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Mordant felt Pink clench around him. He was coming. Jesus. Mordant was shaking from holding himself back. Pink howled and Mordant held him still and fucked him through it, finally reaching the point of no return himself, bowing down over Pink until his forehead touched the thin wings of his shoulder blades, gasping for breath for long moments, riding it out.
He finally pressed a kiss to the hot skin and sat up. “All right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Pink answered drowsily. “Little bit.”
Mordant laughed quietly. He gripped the bottom of the condom and pulled out as gently as he could. “Bathroom’s next door,” Pink said, collapsing flat on the bed, “on the left.” By the time Mordant came back with hot washcloth and a towel, he’d rolled over and was lying on his back, a long line of lax limbs and obvious contentment. Mordant sat on the bed by his hip and wiped the remains of his come off him, giving the sheet a scrub for good measure.
“Leave it,” Pink said. “I’ll change them later on.”
Mordant climbed on the bed beside him and arranged them both to his satisfaction, tugging Pink against him and sliding an arm around him. “Was that all right?” he asked. “Did I hurt you? How’s your wrist?”
Pink shook his head and snuggled in closer, throwing a leg across Mordant’s thighs and finding a comfortable spot for his head on Mordant’s shoulder. Mordant twined his fingers in his hair and ran his other hand down Pink’s back. He reached his backside and ran a palm over the still-heated flesh.
Pink made a noise of satisfaction and burrowed in tighter. “It was exactly right,” he said softly. “And my wrist is fine.”
Mordant was relieved. “Still floating?” he said.
“Yeah,” Pink replied. Then after a pause. “You’re warm. Do you have to go anywhere?”
“Shh,” Mordant told him. “I can stay.” He wasn’t leaving straight after that.
With a deft bit of toe-work he managed to pull the duvet up far enough to grab it with a hand and arrange it over the pair of them. He could do with a nap himself if he was honest.
****
He woke before Pink and spent a while drowsily enjoying the warm tangle of their legs together, the weight of Pink’s arm thrown across him, and the feeling of their shoulders pressed together. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw Pink had his face burrowed into the pillow beside his shoulder. Mordant’s eyes dwelled on the sharp cut of his cheekbone and the silvery fan of eyelashes on his cheek.
What was going on here? Mordant wasn’t in the habit of lying to himself; he was interested in Pink as more than a fuck. That had been part of the problem. He was wary of getting involved with people he worked with—he hadn’t any personal experience of it going tits up himself, but he’d watched it happen enough times to know it could make things sour for more people than just the couple involved. He’d put so much effort in to avoiding Pink, fighting against the temptation to make a connection there. It had been hard work, which... meant there was probably something there.
This felt right to him, as keeping his distance hadn’t. The guy clearly had a load of issues; along with this dreamy post-sex affection, Mordant was experiencing a strong desire to hunt down and hurt the guy who had made Pink so afraid his preferences in the bedroom would be taken to mean he was okay with being pushed around outside it. He stifled a huffing noise, and laid the arm not squished between them over his eyes.
“Regrets already?” Pink’s voice was quiet and slightly muffled by the pillow.
Mordant moved his arm and turned his head to look at him. Neither of them moved to put distance between them.
“No,” he said. “No regrets. Just...thinking things through.”
Pink’s mouth twisted into an unattractive self-depreciating not-a-smile. “Same thing,” he said.
Mordant turned onto his side, propped his head on his hand, and reached the other one out to tangle his fingers with Pink’s.
“No,” he said. “Not the same thing.” He tugged Pink’s fingers up and placed a kiss on them, meeting his eyes. “You could tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “Then I wouldn’t be making things up in my head.”
Pink shut his eyes and swallowed. Mordant watched him until he opened them again and turned onto his back, throwing the arm with the brace over his eyes, mirroring how Mordant had been lying earlier.
“I...” he said. “Malcolm. My ex. He got the idea that because I get off on being subby in bed—” he gestured with his free hand, “—you know. That I’d want that all the time. It took me ages to get my shit together to kick him out. He’s a copper. And he’s still writing to me. I’ve got a letter from him over there on the chest of drawers. It’s probably easiest to read that rather than me explain.” He gestured again.
Mordant rolled out of bed and got to his feet at the unspoken request. The envelope was crumpled, as if it had been shoved in a pocket. It had Pink’s name on the front, no address. He lifted it off the table, then came back to lie beside him again, twining their toes again. Whatever was in it, he didn’t want to leave Pink feeling as isolated and vulnerable as he looked.
“He sent it to my parents and asked them to pass it on,” Pink said miserably. “Mum gave it to me last night. It’s the usual bullshit, but... he wants something this time.”
The letter was brief and deeply unpleasant. You’ll never manage without me. I’ll always be here and eventually you’ll come crawling back... all wrapped around a request to come and tell a court how reliable the arsehole was.
“We were together a couple of years,” Pink said, moving closer as Mordant put the letter behind him on the table beside the bed. “I— It... all went bad pretty quickly after he moved in with me. He got more and more controlling. Thought the liking to be bossed around in bed thing meant I’d want to be bossed around the rest of the time too. Or... didn’t think that and did it anyway. I’ve kind of stopped wondering what his motivations were.”
“And now he’s stalking you.” Mordant didn’t frame it as a question.
“Erm. Kind of, I guess?” Pink swallowed. “He’s a copper, like I said. He told me he’d be able to find me whatever I did to get away from him.”
The penny dropped.
“That’s why you didn’t want to report Ant?” Mordant said.
“Yeah, partly. Not that it made any difference really. He’s always had this address.”
Mordant turned over the envelope to look at it. “This wasn’t posted, though?”
“Yeah, it was. He enclosed it with a letter to Mum and Dad. I guess he thought that if he wrote to me directly, I’d recognise his writing and not open it. This way he guilt-trips me with good manners in front of Mum.”
Mordant felt his eyebrows shoot up.
“Yeah, quite. He’s such a cunt.”
“Do they get on with him, then?”
Pink grinned ferociously, a sharp, three-pointed smile. “So much not. I think Mum would go toe to toe with him if he turns up here again.” He swallowed and dropped his eyes. “It’s one of the reasons I was happy to give up the house when I started the tour. I was fed-up with him turning up and trying to persuade me to let him in.”
“Did you report him?” Mordant asked, fuming on his behalf.
“No.” Then, quietly, “I’m scared of him, Mordant. I don’t think he’s going to stab me to death and cut me up in the bath or anything. But he’s big and he’s got an overpowering, dominating sort of way with him; and he’s convinced he’s got the right to tell me what to do.” He swallowed again. “It took me ages to get up the courage to kick him to the kerb and then he kept coming round, two or three times a week, to convince me to take him back. Convince me I wouldn’t manage without him.”
He stopped, biting his lip. He wouldn’t meet Mordant’s eyes. Mordant waited for him.
“He nearly convinced me I couldn’t. I... wasn’t very well for a while. He tried to convince the doctor I was making it all up about him trying to control me. Luckily the GP was pretty clued up. And so were my parents.”
