three seconds, when an elbow nudges into my stomach. I bitch at him without much energy, “Jesus, Burton, gain some weight.”

“You can’t talk. You still do sit-ups on the kitchen floor.”

“Yeah, and you were so complaining.”

He gives me a sleepy eyed look, sex without words or a single touch, and smiles just smugly enough to let me know that yes, he does remember the one time he caught me at it, and yes, I still am his bitch for it. Fuck. Let a guy handcuff you to the kitchen table once and he gets cocky on you.

Don’t let the wide eyes or the sweet, dorky laugh con you into believing that he’s a shy, virginal little thing. Yeah, most of the time he’s completely clueless, so wrapped up in his movies and his art and the voices in his head that he forgets nobody else exists. But on occasion, if you look, you’ll catch something dark in his smile, the edge of something knowing and all too adult behind the boyish enthusiasm. Tim isn’t a sweet innocent thing I fucked into corruption. He came this way.

With a smirk, he shifts deliberately on my lap, then turns back to the TV. It clicks on with a hum and a crackle of static that quickly gets lost under the blare of applause.

“Jerr-y, Jerr-y, Jerr-y…”

Tim’s eyes widen a little before he sits forward like he’s somehow drawn by the pure redneck vibes. I don’t blame him. There’s something eerily comforting about knowing that you are, in fact, not the most fucked up individual in existence.

“Jesus fuck. I thought they saved this shit for after midnight.”

Tim blinks at me, then shakes his head and explains tolerantly, “Danny. It’s almost four.”

“Um. Oh.” Damn, I knew I should’ve put a clock in here instead of the stuffed cat. Another thought occurs to me, and I jerk half-upright. Tim mutters a protesting noise and jabs me with an elbow. Wincing, I rub at the soon-to-be-bruise, then demand, “I called Steve at three in the morning?”

“Mmm hmm.” Tim leans on me until I get the point and sit back, then cuddles in. I’m fairly sure he’d smack me if he knew I ever used that word in relation to him. “You couldn’t tell? I heard Avila cursing you out from across the room.”

“I figured I just interrupted sex.” I let my voice drop into a purr again, my lips brushing his earlobe. It never hurts to try. “God knows they’ve done the same enough times…”

It’s no good; Tim just narrows his eyes at me, then leans his head out of reach. I could lean forward and put it back in reach, but then he might move to a chair or something. At least now, clothed and bitchy or not, I get to feel him. “You still owe me for picking up the phone that one time.”

Shit. I thought he’d let that one slip. Doing my best impression of innocence, I blink at him. “I pick up the phone most of the time. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh. That time with the dildo-“

“Mmm… yeah.” It’s probably in my best interest to keep the moan out of my voice. But that memory’s a little too good not to savor. Shifting under him until my thigh slides between his, making him shudder, I nuzzle his shoulder. “But the noises you were making made it worth it.”

He mutters something along the lines of ‘shut up, Danny’, then swipes a hand across his cheek. It’s not quite dark enough to hide his blush.

Damn, but he’s cute.

Drawing his lip between his teeth, he concentrates on changing the channel for a moment. I’m pretty sure he has no idea what’s actually on the screen. His eyes are distant as he flips past inane sitcoms and infomercials without even a pause.

I wait for a minute, then shrug and go back to the book. There’s something to be said for the talent of the writer, but most of the fascination for me is in the story itself. Love after death, in all matters of speaking. It doesn’t come off as sick, somehow, more than just a twisted kink there only to press those little taboo buttons wired into our superegos. It’s beautiful, in a strange way. A little twisted. A little sad.

“You’re one to talk.”

I can’t help it. I start, a little, torn out of my concentration. Tim must’ve felt it, because he gives my thigh a reassuring pat, then goes on. “I mean, in the noises sense.”

One of those things about Tim. Sometimes you honestly have to guess where the fuck he’s coming from. He can continue conversations that you left off a year ago without missing a beat.

“Do tell.”

Apparently convinced that I’m not going to spaz out on him, he turns the pat into an excuse to stroke my thigh with his fingertips. “I mean,” and he uses the same casual tone he reserves for studio execs and reporters who annoy him, “you’re calm and composed now. But if I touch you…”

I wonder if there’s an age limit for using the word upstart. I’ve already used bitch twice. There’s a hint of challenge in his voice, which usually means he’s feeling playful, which means one of us is going to get bent over this couch tonight. The only questions left are who, and when.

Sliding my hand down from his ribs to his sickeningly flat stomach, feeling the muscles twitch as he shivers, I murmur in his ear, “If you touch me, what?”

“Uh.” Clearing his throat, he changes the channel again. I think he’s gone past every channel now. Twice. “Oh, look. 700 Club. Wonder if I’m still going to hell for the monkey love scene.”

Wow. Hello, random associations and distraction methods that won’t worry. Sorry, kid, I don’t distract that easily, especially when you bare throat at me like that.

“Just ignore them. They think everybody’s going to hell.” I have to move my arm, the one looped around him to keep him from sliding off the couch, to turn the page. It’s just a coincidence that my arm slides against his nipple, hard beneath the thin shirt. I’m paying more attention to that sentence I keep reading than to the hitch in his breathing. “They don’t know the meaning of perversion.”

I catch another few channel switches out of the corner of my eye. Then, finally, he sets the remote down on the coffee table and leans back with a sigh.

“It’s common practice for the pride to gather together and sleep through the heat of the day…”

It takes a lot not to snark at that. An animal documentary… that deeply figures.

Not many people actively seek out these shows. Tim does. He once sat on this couch and watched 10 hours’ worth of documentary in complete wide-eyed fascination. I had to drag him to bed.

I keep trying to explain that there’s not much to these things. It’s a simple plotline. They show cute, fluffy babies which either get eaten in bloody gory detail or they grow up and fuck, a process shown lovingly in Technicolor and close-ups. Sometimes both. It’s like the Lion King, if they’d let Richard direct it. Well, except this doesn’t give you the pleasure of watching Casper Van Diem get eaten by a hyena. Now that would be some fucking entertainment.

“Danny.” His voice is soft, husky with near-sleep.

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember what you were actually saying last night?”

I have to give it to him. He caught me off guard.

Stiffening, I look at the top of his head. He doesn’t have the decency to look away from the TV.

Yeah. Reading’s done for the night.

Dogearing the page, I set it aside and slide my other arm around him. “Just the usual stuff, I imagine.”

“Hmm.” His eyes slant mostly closed, like a cat in the sun. “You were really… by the time I was in you, you were snarling, clawing, biting my shoulder…”

“Yeah, well.” I shift a little, glancing at the television when he turns to look at me. “You’re that good.”

He twines his fingers with mine, then brings my hand up to kiss the back of each finger. “Most of it was the usual,” he says, like I never interrupted. “You know. God, yes. Please. So good.”

I snort. “Vain little fuck, aren’t you?”

He ignores me, kissing between my fingers. There’s something going on. Fuck, don’t tell me I said something I’ll regret…

“Harder,” he breathes, then licks the inside of my palm where the ink’s smeared and the skin is salty with sweat. “Fuck me.” Barely a whisper, cold on slightly wet skin. He presses his hips back against mine, sweet temptation, but doesn’t give me a chance to take advantage.

His mouth is at my wrist. I feel a brush of teeth on skin as he murmurs, “I’m yours.”

Fuck. So much for nothing I’d regret.

“Tim…”

“If you say ‘I can explain’, you’re sleeping on the couch for the next week.” The drag of his tongue along my arm makes my fingers twitch. His laugh has an edge to it. “Jesus, you make it sound like you tried to steal my car.”

This is swerving dangerously close to an emotionally weighted conversation. The last time we had one of those, we didn’t talk for two fucking years. I know better.

Besides. I’m a guy. I’m supposed to dodge these things.

Leaning forward, I lick the rim of his ear. It makes him start, then squirm with a sweet low gasp that nearly makes me forget why I did it in the first place. Oh, sarcasm, right. “I wouldn’t want your car, princess. It’s a wreck.”

“Don’t call me princess,” he manages to growl, then digs his fingernails into my thighs so hard I almost feel them through the jeans. God, if he ends up on top…

“Or…” Okay, too breathy. Clearing my throat, I decide to ignore his laugh and let my fingertips nudge just under the thin t-shirt. “Or what?”

Something tells me that subtlety is wasted on him right now. Maybe the fact that he twists until we’re face to face, pressing me down into the couch. I try to grab a handful of couch to pull myself up and press back, but leather is too slick to give any decent friction. I just slide down further, watching him a little too helplessly for my own personal comfort.

And God, his eyes are black, dancing with some sort of private amusement at my suffering. The smirk is pure confidence, no hint that this is the same man I’ve watched spaz so badly he can’t complete sentences. I’d like to drag my tongue along that smirk, trace the lines of it, connotations of submission be damned. I lean up to touch him-

He puts one hand on my shoulder and pushes me firmly back.

“Princess, huh?” The edge of a laugh on the word takes some of the tension out, letting me breathe. Jesus, we play difficult games. It’s too easy to forget. He closes his fingers around my wrist, slightly more gentle, and presses that to the leather as well. Which leaves nothing between us when he leans his hips forward, letting me feel him. He’s hard as fuck against my thigh, and hot. So very hot. “Does this feel like a princess to you?”

“A very sexually confused princess, maybe-“ The pressure of teeth on the crook of my neck makes my entire body jerk, my head snapping back against the armrest. “Fuck. You’re cheating.”

He licks the spot he chewed on, then growls in my ear. Not words, just a growl. I have created a monster.

“Tim-“ His hands slide under my shirt, tugging insistently until the whole thing is bunched up above my nipples. If he keeps this up, we’re not going to make it upstairs. “Um. Tim. The couch-“

“Forgot the couch. We can afford to buy a new one. We’ll send it to my brother or something. Fuck it.”

“Fuck on it.” Wait, I’m supposed to be discouraging him… Trying to squirm safely back out of reach, I end up getting pulled patiently back by his hands on my hips. I keep forgetting that he’s stronger than he looks, which is not the best thing in the world to forget if he’s doing this kind of thing regularly. Hooking my fingers in the waistband of his jeans, I tug to get his attention. “I have a headache?”

“You lie,” Tim mumbles into my collarbone, then bites. Hard. Feeling me jerk again, he soothes it with his tongue, then lifts his head to give me a heated look. “Do you really,” and the bastard emphasizes really by rocking his hips against mine so hard my nails bite into the leather, “want me to stop?”

“No…” Wrong answer. He growls again and slides down, his fingers tugging insistently at the button of my jeans. I start to grab his wrists, then sigh and go to unbutton his shirt. Might as well. Reaching into the thankfully loose shirt, I tweak a hard nipple to watch him shiver, then inform him, “If you get a muscle cramp, I’m just going to-“

The button comes undone, the zipper a sharp rasp in the sound of heavy breathing and soft growling from the television. His hand slides in the gap and cups me in firm fingers, making me forget very quickly what I was going to say in favor of shuddering.

“Danny,” his voice is dangerously mild, “you talk way too much.”

“So I’ve been-“ Whatever smartass remark that was supposed to be turns into a ragged little gasp. My hips twitch into his hand, arching further as the bastard rubs with his fingertips. He grins that manic ‘ooo, new toy!’ grin, which is disturbing and arousing all at once, then leans close and drags his tongue along my throat.

Something snaps.

Leaning up, I fasten my lips to the place just under his ear, the one that never fails to make him shudder. It doesn’t fail this time, either. I press my advantage, pushing my hands up under his shirt to feel the smooth, hot skin of his back, dragging my fingernails along his spine until he arches up into it like a cat. I might be marking him up, but he seems to be enjoying it. His low growl against my throat matches the one coming from the TV, soft and still utterly feral.

I wedge a hand in the non-existent space between us, trying without much actual force to nudge his hands out of my jeans before I give up on it and start wrestling with the button on his.

He mutters something, then swats at my hands.

“It’d be much easier if you didn’t wear them so fucking tight-“

“You’re one to talk.” Squirming until the jeans are halfway down his thighs, a process that’s deeply fun to watch, he raises his eyes and burns me with a look. With a tug at my jeans, he says firmly, “Off.”

“How is it that you’re always telling me to take my clothes off?” I don’t bother tearing my eyes off him to answer, or to make a few half-hearted efforts to slide off my jeans. That doesn’t last long; I get too distracted. Because God, he’s hard, and the head is slick with precum that’s just begging to be licked away. And who am I to resist temptation?

With a low, purring noise I barely recognize as coming from my own throat, I duck down and lap the taste away. Tim jerks, then moans, and that settles it. I put my hands on those narrow hips and press them down, holding him still so I can take full advantage.

This is surreal as hell, a flood to the senses. Flashes of light and the sight of lean muscles flexing under pale skin, the sound of Tim’s whimpering mixing with the painfully English narration coming from the television, the taste of him sweet and salty on my tongue, the flex of his fingers clenching and unclenching on my shoulders. He might be bruising me. I might also be enjoying it.

I never claimed to be normal.

Dragging my tongue along the underside of his cock, I savor his shudder with his taste and risk sliding back. He falls back a little, bracing himself on his hands, and I grin my triumph against his thigh. Then I nudge his thighs apart, as far as the jeans will let me, and start licking my way back-

And suddenly, I’m on my stomach, Tim leaning against my back, pinning me down.

Like I said. Stronger than he looks.

His hands slide under me, tugging and pulling until my jeans are tangled roughly around my knees, holding me still. I turn my head to growl at him without much energy because, frankly, I’m intrigued. Tim doesn’t do this often, never like this. And something in me… wants this. Snarls and snaps and hungers after it like something half-starved.

Speaking of things that scare the hell out of me.

Tim growls back, then licks from the crook of my neck to just behind my ear. It’s a nice, languorous trip, interrupted a few times to bite and suck, and finished up with his voice purring in my ear, “Turnabout.”

“What?” Oh, fucking smooth, Elfman.

“It’s fair play.” Completely guileless. Either he’s smoother than I thought or he honestly has no idea… His fingers stroke down my ribs, suddenly soothing. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I don’t like the strain in my voice. I’m already shivering, I don’t need the extra kick in the dignity. Taking a deep breath, I try to force my brain back into some semblance of working order. Words. I need words now. “’M fine.”

“You sure?” His weight shifts with a creak of leather. My God, if he climbs off now I’m going to… do something. Once the blood starts flowing back above my waist. “You’re-“

Annoying little fuck. With an explosive sigh, I manage to reach back, grab his hand, and guide it down. “Trust me. I’m fine.”

He makes a little hungry noise, sliding down again, and I don’t even have to see him to picture the look on his face. Then again, I’m not seeing much more than leather couch, since I had to bury my face against the fabric to muffle a moan as his fingers wrap around my cock. “God, Danny…”

“Is fucked up. Yes. I know.”

The stroke of his fingers is almost playful. He certainly sounds amused as he notes, “I like your sort of fucked up.”

“So glad you approve-“

One short, half-hesitant smack of flesh on flesh, and I nearly bite through my lower lip. That shouldn’t have felt… like it did. I’m not going to call it good, because my pride is stinging, but it’s not… horrible. Or bad. No wonder he was practically rubbing himself off on my lap when I did this to him. But-

He tugs at my hair, just enough to drag me back. “Don’t analyze it. You’ll only confuse yourself. Trust me on this one.”

“Already confused.” I take a deep breath and get back my ability to express pronouns. Yay, me. “Do that again and I’ll ruin your couch.”

“You’re gonna ruin my couch anyway.”

“Not in the way I really intended when we started-“

Warm, slightly slick fingers touch my lips, and I shut up.

“Shh.” His voice is rough, ragged with some quiet need. He sighs a little, settling in, and I feel his hips pressing against the back of my thighs. Close, but not quite. “No more talking, okay?”

Which, in Tim speak, is a polite way of asking me to shut up. I can do that. I close my eyes, squeeze them shut, and wait for the pressure of his fingers. Surprisingly, they nudge against my lips again, asking.

Right. No lube. Nice to know neither of us really prepared for this.

I can taste myself on his fingertips, mingled with sweat and soap, feel the calluses under my tongue where he holds the pencils. He shivers, breath catching, when I drag my teeth over the skin just hard enough to remind him, then eases his hand away.

He doesn’t waste his time on subtleties tonight, thankfully, simply presses his knee between my legs, spreading. Says something about him, that I let myself get this vulnerable under him. Says something about me, maybe, that I’m shivering on the edge without a touch, and that the brush of his fingertip makes me whimper.

“Yeah…” His voice is a bare, crooning whisper, hot in my ear. “You want me to fuck you.”

It’s not a question, really, just an acknowledgement of fact. I can’t really argue with that, seeing as my hips keep rocking back against his hand in search of a solid touch. He lays one hand in the small of my back, making me be still. The leather feels slick with my sweat, warm as skin, until it blurs with the warm sweet weight pressing me down. I feel dizzy.

“Thought,” it comes out in a ragged little pant, “you said no more talking-“

“I meant that you should let me talk.” His fingertip presses inward just a fraction, then slides away as my hips jerk back. The second I ease back down, he repeats the process. “I know I’m… hell, Danny, nobody could talk the way you do. And I’m supposed to draw and direct stuff, most of which I do by moving my hands, so I forget, sometimes. I forget that maybe you need to hear me say stuff.”

No, Tim, I need you to move your damned hand… Except he is, and that’s half the problem. Every time his finger slides in, my hips twitch back and he moves his hand away. Taking a deep breath, I force my hips still. Tim purrs and nuzzles me, then slides his finger deep in reward.

“You listening, baby?” Odd. He never calls me baby.

“Fuck.” Another little panting noise slips through before I bite my lip, hard. “Yeah…”

“Good.” Another finger nudges inside, sweet pressure verging on pain merging with the warm growl beside my ear. When the fuck did he learn this? “Going to fuck you, Danny. Make you scream. Make you leave little marks on the leather where your nails bit in. Going to drive you crazy, wear you out.” Teeth scrape gently down the skin over my jugular, mimicking a killing blow, before he murmurs, “You know why?”

This not talking thing would be much easier if he didn’t ask questions. But hey, he’s the one gone all alpha male. I can feel the precum slick on the back of my thigh, temptingly close, but he seems oblivious.

Then clever fingers find my prostate and stroke gently, firmly. Someone’s mewling. The rest of me is tensing, fingers digging into the couch in some blind attempt to claw release out. At least that would make the soft painful words stop.

“Couple of reasons.” Damn him for sounding unaffected, besides the little shudders I can feel going through him. “Because… because. You make good coffee. And you let me watch ten hours of animal documentary without looking at me like I’m twelve. And you try to pet my hair and make the nightmares go away if I wake up screaming, and you try to pretend it’s not a problem when you do the exact same thing not twenty minutes later. And you spend hours standing outside the wolves cage at the zoo, trying to figure out ways to break them out because there are some things that shouldn’t be sitting in cages. And you go out on two am searches for Count Chocula when you’re working on a score and you think I’m asleep.

“Because your hair smells good. And your skin still smells like soap and sweat and you, and it looks good on leather.” His fingers twitch suddenly, pressing hard, and I jerk under him with a moan that seems to come from somewhere deep. My God, so close, just a little-

He laughs, a strange little “perfectly happy to torture Danny for the rest of fucking eternity” sound, then belies that completely by letting his fingers slide away. I’m sure whatever noise I made was fairly piteous, because he kisses the back of my head and murmurs so low I barely hear him, “Beautiful.”

“Tim…” I like saying his name, tasting it. Right now it tastes mostly like my own desperation. “Please?”

“Shh. In a second.” I can feel him shifting, sweaty slick skin gliding against mine. His hair is a light touch against my shoulderblade, smudge of dark in the corner of my vision. Feel him, smell him, all around me… “Favorite reason why, though, Daniel? Really?”

Something hard and slick nudges against my entrance, pressing just in, and Tim hisses softly. Then his fingers grip at my hipbones, using them to pull me back against him as he-

“Oh, God.” My voice sounds small, distant beyond the pounding of my heartbeat in my head. He’s so fucking hard, so warm, taking it so slow. Filling the empty spaces…

“Shh,” he croons again, and I realize with a jolt that I’m whimpering. Don’t really know how to stop. His voice is strained to cracking with need, he shouldn’t be indulging this kind of weakness when he just wants to- “I’ve got you. Trust me a little, Danny. Won’t hurt you.”

Right. Like little Timothy William Burton, fragile wunderkind director, could ever hurt me.

Why the fuck am I shaking?

Finally, his hips rest up against my ass, his skin hot on mine. His breathing shudders against my ear for a moment, and I think I’ve found the breaking point. Just fuck me, Tim. Take what you need. I don’t need this. I don’t even know if I want this.

His hands falter on my hips, then wrap slowly around me. Holding. Just holding.

Jesus, this is a bad position. All I can do is squirm and take what he gives. All I can do is listen when his lips brush against my ear and whisper.

“Because you’re mine.” Feeling me twitch, he holds on more gamely than I would have in the same situation. “Mine, baby. You said it before. You going to apologize for it now? Act like it was all just a mistake and gee, sorry you offended me?”

His hips rock forward once, experimentally, and it’s like all the lights flew on inside my head. I whimper, too far gone to actually say anything, and press my forehead against the leather.

A finger trails down my side, curving towards one hip.

“Not offended, Danny. Jesus, never offended.” The cautious rocking eases into a slow, easy thrust that has me wanting to sob if I only had the air. Tim shifts abruptly, pulling me up against him and into an angle that makes all the air go out of me. Pleasure verging on pain slides through me, slicing to the bone. I can see sparks with every almost casual thrust. Tim shudders, making a little broken noise, then gasps out, “Want you. Need you. Mine, damn it.”

“Yours.” It’s a ragged sound, no air behind it. Maybe because I can’t breathe. I feel like the room’s spinning, Tim the only solid thing in my world at the moment. And I’m so hard it aches, slickness smeared across my chest and down my belly. “God, Tim, please, harder, touch me…”

It’s a litany of little broken sounds, falling from my lips, but he seems to get it. Growling his triumph, and why shouldn’t he, he won, he drives into me. His fingers are locked tight enough to bruise. His voice is a low purr in my ear, full of growls and whispers and encouragement. “So tight, so hot. That’s it, love, want to hear you come for me. Mine,” and the last seems to make him oddly, unquestionably happy. “Mine.”

Then his fingers close around my cock, stroking once, twice, in time with the hard thrusts rocking me forward on my braced arms, and it all falls out from under me. The pleasure, intense to the point of nearly frightening, breaks me apart to the accompaniment of Tim’s shuddering cry and my own fading whimpers.

And I lose track of time for a while.

“Shh…” More crooning in my ear, slow petting motions down my back. Nice. I think I lean up into it and purr, but that’s about it. Done for the evening, thank you, and quite happy to be where I am. I’ll just sleep here, if you don’t mind. Shouldn’t; I’m giving you padding, you’re giving me a blanket, everybody’s happy. A kiss to my cheek, a cute sentiment if he wasn’t still inside me when he did it. His voice is all throaty growl. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Where?” Ooo, words. Words that get me jabbed in the side and probably glared at. “Ow. Quit it. Trying to sleep.”

“Not on the couch, you aren’t.” Tim makes a cute breathless noise, and I shiver convulsively as he slides out. The hand tugging at my arm is somewhat less inspiring. “C’mon. Up.”

“Hate to break it to you, Tim, but I’m not making it up stairs like this.” A sentence, even. I should get a cookie.

“You can’t stay on the couch. You’ll get stuck.” My God, for once he’s more reasonable and coherent than I am. I feel vaguely cheated.

Squirming once demonstrates exactly what he means. Ew. There is no hope left for that couch.

It takes a couple tries, but I manage to sit up. I sway, but I’m up.

Tim looks down at me, all flushed and smelling like sex, and I barely resist the urge to pounce on him. He looks me over, then sighs and slides his fingers through my hair, toying with the ends. I need to get it cut again. “Floor okay?”

“Floor close. Therefore, floor okay.” I let him pull me up, leaning against his side while he grabs a blanket off the back of the couch and spreads it on the floor. I ought to help him. But I ought to be able to concentrate on anything more complex than the ridge of his ribs or the sweetly rumpled hair, and I’m not doing too well on that either.

As easily as he pulled me up, he guides me down to curl up beside him on the floor. I must still be half out of it, because I lose a few seconds between when my hand touches the floor and when my head rests against his bony shoulder. Skinny fucker, but he makes a good pillow.

His lips press against my temple, strangely gentle, then nuzzle me. “You comfortable?”

I snort and look up at him. He’s a beautiful thing, really, pale and shadowed, smiling a little crookedly. Touching his lips, I smirk a little drowsily at him. Sleep. Sleep would be good. “Isn’t this where I came in?”

He chuckles, then kisses my fingertips. “Yeah.”

Something, some little nagging thought in the back of my head, refuses to let me pull my hand away. Tim looks at me a little blankly as I push myself up until we’re eye to eye. I waver for a second, then cup his cheek. It’s rough in places, smooth in others, softness under the harsh rub of stubble.

“Mine?” The question is a little too hesitant. Cautious. But hell, I can’t afford to be anything but with him.

His face lights up. Never really understood that phrase until I watched the glow flare up behind his dark eyes. With a sweet, amazing smile, he cups my face in his hands and kisses me hard.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, yours.”

It feels like a weight was taken off my chest. Relaxing, I kiss him back, taking in the easy warmth, listening to his rumbling purr.

“Good.” My voice sounds a little rough on the edges. Fuck, did I scream? “I’m… yeah. Gonna shut my eyes now.”

“Okay.” Fucker sounds way too amused. Curling his arms around me, he cuddles up close. Hot and cold, my boy. Hot and cold. “Sleep.”

I rest my head on his shoulder and feel his breathing, slow and steady, under my cheek. Something clicks as the TV turns off, leaving us to share the darkness.

I’m not gonna complain.
****
End.