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“IT WAS LIKELY HER heart, but we don’t know yet. It was peaceful though, that’s all any of us can hope for. Just quietly in her sleep. She went to take a nap, and when I went to get her for lunch...”
Everything else dropped away. The whole world flickered and ended, leaving hollow grey space. Ryan misunderstood.
The doorbell rang and Ben disappeared.
“What?” Ryan grasped for what his mother was saying. She meant Mrs. Hino. She meant someone else. She wasn’t saying what Ryan heard.
“Honey, I’m so sorry. I know how much she meant to you. Your father is taking it well. Or pretending to. I’m worried about him too.”
Ryan stared into that grey void. If he asked again, said it out loud, it would be true. He couldn’t make it true. He was supposed to say something. Do something. But what? Go there. Go home and find out it was all a mistake.
“I’ll be over as soon as I can.”
“No, honey, you have the doctor today, don’t you? Go to your appointment. Come over after. There’s nothing you can do right now.” He couldn’t remember his mother ever calling him honey before, and now she said it repeatedly, like it fixed something.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Ben’s hand settled, heavy on Ryan’s lower back.
“Go to the doctor. Don’t worry about us. Come over when you’re done and your cast is off. Take care of yourself. I love you.”
The phone, heavy in his hand, anchored him to the floor, to the world. It hummed and squawked, until Ben took it from him and clicked it off.
“Sunshine, what happened?” Worry cut new lines into Ben’s face, pale and drawn.
Ryan choked on his breath when he tried to talk. If he said it, it would be true. Eyes searing, tears threatening, his breath hitched and his voice scratched out, throat raw with misery before the word fully formed.
“Gramma.”
His stomach rebelled, clenching with violent nausea. He heaved, his body shuddering, as if wracked with sobs though no sound came out, tears still brimmed at the edges of his eyes.
“Peaceful. In her sleep.”
Breathing was hard, impossible for a second as his face fell onto Ben’s shoulder, Ben’s arms holding up his weight.
Ben’s t-shirt was soaked through. Tears, saliva, and snot, uncomfortable on his cheek, too wet, too hot, and his breath still wouldn’t come right. His head throbbed, throat raw. How long had he clung to Ben? He struggled to slow his breathing, still choking on it. His mother’s calm matter-of-fact manner. Was she holding it together for his father, who must be worse off than Ryan right now? The tears welled up again, but there wasn’t anything left in Ryan’s body to cry. He was filled with his father’s pain and loss, with the enormity that he would never see Gramma Sue again.
Ben rubbed circles on Ryan’s back. Ben’s fluid-soaked shirt must be even more uncomfortable on his skin than it was against Ryan’s face.
“I’m sorry. Sorry.” The effort to get the words out didn’t make them more intelligible, but Ben heard him.
“Oh, Sunshine, what are you sorry for?”
The words rumbled from Ben’s chest, entering Ryan’s body through his skin more than he heard them.
What was he sorry for? His father’s pain. His own loss. Never realizing how much his mother did for all of them. Not having the chance to say good-bye. Not wanting the chance to say good-bye. How could he ever? But he never told her how much she meant when he had the chance.
“I’m sorry I haven’t always been what you need.”
Ben stroked his hair and held him tighter, his wet t-shirt squishing on Ryan’s cheek. “You have always been everything I need. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise.”
◊
Four days of crying emptied Ryan into a hollow and dry husk, void of any emotion. And yet the tears still came, unexpected, unbidden, at any small memory. Choking, heaving sobs. Everything was a blur: phone calls, visits to the house, going to the church and funeral home with his father. Who he’d spoken to or what he’d said didn’t matter now. Ryan woke each morning, peaceful for a second until he remembered what the world was like now.
Ben’s touch dulled the searing, empty ache that filled Ryan’s whole being. He wanted to cling to Ben, stay with him, here in this room, the closest thing to safety left in the world.
“Okay, suit off,” Ben said, removing Ryan’s jacket with the gentle consideration he’d offered all day, recognizing Ryan’s inability to manage the simplest tasks. “No need to be more uncomfortable than you have to be.”
Ben’s knuckle grazed down Ryan’s arm, breaking through the numb haze of the day brought on by endless handshaking, the gross burden of hugs from strangers presuming to know how Ryan felt, the impositions masked as condolences that forced him to bear other people’s grief as well as his own.
The keen line of Ben’s touch still rippled down Ryan’s arm when Ben returned from hanging the jacket in the closet. Ryan lunged into Ben’s outstretched arms, seeking another break from his sorrow-induced stupor.
Realizing Ben meant to remove his tie, not hug him, Ryan couldn’t let go. Ben’s heat radiated though their dress shirts, igniting restless energy under Ryan’s skin that teased the possibility of experiencing more than despair. Face against Ben’s neck, he breathed the warm honey, sandalwood, and crisp grass scent of Ben’s soap tinged with salt and sweat. This close, it was the essence of Ben, redolent of nakedness, wet kisses, and the flavor of bare skin. Ryan pushed his face against the hot skin above Ben’s shirt collar until it was hard to breathe.
“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” Ben said into Ryan’s hair.
Panic hovered, threatening to rush Ryan if he lost Ben’s heat and let the sadness take over again. “Don’t let go of me.”
Ben’s hands were hot stars flat on Ryan’s back, pressing him into Ben’s orbit. Ben took Ryan’s weight, as he’d born the responsibility for everything else Ryan couldn’t handle that day, swaying slightly with the burden. Ryan drifted with it, the motion unraveling the tight control he’d managed most of the day. The undertow of grief surged up, threatening to suck Ryan into its depths. Clinging to Ben, a raft of safety, he shifted against the known terrain of Ben’s body until there wasn’t room to slip a toothpick of heartache between them.
The tight circle of Ben’s embrace held back the sobs waiting to drown Ryan, but the numbness that protected him through the day washed away. Desperate to dull the suffocating sorrow, he sought Ben’s mouth to stoke the restless tingling that first woke with Ben’s touch. He tasted the coffee Ben had after the funeral. Body heat melded in deep kisses that promised relief. Anxious for any replacement to his lost numbness, Ryan yanked Ben’s hips tight against his body, stumbling backwards until Ben’s solid weight trapped him against the wall.
“Please.” Ryan begged, ready to fall into Ben’s kiss and keep falling forever until he landed in a place deep inside, free of these wretched feelings. “Hold me.” The words gagged him with their desperation, their inadequacy at making Ben recognize what he needed.
Ryan sought to recreate and expand that second when Ben’s touch on his arm momentarily distracted. The solidity of the wall behind him and Ben’s firm body against his only highlighted Ryan’s dissatisfaction. Like an unreachable itch in the middle of his back. But the itch was his entire being.
He twisted his fingers up into Ben’s hair, knocking his own head on the wall as he struggled to kiss Ben harder. Stars burst behind his eyes. He tipped back again, but Ben’s hand padded Ryan’s head from the wall.
Words choking him, he forced them out. “Just want you. I just really need to feel you.”
The kisses barely kept Ryan afloat in the sea of grief. Any pause was like oxygen deprivation, bringing confusion, distorting his memories of other touches. If only Ben understood what might let Ryan breathe again.
However Ben interpreted them, Ryan’s words called him to action. “Come on, let me help you.”
Trusting Ben to save him, Ryan held still while Ben unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it off. The restless agitation under Ryan’s skin made him want to scratch and claw at Ben, to make him stay pressed close. He silently watched Ben strip off his own shirt until the loss of Ben’s physical protection was too great a risk to Ryan’s emotional safety.
Ryan jerked Ben by his belt, bringing them back to the chilly wall, which scraped against his bare skin. Ice on one side and fire on the other, the thick warm muscles of Ben’s chest pinning Ryan to the grave-cold plaster, a nothingness compared to the hot rush of blood beneath Ben’s skin, the thrum of his heart, the rattle of his breath against Ryan’s ear.
“Want you, just want you.” Ryan’s need was undefined, demanding release from the twitching restlessness that threatened to sink him if he didn’t find the key to burning it away.
“Anything you need.” The words promised the salvation Ryan needed desperately in spite of the soft hesitation in Ben’s tone.
“Just do... something.” Ryan covered Ben’s mouth with his again, taking everything Ben would give him. When Ben’s kiss didn’t satisfy, Ryan wanted to beat his fists against Ben’s chest and demand relief from this awful turmoil.
“On the bed. Come on.”
Ben peeled Ryan off the wall, undoing his pants as they went. Ryan dropped to the edge of the bed, defeated now that Ben’s body no longer held him upright on the wall. Ben knelt, working off Ryan’s glossy black shoes. Ryan observed, like watching a movie with no sound, as one more totem of the funeral was discarded into the closet.
Frantic to be rid of every reminder of the horrible day, Ryan shoved his pants off, falling back against the bed. He crawled back on the bed, away from the black fabric. Ben dropped and tossed his own offending clothing and slid in next to Ryan, turning the blanket sideways and pulling it over them.
The forest fragrance of Ben’s cologne and the tang of his sweat filled the dark cocoon, triggering memories of the ecstasy Ben’s body was capable of creating, promising to cover the despair. A small thrust and Ben’s hipbone knocked against Ryan’s. He twisted his legs around Ben’s, knotting them together, arms wrapped behind Ben’s back, locking him against Ryan.
Ben’s breath, hot on Ryan’s face, drew him back into wet kisses that didn’t quiet his need but propelled him to pursue remembered passion. Satisfaction waited, if he could get them there. Ryan rubbed and thrust until Ben’s erection rose between them. He rolled Ben on top of him, bucking his hips up until Ben ground down against him with delicious friction.
“What do you need?” Ben stroked Ryan’s face.
Tragedy upended the entire world, spinning it backwards. Ryan had no orders to give, no way to fulfill the promise so recently made to care for Ben’s pleasure. His new role was already reversed with his demands that Ben take Ryan outside himself. But there was no choice for survival except to ride this distorted wave and beg Ben to take control for both of them, hoping they’d both surface safely back where they began.
“Just make me feel something else. Make me fucking come. Make me scream.”
Urgent kisses stole the limited air between them until Ben’s chest heaved against Ryan’s as they panted. The slippery kisses dissolved into scrambling touches, pawing for closer contact. Ryan’s tension bled into Ben’s body as he met the demands of Ryan’s intensity.
Ben’s blazing hands didn’t sear Ryan’s skin, and the lack stirred new need in Ryan. He struggled against Ben, convincing him to hold Ryan, to still his turmoil with grinding pleasure. He drove Ben’s breath to the passionate staccato he wanted with a jerky rhythm on Ben’s cock, hard between them. He cupped and teased Ben’s balls until he sensed Ben’s need nearing his own.
Rolling them until he was on top, Ryan grabbed lube and condoms from the bedside drawer. A handful of lube squeezed over Ben’s cock. Ben’s groan at the cold lube and the shudder of his hips slowed Ryan briefly. He jerked Ben’s dick fast, heating the slickness in his hand, until Ben’s thighs flexed, thrusting him into Ryan’s grip.
“Are you ready?”
“Tell me what you need.” Ben’s cheeks were flushed, his pupils dark and wide.
“Treat me like a trick we brought home. Fuck me stupid. Make me come for you. Please!” Hand still wet with lube, Ryan rolled the condom down and jerked over it, making Ben clench and shove his cock into Ryan’s hand.
“Whatever you need.”
Ryan slicked the rest of the lube over his own hole, barely working it in. He hadn’t done enough prep, but that didn’t stop him from chasing down the deliverance Ben could give him, the relief promised in that first accidental touch on his arm.
Stroking Ryan’s face, awestruck, Ben asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?”
If the heat of Ben’s hand and face chased away Ryan’s churning thoughts, then the fuck would destroy them. Ben had the power to make it happen.
“Just make me forget anything exists but you.”
Ben reached for Ryan’s cock, but Ryan shoved his hand away. He didn’t need to be hard for this, only needed the pleasure of being filled. He spread his knees wider and sank down. The pressure was too tight. He pushed back against Ben until his internal muscles relaxed enough to let him enter. It bordered on pain, exquisite. Eager to eradicate the memory of anything except this fuck, Ryan pushed harder until Ben was deep inside him.
Overfull, exhilarated, the axis of Ryan’s world tipped until Ben surrounded every molecule of his being, not simply his ass surrounding Ben’s cock. Their core essence merged, Ben’s heat overtaking Ryan completely.
Tentatively, Ryan raised his hips and lowered back down. Pain lit through him, but the incredible saturation of sensation blotted out everything.
Ben’s groan tugged Ryan back to awareness, but he only had to lift his hips and drop again to make it disappear. Ben gripped Ryan’s hips to slow him down, but Ryan resisted. His whole body blazed with a searing fullness, so devastating it burned everything away.
Folding his body down over Ben, Ryan kissed him hard, sealing their chests together. Ryan plundered Ben’s hot mouth, seeking the fervor that would turn him into an ember, burning until the ashes blew away.
When the angle changed, Ben cried out. His cock bumped Ryan’s prostate, which rushed shivers up Ryan’s spine. He ground his hips down harder against Ben’s, seeking that again.
Ryan rolled, pulling Ben on top of him, bracing his hips up high, knees at Ben’s shoulders, legs splayed wide.
“Fuck me so hard I can’t feel anything else.” Ryan’s voice scratched, raw, his face wet. He shuddered and choked.
Ben stroked his hair back. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Ryan heard the sob in his voice. “Just fuck me until there’s nothing left. So hard that nothing matters.”
Ryan closed his eyes on Ben’s hesitation. Ben paused, two breaths, three, then drove hard into Ryan, over and over.
Half hard from prostate stimulation, Ryan wanted to touch himself, but could only cling to Ben frantically, riding him. A drop of sweat hit Ryan’s forehead, rousing him to steal the words he needed most from the litany Ben hummed. Love. Beautiful. Come. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Ecstasy flooded every synapse. Pain, pleasure, strain. Alarming, transcendent, his whole body expanding to accommodate Ben’s dick. Natural, perfect, like they were meant to always be this violent drumbeat of emotion made physical. Ryan grunted and moaned involuntarily with each thrust, Ben forcing the pain out through Ryan’s mouth, freeing him of it. Nothing was left of Ryan but the overwhelming vulnerability of being broken open and filled until nothing else existed.
Ryan writhed, working back against Ben, shaking with intensity of taking Ben inside. This is what he was built to do—get fucked. No more human nuances to emotions, no more complexities. Only the animal heat of their bodies.
Gripping his own cock, Ryan jerked in time to Ben’s jackhammer thrusts. Pleasure soaked into all of it, like warm honey coating the stretch and ache, covering the hollow burn in Ryan’s chest, filling him until the pain sparked and twisted into bright exultation, lighting up every nerve ending. He gulped air to quench the fire he’d lit using Ben’s body, but it was too late, orgasm scorched through him, cauterizing everything else.
Ryan used Ben’s bulk to smother the fire before it spread to the whole world. Hand sticky with come, face sticky with drying tears. Salt burned the places already raw from too much crying. Wrung out, emptied, he clutched at Ben. The last of his tears broke free, streaking his cheeks. Ben held him so tight, his body absorbed Ryan’s shuddering.
“It’s okay. I’m here, Sunshine.” Ben whispered into his hair. “I love you. You’re okay, you’re okay.”
Burnt, crushed, and safe, Ryan succumbed to the quiet blackness with Ben whispering in his ear.
◊
Light slanted through the open curtains. The sun was finally shining today. Ryan rolled over. His body ached and burned, driven past the point he should have stopped. But for the first time in a week, he was well rested, as if he’d slept for twelve hours, a day, a month.
Ben stirred and opened one eye. Ignoring the tenderness in his ass, the tight pull in his hips, Ryan rolled on top of him, balancing with his elbows on either side of Ben’s face and kissed him awake. Inside the kisses, the grief was still there, but less substantial. Ryan found a new strength, enough to block it for a little while.
“How are you?” Ben whispered against Ryan’s mouth.
Ryan moved back far enough to see Ben. “I’m okay. Like maybe I can get through the day.”
“I’m glad.” Ben’s expression was guarded and strange. “Last night helped you?”
“It did something. Pressure valve released.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“How about you?” Last night had the blurry recollection of a drunken binge, but Ben’s cautious, closed expression made Ryan sharply aware of how, in desperation, he’d shown no regard for Ben’s comfort. Ben had agreed to whatever Ryan needed, then let Ryan break against him, shattering like crystal on a tile floor.
“I’m—” Ben paused. Ryan’s breath caught in the silence, awaiting damnation. “I don’t know how I am?” Ben blinked slowly, bewildered.
Ryan opened his mouth to answer, but found he didn’t have the words he needed to offer comfort. Last night was exceptional and strange. Ryan never wanted to repeat it again. Born out of a need to escape from pure unbearable grief. It was what Ryan needed in that moment but it wasn’t what he wanted.
“I’m sorry, B, so sorry last night wasn’t good for you. I couldn’t find my way back to take care of you.” Ryan kissed Ben softly, trying to take back every second of it with sweetness, even though it was too late.
Ben’s cheek’s warmed, his eyes luminous brown. “It wasn’t so bad. I’m glad I could take care of you when you needed it.”
“But you don’t want to do it again?”
“It was intense. Whatever you need me to do, I will do for you. But what we did last night, it wasn’t comfortable for me. I told you before I wasn’t sure I was meant to be a Dom. Last night pretty much sealed it for me.”
Laughter bubbled up in Ryan’s chest and burst out. His emotions were wild creatures no longer under his own control.
“It’s funny?”
“No. I’m sorry. Just, I’ve been trying so hard to get the opposite from you, then I flipped it around last night. I’m sorry. I’m relieved that you’re not mad at me for demanding one thing, then forcing you to do another.”
“Of course, I’m not mad at you.”
“Good, because my grandmother just died and I can’t stand anything else bad.” Ryan meant it as lighthearted joke, but as soon as the words were out, the reality of it crushed his chest and caught in his throat, making him heave a sob.
“Hey, hey.” Ben stroked his face, then kissed him hard, rolling them until he pressed Ryan down onto the bed.
“Hey,” Ryan said when the kiss broke, “I thought you wanted me on top.”
“Sometimes I’m still going to have to take care of you. Especially now.”
“What do we do now?”
“Eventually I have to get in the shower, because I have to go to work.” Ben glanced at the clock. “But not quite yet.”
Ryan took a deep breath. “Nothing’s the same. It isn’t ever going to be normal again.” He had to get up every day and face a world was more painful than before. Here in the bed was a magic bubble of joy burst with Ryan’s thoughtless joke.
“Let’s get in the shower.” Ryan didn’t want that morning to end, but reality had already set in. “I guess if you have to go to work, I better figure out the rest of my life too.”