Work Text:
POV Dick Grayson
During sex, my mind disconnects from my body.
It's the only time when guilt and remorse don't finish me off.
I could forget everything and just enjoy.
My vision blurred, sweat soaked my bare skin, and I felt every inch of my skin alive.
Beneath me, the body of my young lover, his eyes, tightened as I penetrated him deeper.
He was just beautiful, and he made me go crazy.
“Damian!” I gasped as I felt a pleasurable shiver from the walls of him on me.
We had been doing it for over 3 months (we started days after he turned 17), and I could never get enough of the sight of him during sex:
His body was lean and firm. His golden skin, like the sands that he must have stepped on as a child with the League of Assassins, shone deliciously with sweat. His short, wet, black hair caressed the pillows on his bed in his Penthouse in downtown Gotham.
“Grayson!” he muttered, clenching his teeth and digging his fingers into the bed, twisting the sheets. I know he was dying to dig his nails into my back, but leaving marks on me would bring trouble for both of us.
Leaning on my elbows on the bed, I lowered my chest without stopping the movement we had achieved, until I brushed his hot abdomen against mine. His chest cavity was so close to mine, I could feel his crazy heartbeat and his agitated breathing, surely he could feel mine too.
He opened his blue eyes and looked at me with an intensity that sent a shudder through me. It was electricity, it was tickling, it was every nerve in my skin responding to his burning.
As I listened to Damian's ragged breathing and his warm, wet body beneath mine, I rested my head on the side of his, brushing my nose against his ear.
I was so tired.
“Grayson.”
I heard in the distance. He had turned and was brushing his young lips against my ear and then kissing it.
I wanted to answer him, but I had no energy. I tried to lift my forehead from the pillow, but I couldn't, nor did Damien's gentle caresses on my black, sweat-soaked hair help.
“Babs is waiting for me.” I thought I said in a voice that slurred each word as if they weighed a ton.
“I know.” He replied in a flat tone, and rolled out from under me getting up from the bed, then slipping into the bathroom with a resounding slam of the door.
I had intentions of calling out to him, but that was my limit.
Everything went to black.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw when I woke up was Damian's face. I was still in his bed, and he was lying next to me, turned towards me, looking at me.
His face seemed somehow immensely sad, almost nostalgic.
He said nothing as I slowly began to place myself in the context we were in. Then I opened my eyes wider in surprise and sat up quickly, looking around.
“What time is it?”, I asked, seeing that Damien had already bathed and changed clothes, and had covered me with a blanket as I slept.
“I think it's 6.” He said, laying his head back on the pillow and looking up at the ceiling of his fancy place bought by his mother for his 17th birthday.
“Oh crap, I was supposed to meet Babs for lunch at 3!” I yelled, trying with my eyes to locate my stuff scattered around her room. “Why didn't you wake me up, hasn't she called me, where's my phone?”
“Quiet Grayson.” He said calmly, grabbing me by the wrist before I stood up.
“I stood Babs up!”, I said angrily, but he grabbed me tighter.
“She called you on your phone a couple of hours ago." He said pointing to his bedside table where my cell phone rested, “I answered and told her that you had stopped by to see me and that you had fallen asleep on the couch while I had gone to get something to drink. She understood and said she'd come for you, she's not here yet."
I sighed more calmly, and when I was about to get up to go to the bathroom, he didn't let go of me.
"Damian...?
"You're so tired." He said, turning to look at me in a way I had rarely seen him. "I went to take a shower and when I came out, you were asleep. I couldn't wake you up, you looked exhausted. You're always running back and forth, Grayson, your body just isn't taking it."
I was silent, realizing my own exhaustion. It was as if I had remembered it and added 10 years of burden to my back.
"You're right Damian I'm not holding it, I guess I'm not...”
Then he released me as if my skin burned his. I looked at him without understanding, and her face returned to his usual one, covered with a mask of coldness, pedantry, and arrogance.
"No! Shut up! I don't want to talk about this!"
Then he got up from the bed, and this time I held his wrist, so he wouldn't run away.
"Damian! You must listen to me!"
"No!"
"Damian! Damian!", I shouted struggling with him. “You behave like a child!"
I stared at him, watching as he breathed in agitation and refused to look at me.
"This is killing me Damian. And not just the exhaustion, but the guilt too. I don't want to do this to Babs anymore. I won't."
And I let go of him, waiting for his reaction.
However, to my surprise he looked at me defiantly and cynically started laughing.
"If you're going to finish anything, it won't be with me." He mumbled calmly approaching me and brushing his cold hands across my bare ribs until he wrapped his arms around me. "If you're tired of this, you should end it with Gordon, or quit your vigilante occupation or whatever it is that exhausts you so much."He smiled as I lay there still. "I'm not an option Grayson and you know it."
And of course I knew it. Damien didn't care about anything much more than his own interests. And I could imagine perfectly well what would happen if I left him.He could tell Babs, invoke the League, turn violent, or do anything else that would make me regret my whole life breaking up with him.
And besides, I couldn't leave him.
Whatever we had, I just couldn't end it.
I loved Damian? I did not know, I did not know it. But he was already so inside me, and he was as necessary, as much a part of me as my own soul…or Babs's.
He and she were for me the extremes of my happiness and my sadness.
I couldn't live with them both at the same time, but I couldn't live without them either.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
What kind of selfish being was I?
"I'm not leaving Babs and you know it, that's not an option."
"Well figure it out Grayson! If you're going to end anything, it won't be with me!", He yelled squeezing his eyes shut and walking out of the room.
I heard the unmistakable sound of the steel door of his training room, whipping on the frames, and then the sound of his angry fists on the sandbag.
*
I took a quick shower, got dressed and went to the couch in the living room to wait for Babs to arrive. I was sitting right in front of the door where Damian was still locked in.
I got up going around the other matching red couch and walked over to the door, from which no sound could be heard.
I raised my right hand and with my fingers brushed the cold metal.
"Da..." I started to say, then my phone started ringing. I looked at the screen.
Babs.
"Hey" she answered me.
"Hey" I greeted her as I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, leaning against the door.
"I thought we were having lunch."
"Sorry, I fell asleep..."
"We'll talk about it. I'm five minutes away."
"Okay. See ya."
"See you Dick." She said and hung up.
I looked at my phone and then at the door.
I sighed as I walked to the entrance, where I sat on the step in front of the exit door.
After a moment, I felt Babs' firm knocking and opened the door.
There she was, Barbara Gordon, so beautiful, luminous and perfect. She smiled warmly at me and I could barely pretend to smile back.
She looked over my shoulder, looking around the room.
"He's training." I said pointing my thumb at the door behind me. She nodded, and that was, to me, like some kind of permission. I walked up to her and kissed her passionately, feeling her lips reciprocate me soft and sweet.
I needed to kiss her.
I needed to prove that I couldn't leave her.
And I couldn't.
We walked away and she took me with her thin fingers from the chin.
"You look tired."
"I am. Just take me home."
She nodded and released me.
"Aren't you going to say hello to him?", I asked as I saw her open the door for us to leave.
"I'll pass for now. He doesn't sound too happy." She said smiling and walked out the door.
I looked at my situation there in the middle.
I could follow Babs, or stay with Damian.
"We're leaving now!", I yelled before I closed the door from outside and left.
'You mustn't think about it Grayson' Damian always told me when I was torturing myself with guilt. 'When you're with me, forget she exists. And when you are with her...' He would never say it, but he would make a meaningful gesture with his face.
"Dick" Babs spoke to me, snapping me out of my thoughts. I shook my head, opened the door, sat in the passenger seat and smiled at her as best I could as we left the place.