They walk hand in hand into the clearing that surrounds the old Taylor place. Robbie is struck by the sight of it.
The house was always shabby, but it’s in rougher condition than ever now. He can see where broken windows have been papered over with cardboard and plastic, and a sheet of water-stained plywood looks to be screwed to the roof, probably to patch a hole.
Lance is beaming. “I don’t know why, but I felt like I had to come out here,” he murmurs. A young woman stands beside the child in the snowsuit who Robbie saw in the woods. Both of them are watching Robbie and Lance with cautious expressions. “And I still don’t know why I felt it, but this is Nora, and her daughter Alice. And, Robbie, Nora’s my sister.”
Robbie might not have believed him so easily, but Nora is the spitting image of Lance. In fact, she’s the spitting image of a younger Lance; manhood made him taller and stronger than he was as a child, but she’s small and slight like he used to be. She’s painfully slender, too, like he was back then. Robbie is bit in the heart by the familiar impulse to feed her and give her something warm to wear.
Alice, on the other hand, looks snug in her snowsuit, and her plump cheeks are still flushed with color from the excitement of spying a stranger in the trees. She’s been watching warily, but when she notices that he and Lance’s hands are linked, she instantly relaxes and wriggles out from under her mother’s arm.
“I’m Alice,” she says. “Lance is my uncle.”
An hour later, Robbie isn’t sure how he feels about walking away.
“But it’s so cold,” he tells Lance, not for the first time. He’s following Lance toward the blue car he last saw in the impound lot. He has mixed feelings about seeing it again now. He knows Lance has plenty to tell him, and he has a feeling some of it will be hard to hear.
“They’ve got a generator and a heater. They’ve been making it just fine, and there have been colder nights.” Lance glances past Robbie at the house, where they’ve left Nora and Alice behind a closed door as night falls; the temperatures have already begun to drop. “I want to help them, too, but if I do too much too soon, I don’t think Nora will like it.”
Robbie opens his mouth to argue, but the quelling look on Lance’s face stops him. In fact, Robbie doesn’t know how someone in Nora’s situation would feel about being offered help. And Lance, unfortunately, does. So, Robbie just nods and spares the house a final glance before he gets into the passenger side of Lance’s sleek car.
The engine starts with a purr which is so subtle, it’s almost silent, and Robbie is pretty sure the seats are grain leather.
Lance looks uneasy as he pulls off his gloves and then takes the wheel in his bare hands. “Niall is here.”
Robbie stiffens. Lance doesn’t look at him except out of the corner of his eye, putting the car in drive and easing it slowly through the gathered snow on the driveway.
After a few seconds, Robbie works through the shock enough to put the pieces together. The charges went away. Lance has the car back. Niall is here. So, Niall is the reason that Lance’s case was dropped and the car was released. Robbie wrestles with his reaction. He remembers how dismissive Lance was of Niall and their relationship. But—Niall has been in Lance’s life for a long time. Lance lives with Niall in Chicago. Their careers are intertwined. Robbie rubs his jaw and struggles to keep his voice even. “He dropped the charges, then?”
Lance nods, focused on the road as he pulls away from the end of the driveway. The layer of snow is just enough to lend the car traction; there’s a crunch under the tires, but the vehicle doesn’t slip an inch, instead navigating the white-drenched road smoothly.
“He thinks I’m visiting my dad. He thinks that after I do that, I’ll go to his hotel.” Lance looks at Robbie, then quickly away. “I let him think all of that.”
“Good,” Robbie says roughly. “If it got him to drop those bullshit charges, then I’m glad you told him whatever you had to.” He hesitates. “At least, I assume that you just told him…that you didn’t…well.” He trails off, hating himself a little for saying anything at all.
Lance gives him a desperate look. “I didn’t do anything,” he promises. “I didn’t—we didn’t—” He reaches his right hand toward Robbie, swallowing. Robbie catches it in his, Lance’s bare fingers held tight in his gloved ones.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay. That’s good.”
Lance’s eyelashes are fluttering, like he could cry.
“It’s okay,” Robbie says, low and soothing. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Just drive.”
When they’ve reached the snowy yard at the ranch and Lance has the car in park, Robbie leans over and kisses his cheek, then his shoulder, feeling him tremble. “It’s okay,” he says again. “You don’t have to see him again if you don’t want to.”
Lance presses a knuckle into his left eye, then his right. “I do, though,” he says on a breath. “He has most of my stuff back at our—his place. Everything except what I threw in a bag when I left.” He turns his face toward Robbie’s and their lips graze. It’s not quite a kiss, but Lance makes a low, needy sound that Robbie feels in his gut, and lower.
“But right now, I—Robbie, right now, can we just—?”
“Yes,” Robbie says, divining his meaning despite the jumbled words. He tilts his head and brings their lips ghosting together again. “Yes.”
The cold is the only thing that keeps them from grappling against one another over the gear shift, or against the hood of the car. Instead, they lope up the steps to the hayloft and make it past the door before Lance grabs Robbie and pulls them together. Lance is rough and uncharacteristically graceless, the solid, lean weight of him forcing Robbie back against the door, his hard thigh prying Robbie’s legs apart; his long-fingered hands are everywhere, quickly divesting Robbie of his coat, then dropping nimbly to his fly. All the while, their mouths are pressed together, inhaling each other’s exhales until Robbie is dizzy and burning and aching, feeling Lance everywhere.
“Could you…?” Lance says, and interrupts himself to kiss Robbie again, his teeth raking Robbie’s lower lip. “Will you?” he murmurs against Robbie’s neck, and then kisses him there, too, this time with his tongue.
Robbie arches his head back and gasps, bucking into Lance’s hand as it slides up and down between Robbie’s jeans and his briefs, rubbing the cotton against his aching cock. All he’s managed to do in response to Lance’s assault is to dig both of his hands, hard, into the lean curves of Lance’s ass. He adjusts so that the next time he squeezes, his fingertips are deeper in Lance’s cleft, and they both gasp.
“Tell me what you want,” Robbie begs. “Fuck,” he moans when Lance’s nimble fingers find their way past his boxers and grip him, skin to skin. “Lance, sweetheart. Please, tell me. I wanna give you what you want.”
Lance tilts his head back, his lips swollen and parted, his eyes bright with the fever of their bodies bucking against one another, seeking each other in quick, desperate thrusts. “Would you fuck me?”
Robbie freezes, but he imagines Lance can feel his answer in the way his cock jumps in Lance’s hand. Still, he hesitates, slowly kissing Lance, gentle against his bottom lip, then tracing a path to the corner of his mouth, and he kisses him there, too.
“Yeah. God, yes.” He rests their foreheads together and his breath hitches. “But I don’t know what to do.”
Lance is the one to kiss him, this time. “I know,” he says when they part. “I’ll tell you what to do. If you—if you’re sure you want—?”
“To be inside you?” Robbie breathes. “Fuck, yes. I do.”
Lance shivers. “Then,” he says, sounding just as breathless, “I’m really hoping you have a condom and lube around here somewhere.”
Robbie chuckles. “Another thing we’re going to be borrowing from Johnny,” he admits with a wince. “Second drawer in the nightstand.”
They break apart and Lance practically sprints to the nightstand, which makes Robbie laugh. He follows just as eagerly, though. Lance opens the second drawer, fishes out a condom, and holds it aloft triumphantly. He gives the small bottle in his other hand an experimental shake near his ear, and flashes a grin that fades to something hungrier as their eyes meet.
“I can get myself ready,” he starts, but Robbie interrupts him by shaking his head, taking him by the waist and turning him so his back is to the bed.
“Lie down,” Robbie commands softly, and Lance obeys.
The fever pitch of earlier slows to the careful steps of a new dance. Robbie sheds his boots and jeans, holding Lance’s eyes as he does the same. He helps Lance with the second part, getting two handfuls of the calves of the khakis and pulling after Lance finishes with the button and fly. The sight of his cock, outlined by the cotton briefs, makes Robbie’s mouth water on sight, like it’s a conditioned response. He’s almost sorry that his mouth isn’t what Lance asked for. He’s gotten a taste for sucking off Lance, and he’s pretty sure he’d be content if they never did anything else.
Lance tugs his briefs down and rolls onto his stomach, revealing his perfect ass, and Robbie swallows convulsively, hastily withdrawing the errant thought. He definitely wants to fuck Lance. He’s never wanted anything quite so much, though his hands are shaking with uncertainty.
Maybe sensing Robbie’s unease, Lance looks over his shoulder and smiles reassuringly. “Put some lube on your fingers, and touch me,” he instructs softly, and Robbie fumbles with the cap of the lube in his eagerness to obey. He gets a liberal amount of slick on the pads of his fingers, rubbing them together, testing the lube’s viscosity. He’s barely used lube, but he instantly appreciates the feel of it on his skin, the promise of how it will feel elsewhere. He crawls onto the bed behind Lance and trails the fingertips of his left hand over the curve of his body, wonderingly, then reaches in with the slicked fingers of his right and draws a line through the shadow between his cheeks, toward his hole.
“God,” Lance breathes, falling forward onto his elbows, face buried in the sheets and ass raised obscenely. Robbie swallows, wondering if he could come just from seeing him like this, from feeling the wrinkled skin around Lance’s hole beneath his fingertips. When Lance guided his hand before, everything felt different, and he wasn’t able to see exactly what he was doing. Even when Lance straddled his face, he only got a glimpse before he closed his eyes and used his mouth. The change in perspective, and the addition of the lube, hypnotizes him. He can see Lance’s balls suspended in the shadows of his thighs, and he’s filled again with the urge to try to get them in his mouth.
Before he’s consciously decided to do it, Robbie turns his head sideways, leans in, and pulls one of Lance’s testicles past his lips, his right hand still gently fingering Lance’s rim. Lance gasps and swears and pushes back, just enough that Robbie’s fingertip breaches him and is suddenly squeezed between the tight, smooth muscles, made slippery with just a pinch of lube.
It’s overwhelming, having Lance’s smooth-skinned sack on his tongue, the weight of his testicle in his mouth, the smell of the clean sweat between his legs filling his nose, and Robbie’s finger inside him, offering a tiny pantomime of what he intends to do with his cock. He could come from this eventually, if Lance would just touch him, just a little. But that’s not what either of them wants, so instead he pushes his finger in deeper, to the next knuckle, and opening his mouth wider and using his tongue, he pulls both Lance’s balls past his teeth, caressing them one at a time with his tongue, moaning at the sensation of having his mouth so full in a way that makes Lance shake and moan above him.
“Robbie, fuck me now, okay? Just, fuck. I’m ready. Do it.”
Robbie pulls his head back, wiping a string of saliva off his mouth onto his shoulder. He’s made a wet mess of Lance’s perfect balls, and it’s a satisfying sight.
“I don’t—” he starts to say, but Lance growls an interruption.
“Put some lube on the condom, and fuck me.”
Robbie’s finger is still deep inside Lance’s body. He crooks the finger experimentally, shuddering at the bracket of tightness around the base of his finger, and the wider passage beyond that is so smooth to the touch.
Lance bucks back on his hand. “Please, please, please,” Lance is babbling. “I need you, right now.”
Those prove to be the exact words Robbie needs to hear to roll on the condom and kneel behind Lance. His hole still looks impossibly tight, but after having his finger inside, and having seen plenty of porn, Robbie knows Lance can take him. Still, he hooks his teeth over his lower lip and strokes Lance’s flanks, hesitating.
“Are you sure? Do you want me to put in another finger first?”
Lance shakes his head. “No. Please. Do it. I’m ready, I’m so ready.”
So, Robbie lines himself up and then presses himself forward, one tiny increment at a time, almost dizzy with the effort of restraint. But after about five seconds of this, slowly breaching Lance with the head of his cock, Lance makes a frustrated noise and pushes himself back against Robbie, and Robbie’s dick slides in a few inches until it’s half-sheathed.
“Holy—God,” Robbie gasps, gripping Lance’s hips. Instinct overcomes his hesitation, and he eases himself forward the rest of the way, panting by the time he bottoms out. Lance’s spit-wet balls are pressed warmly against his, and even through the condom, he can feel the smooth sleeve of Lance’s ass like velvet.
“God,” he murmurs again, bending his head so he can nuzzle the sweat-damp curls at Lance’s nape, “you feel amazing.”
“So do you,” Lance whispers back, and then he rocks back against Robbie—just an inch of range in his motions, but the friction is bliss. “But I said to fuck me,” he reminds Robbie. “So, do it, for fuck’s sake.”
Robbie laughs against the back of his neck. “So bossy.” But then he straightens his back, and does as he’s told.
He’s never been inside this part of someone’s body, but the act isn’t unfamiliar in every way, and Robbie experiments with things past partners have liked—rolling his hips, shifting the angle, keeping his hand busy on Lance’s chest, then between his legs. But there are differences, too. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to touch anyone quite so much. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so constantly inundated with his own pleasure. He isn’t chasing an orgasm; it’s always a hair’s breadth away, and it’s just Robbie’s will that’s holding it back.
When he finds a slow rhythm and a certain angle that make Lance wail, he doesn’t stop or slow. Sweat breaks out on Robbie’s shoulders and rolls down his back. The pressure in his balls builds to a point where it’s so intense that, for a moment, Robbie thinks he won’t be able to bring Lance over the edge before he comes himself.
“You feel so amazing,” Robbie pants. “I can’t last much longer.”
Lance starts jerking himself, the movement making his muscles seem to glow as they move under a layer of glistening sweat. “You’re—perfect. I’m close, too, Robbie,” he gasps. “Robbie, please.”
Robbie doesn’t know what Lance is begging for, but he drags Lance up off the bed so they’re both kneeling, Lance’s back flush to Robbie’s chest, Robbie still deep in Lance’s body. Lance moans, and Robbie can’t help thrusting again, shallower and harder than before. Lance twists his head toward Robbie’s and gasps, then whimpers against Robbie’s mouth when Robbie plays with his nipples, pinching and pulling.
“Gonna—fuck—” Lance starts jerking his cock again, so fast that his arm feels like it’s vibrating. Robbie bites his shoulder as Lance convulses.
Robbie lets go, feeling like more than just his cum is spilling into Lance; his hips jerk against Lance’s ass, stunned by the force of his release. For a half-moment, Robbie thinks he’s lost the battle much too soon, but then, Lance cries out and splashes his stomach and Robbie’s forearms as he comes, too. They rock against each other, gasping for breath while they both shudder through the long moments of aftershock.
When Robbie thinks he can’t stay upright another moment without collapsing, he pulls out carefully, helping ease Lance’s sweaty, perfect, limp body down onto the bed on his side. He leans in and kisses him; Lance’s mouth moves under his, curving into a smile.
The condom is incredibly uncomfortable, so Robbie rolls over and disposes of it as quickly as he can, then slides back into place behind Lance, their bodies fitting together in a gentler reprisal of what they were doing minutes ago.
Robbie touches a bite mark on Lance’s shoulder and frowns. “Sorry.”
“Mmm. Don’t be.”
He strokes Lance’s thigh. “Thank you.”
Lance huffs a quiet laugh. “For what?”
Robbie pushes his face into Lance’s curls. “Letting me.”
“Letting you, what?” Lance sounds incredulous, and a little amused. “Fuck me?”
“No!” Robbie pushes himself up on his elbow and frowns down at Lance, who turns his head so their eyes can meet. Robbie swallows, all his vehemence leaving him. He touches Lance’s bottom lip. “For letting me take care of you.” He trails his thumb down to the curve of Lance’s chin and brushes the ridge of bone, following its elegant curve to his jaw. Lance’s lakewater eyes are deep enough for Robbie to drown in, and he’ll go happily. “And for taking care of me, too.”