Snippets of an affair ~ First communication

[zahraowens]

Title: Snippets of an affair (21/?) ~ First communication Author: zahra_owens Beta: The one and only Namárië Rating: R Word Count: 2920 Warnings: Major angst Disclaimer: Persons and events described here may, on the surface, seem familiar, but I don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Author's note: The POV may change throughout the story, so the 'I' from this chapter may not be the 'I' from the previous chapter.

INDEX / PREVIOUS

"Please don't leave?"

I see you hesitate, unsure whether you can trust the sudden change of heart after I've been so harsh towards you. When I left I was so mad at you, so disappointed, that I wasn't thinking straight. A brisk walk in the cool night air made me calm down and the more I started thinking of what I'd said, the more it dawned on me that you might be gone by the time I came back. And the more I realised I couldn't live without you.

These past weeks I've been distancing myself from you. At first the mere thought of sex was enough to make me gag, but I'm a man, and a relatively healthy one, so despite the mixed emotions it brought, I did start lusting after you again as soon as I stopped drowning my sorrows in alcohol. I couldn't help feeling rejected, though. Up until that one night when you clung to me so needily, our physical contact has been minimal and even now, you stand there, frozen in place, seemingly without any desire to move.

I look away, feeling that my scrutiny probably makes you uncomfortable, and from the corner of my eye I see you relax a bit more.

"Are you serious?" you ask tentatively, your voice broken.

I nod. "Unless you want to leave?"

"No," you're quick to answer and this makes me smile inwardly. I don't dare let you see it, though.

You inhale deeply before continuing. "My intention has always been to stay...here...preferably with you."

It seems silly all of a sudden to stand here in the hallway, so I coax you into the living room, where you sit down on the couch. "I'll go make us some coffee so we can talk, okay?" I suggest.

You nod and then change your mind. "Can you make mine hot chocolate, please? I'm nervous enough as it is; don't need caffeine to make it any worse."

I smile at you empathically and decide that your suggestion is probably a good idea for both of us. I pop two cups of milk with Dark Chocolate Hershey pellets in the microwave and as I turn it on, panic strikes out of nowhere. What if you sent me to the kitchen so you could make your getaway? I quickly stride into the living room again and breathe a loud enough sigh of relief to make you look up.

"Everything okay?" you ask, looking at me from the couch that has seen many a seduction between us.

"Yeah," I answer a little hesitantly. "I just..." I'm torn between spilling it all and leaving myself utterly vulnerable or just shutting up completely. I'm incredibly afraid of losing you, though, and if you walk out of here this evening, I want to make sure I did everything possible to prevent it. "I..." I'm interrupted once more, this time not by my own insecurities, but by the ping of the microwave. You smile encouragingly and I feel myself relax a little bit more, but not completely. We have a lot to talk about and haven't been the most communicative pair so far, so I'm not able to be totally comfortable yet. The fact that I told you to leave and you stayed, though, speaks for your commitment, and I hope I can overcome my rebellious body so that at least that won't get in the way.

I silently offer you your cup and you chuckle, because I gave you the bunny mug that I bought you last Easter and that you usually only drink out of when I'm not home because I always make fun of how impractical it is. I don't do that now and we sit silently, sipping the scorching hot liquid.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you beforehand," you say, breaking the not entirely uncomfortable silence between us.

"I'm sorry I acted so irrationally," I reply.

"You had every right,” you concede. "We've never had secrets. I just never thought it would come up and when it did, when he hurt you, I couldn't bring myself to tell you about it then. You were so...damaged.... I didn't want to make it worse."

I tentatively put my hand on your knee and I'm glad you don't retreat. "We really have to start talking, hey?"

"I suppose great sex doesn't conquer all."

I see your slightly cheeky smile and laugh. "Well, if that starts to falter, what do you have left?"

"I understood that, you know. That's why I slept in my own room. I wanted to give you space to heal without having this sex crazy lover to contend with."

You roll your eyes and I squeeze your knee. "I enjoyed my sex crazy lover, even though I couldn't do anything to help him."

"You're just a dirty old perve, who likes to watch younger guys like me wank." I almost expect you to poke my ribs, but you don't. Instead you take another sip and lean against me, our shoulders touching and your hair tickling my neck.

"I'll watch you wank any time," I gladly admit. "As long as you stay."

"I'd happily trade in the jelly cock for the real thing, though," you say, twisting your head so you're looking at me in a very lopsided way.

I lift my arm and drape it across your shoulders, squeezing you closer so I can kiss the top of your head. "I hope to have the real thing in working order again soon, so I can oblige."

"It worked a few days ago," you exclaim, sitting upright again and looking at me with a worried face. "You know, when we... when you... "

"I wasn't hard enough to be any use to... " I catch my dark thoughts and ban them, "...to replace that huge flesh coloured thing with the suction cup you like using."

You're not easily put off and instead of being upset by my hard words, you turn around and look at me seductively, not in a sexy sort of way, but more like a kid asking for candy. "It's not huge. Not in a porn movie sort of way. It's just average and a very poor substitute for the real thing."

I have to admit I'm flattered, so I don't object to you climbing on my lap and kissing me. It feels amazing to be this close to you again after fearing just an hour ago that I'd lost you forever, but somehow, I want more. I want us to talk about what happened, because I'm afraid that we're travelling down the same road we were on, so while I hold you to me with one hand, I gently push you away with the other. "Please, Angel, as much as I like what you're doing to me, we need to talk first."

For a moment you look at me as if you're trying to gauge the true meaning of my words, so I try to give you a loving look. You seem unsure how to proceed so I caress your cheek with my hand and you kiss that before getting off me and snuggling against me on the couch.

"I'm not good at talking," you finally say, "but I'll try. If that's what you need, I'll try to talk."

We sit on the couch in silence for a while until I take a sip of my cocoa and realise it's cold. "You want another one?" I ask, raising my mug.

You shake your head, so I remain seated.

"What will happen if he walks free?" you ask quietly. I know this makes you nervous and to be honest, I'm not comfortable with the idea either, but we both know it's a possibility.

"I hope he'll at least be held accountable for what he did with that knife of his. Other than that..." I shrug, but I know you realize that it does matter to me. "You and I know what happened. If we can't prove it to a judge, there's not a lot we can do about that."

You snuggle closer to me again and as you shiver, I realise I'm cold as well. "It's getting late, want to continue talking somewhere warmer?"

"Like in bed?" you ask and I wonder if what I hear in your voice is expectancy or whether my mind is playing tricks on me. I nod anyway, deciding that I can play it by ear, but I hope I don't have to make myself even clearer to you than I already have with regards to what I want, or rather don't want, to do in bed right now.

Going upstairs and getting ready to go to sleep isn't too nerve-wracking. We've been doing it for a while now, ever since you started sleeping in our bed again and if anything, it's comforting. We usually keep to our own side of the bed and tonight the light on the night stand is lit on my side. I watch you crawl under the duvet, dressed in one of my long sleeved t-shirts and jogging pants, since your stuff is still sitting in the hallway, and you pull the covers almost up to your ears, so I gesture for you to come closer. We always used to sleep close together, if not tangled or spooning, at least much closer than we've been sleeping these past weeks; so when you wrap yourself around me and settle into the crook of my arm, it feels delightfully familiar.

"Mmmh, nice," you murmur. "I think I need to fatten you up again, though."

I shrug. I suppose I have lost some weight, but so have you. The stress of these past weeks has been hard on both of us. "So are they teaching you to cook now too?"

You chuckle. "I thought you could teach me?"

Now it's my turn to laugh. "I think it's safer to keep you out of the kitchen; besides, I like cooking for you."

"I like eating your cooking," you reply with a sigh as you snuggle even closer. We're nice and warm now, but if my own feelings are anything to go by, the tension between us still isn't completely resolved. I guess we're both still a little unsettled by the fact we almost split up earlier. In fact, I feel terribly guilty for having been as impulsive as I was. "I'm sorry I told you to leave earlier," I quietly say.

"'s okay," you murmur.

"No, it isn't." You look up at me with worry lines all over your face and I soothe you back down by placing my hand on your head. "I don't know how to explain what I did. I don't even understand it."

"Like I said, don't worry about it." You turn around and out of my arms, back to your own side of the bed. You conveniently leave me enough of the duvet to stay warm on my side, but I feel I've been brushed aside and, although I don't blame you, I feel lost. I turn off the light and lie there, looking at your back.

"Angel?" I say quietly, but you pretend to be asleep.

"Angel?" I know you're awake although you're trying hard to pretend you're not. I need to tell you this, though, because I don't know when I'll ever have the nerve again. "When I walked out, I was furious. I felt so betrayed and hurt, it felt like I'd been raped all over again. After I’d walked for a while, I slowly calmed down and I started realising that you might not be home when I returned. That's when I understood that I was going to come home to an empty house and the one thing missing would be you. I'm not very good at saying I love you because basically, I think it sounds corny and fake, so I've never said it to anyone. But then, I've never felt for anyone what I feel for you, so I suppose I've never had a reason to tell anyone before. I love you and even though saying that doesn’t seem like enough, I just want you to know."

"I don't deserve your love," you say after a tense pause.

I want to reach out for you, touch you, pull you closer, but I need a sign from you that it's okay. "Nobody deserves it more than you do," I eventually tell you. "I know I'm presuming a lot here, but I feel we belong together and unless you're very good at pretending, I think you feel the same way. I don't care that the years of abuse have messed you up and that right now he's messing with your head again, because I'm here to keep you safe and at the same time, I know you keep me sane too."

You hurry out of bed, away from me, but I can't let you go. Not after we've come so close to falling apart. It's like I needed this wake up call to realise that I really can't live without you, so I follow you and it only takes me a few steps to catch up to you in between our bedroom and the landing. This time I'm not so hesitant. I try to grab your arm to turn you around, but you pull away. I manage to pull you into my arms, though, your back against my front and slowly you give up struggling, so I loosen my grip somewhat.

"You're just like him," you hiss. "You want me to struggle and fight you, you want to win, so you can feel like a real man when you fuck me."

I immediately let go and take a step back. I'm shattered by your accusation and all I can do is look at you and shake my head. I would never do anything to you against your will, could never force you to bend to me. I thought I'd made that clear from the start. "I'll only accept us as equals, you know that," I protest.

"But we're not equals. If we were equals than I would have protected you against him. You're so strong and I... I... " You're beyond crying. I can see you shivering and I know it's not from the cold. I know it's because of the tension inside of you that you need to release.

"There was nothing you could do, Angel. Like you said, if he threatens to do something, he doesn't want to be stopped, he wants a reason to do it and you protected me by not giving him that reason."

"But he cut you anyway!"

The answer in my head paints a smile on my face, no matter how inappropriate it is in this situation. "He didn't castrate me, like he said he would, so that's enough for me."

You shiver even more and I hold out my hand, palm up, for you to take.

"So you see, you did protect me from him. And you were there afterwards. You took care of me and you were so patient with me. You knew very well that the last thing I needed was any sort of physical intimacy and..."

"I thought you were disgusted by me," you say in a small, hesitant voice. "I thought that's why you threw me out, because you realised that you couldn't get it up because you thought I was disgusting."

My arm is growing heavy, but I don't want to lower it yet. I'm still hoping you'll take my hand and follow me back to our bed. "I'm sorry I acted so irrationally, but I promise, it had nothing to do with me feeling turned off by you. I've never held anyone's past against him and that's what I was doing when we came back from the courthouse. Once I calmed down, I realised that you can't change the past and I couldn't expect you to be perfect, because nobody is. It dawned on me that it was all futile compared to having to live without you, and I didn't want something so trivial to come between us."

I see your gaze move to my hand and then back up to my face and suddenly you push yourself against me and kiss me almost violently. Your force propels me against the open door and I let you press me against the hard surface, feeling the full force of the contact when my head bangs against the hard wood. Immediately your hand comes up to cradle my skull and you rub it without breaking the kiss.

We don't stop kissing until we're both out of breath and terribly aroused, to the point of feeling weak at the knees.

"Come back to bed with me?" I ask you, slightly hesitantly.

You nod. "We still need to talk more, though."

"Well, lying down to get warm together doesn't exclude that, I believe."

"No, it doesn't," you answer and for the first time all day, I see a smile break on your face. I take your hand but it's you who leads me to the bed. We're both giddy, from the kissing and from the release of tension, but it feels good to get it off our chests.

For the first time in months, we find our sleeping positions again, you half on your back, half on your side, with a pillow behind you and me half on my stomach and as close to you as I can get.

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