Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The soft breathy grunts spilling from Laurent’s mouth were accompanied by the rhythmic slide of skin on skin and the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead. From somewhere close by there were voices, muffled through the walls but present and close all the same. Laurent squeezed his eyes closed, pressing his head back against the cool tile and concentrated, body thrumming with frustrated awareness as he stroked himself, coaxing his cock into acceptable hardness. His body was slow to cooperate, rising lethargically despite Laurent’s wishes as was so often the case when he did this himself.

His body wasn’t always very good at comprehending the mechanics unless someone else was involved. And even then, not every time.

When, finally, he was hard enough that angles and a firm grip did the rest, he tipped his phone down, snapping the photo of his cock in his hand, his jeans pushed down an inch or two to show a tantalising slither of skin.

He sent it with the caption: thinking of you.

He was soft again before he even pulled his jeans back up.

Unlocking the cubicle Laurent was confronted by the glaring row of mirrors and he had the bizarre sensation of seeing himself as if it were a stranger. As if he were watching parts of his life from outside of the body he was trapped in. Observing. A spectator in his own head, watching things happen instead of feeling them.

When he exited the bathroom there was a cluster of people around the water fountain, gossiping idly in the way offices had whereby any talk was better than actually working. He caught a glimpse of the clock as he went past, informing him he’d taken nine minutes and Maureen his godforsaken manager, was bound to be pissed off about it.

Laurent should probably care. He was on an improvement plan and a warning as it was, it’s not like he could afford to go about pissing her off. And yet he couldn’t help himself. He never could. Even when he wanted to.

As expected, Maureen made an exaggerated motion toward her watch when Laurent breezed back toward his desk and he barely held on to a responding eyeroll. Instead of acknowledging her he pulled his phone out, pleased to find a response to his text already. Damen never did make him wait long.

Fuck baby look at you. I can get off work early, be over at 5?

“Don’t think I’m not aware,” Maureen called

It was a shitty office admin job; it’s not like they were saving lives for fucks sake. It was boring, mundane, and almost made him wish he’d finished University. Or applied. He could probably still go, but it required deciding what he wanted and Laurent had found, oftentimes, he didn’t know what it was he wanted or what he was trying to achieve. If he even wanted anything at all. He’d learned a long time ago it was better not to want anything, there was no such thing as disappointment if there were no expectations.

Laurent responded to Damen, telling him okay as he made it back to his desk, only mildly annoyed to find Katie -the office gossip- was perched on the desk of Erasmus beside him. Lily had seemingly gotten lost on her way to the printer too and was also crowding Erasmus for one of her lovely ten-times-a-day chats. It was the bane of Laurent’s existence sitting beside Erasmus in the office, for more than one reason.

The computer blinked back to life and he logged in, sending Maureen a little faux-smile over his screen to let her know he was being a good boy.

“It should be illegal to be that sexy,” Katie said

Laurent just might be interested in the inane conversation going on beside him after all.

“Who are we talking about?” He asked

“Erasmus’s boyfriend,” Katie beamed “he just showed me a photo and holy-“

Oh. Never mind, definitely not interested.

“Yeah,” he swivelled to his screen “I know Damen,” he said as dismissively as he could when his whole body had reacted to the moniker.

“Laurent introduced me to him,” Erasmus added helpfully

Laurent had introduced Erasmus to Damen, entirely on accident when they bumped into Damen whilst on a work night out at the pub. Laurent just hadn’t thought doe eyed simpering twinks were Damen’s type. Yet here they were. Erasmus still had his Happy 1^st Anniversary card from Damen sitting on his desk, weeks after the fact, so Erasmus must have more to him if he had kept Damen interested for over a year. More than Laurent had been able to perceive from their office interactions anyway.

Or he gave really good head.

He probably did. Plush little mouth and big round eyes that would fill with tears whilst he choked himself oh-so-willingly on Damen’s more-than-generous cock. He probably did whatever Damen wanted. Who wouldn’t want a live-in sex toy? He couldn’t even blame Damen.

Laurent hummed, “he used to fuck my brother, but he broke Damen’s heart so here we are,”

Katie choked, nearly spitting her chai latte out and Lily gaped at him. Erasmus, the darling, flinched, fidgeting as he peered at Laurent through his bangs.

“Is that true?” Katie asked, the question directed at Erasmus.

“Oh well, yes, but they’ve been over for a long time,”

Auguste and Damen had split up nearly five years ago. It was basically another lifetime. Laurent only mentioned it because it stopped Erasmus from smiling and had him turning away from Laurent, the tips of his ears going pink.

Instead of adding anything else to the conversation Laurent put his earbuds in, letting them know to fuck off. And off they did fuck, leaving Laurent alone with Erasmus on their side of the desk bank. Erasmus turned to him, studying him for a long moment, and he hoped to God he wasn’t about to say anything because he really wasn’t in the mood.

Thankfully Erasmus got the message and spent the next few minutes shuffling things about on his desk. Making sure everything was perfectly in place. Including the fucking bright pink love heart card from Damen.

Laurent had read it once or twice. Or several times. The words were laughable, truly. Sickly sweet and fluffed up with nonsense that no sane person would ever want to write down. It was absurd Damen had written it down. Laurent could scarce imagine him saying such sappy bullshit out loud let alone immortalising it on paper.

Words like I’m so lucky to have you and I’ll feel the same on our tenth anniversary as I do today sandwiched between clear in-jokes and barely disguised promises.

A year wasn’t even a long time really. In the grand scheme of things. Laurent had lived twenty-three of them and sometimes he blinked and a week had rolled by without him even realising. Or remembering much of it.

Maybe it felt longer than it was because they moved so fast? Erasmus had upped and moved in with Damen at 8 months. Some bullshit about his lease being up and not having a new place yet or whatever. A clear ruse. And one that worked because he still fucking lived with him. Four fucking months of domestic bliss later.

Laurent couldn’t imagine living with anyone. Where would he hide? Would they be mad at all the men he brought home? Or the extremely loud music he played sometimes to drown out the voices in his head when they were at their most vile? He wouldn’t be able to walk around naked or drink straight from the carton in the fridge. If he ever had a carton in there to drink from anyway. Which he didn’t.

His rent was extortionate even for a one-bedroom flat because it was in the capital. Bills had sky rocketed recently and really, Laurent had priorities other than buying the bare minimum to keep existing. Like alcohol. And cigarettes.

His phone lit up with another text, Damen’s name flashing on the screen to tell him he couldn’t wait.

He wasn’t sure what it said about him that for the rest of his shift he was quietly pleased with himself. And every time Erasmus grated on his nerves, he remembered Damen’s text and settled.

Whatever it was, like most things about him, it probably wasn’t very good.

~*~

The commute home was predictably miserable. Not for the first time Laurent rued the fact he could neither drive nor afford to learn. He’d lived in his shitty flat above a shitty convenience store for five years, had signed the lease the second he turned eighteen and had been able to escape from his parents’ house of horrors. When he’d first moved in there had been nothing to it. Bare walls. A mould problem. Rusty plumbing and radiators that didn’t really work.

Five years later it was still the same damp, mould ridden, rusty shithole, but it had accumulated a lot of junk and it was cluttered with stuff. His stuff. Plus the place smelt like cigarettes so much he couldn’t even smell the damp anymore.

As Damen was always annoyingly on time, Laurent had all of five minutes before Damen showed up. He kicked his shoes off in the hall, dumping his work bag and coat on the floor and raced to get out of his awful work clothes as quickly as he could.

Not that it really mattered. Damen had the same reaction to him whether he wore lingerie or his tatty oversized hoody. But Laurent fucking hated his work clothes. Even if he pushed the limits of acceptable and insisted black jeans and all black trainers were the same as trousers and shoes but whatever.

He could change into something else. But really what was the point in putting more clothes on? Damen had an hour at most before Erasmus started to call asking where he was and what he wanted for dinner so it was saving time really.

He had just decided on not putting new clothes on when Damen was knocking the door anyway. When Laurent pulled the door open, wearing absolutely nothing but a smile, Damen drank him in, pupils dilating as he moved forward.

“Fucking hell Laurent,” he groaned, hands making a home on Laurent’s hips as his mouth descended.

The kiss was hard, desperate. Damen kicked the door shut and lifted Laurent by his thighs all in one quick move. Laurent groaned, already hardening between them as Damen pressed him up against the cold bare wall, fingers going unerringly to his hole.

“I’ve been half hard thinking about you all fucking day,” Damen groaned against his neck, pressing a dry fingertip up inside him.

Laurent gasped, writhing, loving the slide of fabric against his bare skin. It was scandalous to be entirely naked and rubbing himself up Damen’s pristine white work shirt. He imagined himself getting off like that, rubbing against him desperately, ruining Damen’s shirt by coming all over it and sending him back to Erasmus covered in him.

Now he was hard.

“Show me, show me how badly you want me,” Laurent gasped when Damen sank his finger in all the way, a dry drag that was always too real.

Damen kissed him for a long moment, pressing him into the wall as he fucked his finger in and out of him; a teasing parody of what they both really wanted.

“Damen,” he said into his kiss, nipping at his bottom lip until Damen turned them away and carried Laurent through to his bedroom.

He dropped him onto the bed and Laurent bounced down, grinning, wild with want when Damen flipped him bodily onto his stomach like it was nothing. He pushed up to his elbows, shoving his hair away from his face as he spread his thighs and cast a glance over his shoulder.

Damen loosened his tie, practically ripping the buttons off his shirt, fixated unerringly on Laurent’s ass. He pushed his hips up, wriggling, clenching down on nothing until Damen abandoned his task with a groan and grabbed two big handfuls of him.

He squeezed hard, shaking his hands to make Laurent’s flesh bounce before he held him as open as possible and spat directly over his fluttering hole. Laurent hummed, closing his eyes the better to appreciate the warmth of it a second before Damen dived down to devour him with his tongue.

Damen’s tongue. His fucking tongue had a starring role in far too many of Laurent’s fantasies. Sometimes he couldn’t decide what he liked better: being worshipped by his clever tongue or being split open by his impressive cock. If he could have both at the same time he’d die a happy man.

Damen ate him out like he was ravenous. Like it was his sole mission in life to get Laurent’s toes to curl, to taste him as deeply as possible, to leave pink stubble burns on the sensitive inside of his thighs and between his cheeks that would last for hours on Laurent’s delicate pale skin.

He knew Laurent’s body. Two years gave him the kind of insight no one else had ever had about him. Or cared to accumulate. Laurent had never fucked anyone as long or as frequently as he fucked Damen and this was the result. A methodical piece-by-piece unravelling.

Before he could do much more than moan and try to push back, he realised he was throbbing hard and his body was burning up, teetering on an edge he didn’t want yet.

“Shit,” he moaned, reaching down to clamp a tight uncomfortable hand around the base of his cock, staving it off even as he pushed back on Damen’s tongue, riding his whole fucking face in long undulations as Damen guided his hips “I’m gonna come,” he gasped

Damen’s groan vibrated against his spit slick hole and he chased Damen’s retreat. He stilled only at the clank of Damen’s belt unbuckling and a zip pulling down. Laurent paused, urging himself to calm down lest he come the second Damen was in him. Damen reached for the dresser drawer himself, found the condoms and lube Laurent kept there and quick as a flash, idly ghosting to the fore: what would happen if he left it off?

No. Laurent didn’t do that. Ever. Not since-

The chill of the lube being drizzled over his hole had him right back in the moment. Had his lips parting on a moan and his face dropping to mouth at the bedding as the wet covered head of Damen’s cock prised him open. The way Damen’s cock split him open was brutal. Hard and long and perfect, and Laurent relished the sting.

“Yes,” he breathed, pushing back, taking him inch by inch. It was his favourite part of sex with Damen.

He had never been a size queen before Damen. Big cocks had always intimidated him. He’d preferred wide, a good girth to stretch him well, but then he’d come apart on Damen’s cock and he was sold; bigger was always better. Because Damen was long and thick and it was overwhelming, having Damen in him, stretching two-fold, making a ruin of Laurent’s body so he could drive his cock in at his leisure, make him loose and open and easy. Laurent fucking loved it. Loved the way Damen took him hard, over and over, until Laurent was a dripping wreck with his hole split open, red raw, and bruised and one wrong move might see his guts fall out of him.

He wondered if Erasmus liked it as much as he did. If he was as much of a fucking slut for Damen’s cock. Laurent would do wicked, horrible, disgusting things to keep it. Him. Had done them, in fact.

Would Erasmus? He doubted it.

When Damen’s hips were flush with his ass and Laurent was pinned beneath the solid weight of him, Damen stilled, grinding deep as he smoothed a hand all the way up Laurent’s spine.

Damen caught his hair, yanking his head back, stretching out his throat and causing a twinge somewhere between his shoulders. Laurent moaned for it, writhing beneath Damen like he could force him to fucking move.

“Say please,”

Laurent could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Fuck you,”

Damen let his hair go, sitting up so he was straddling the back of Laurent’s thighs. Damen’s thumbs were at his cheeks, prising him open as Damen slid his cock almost all the way out. Watching no doubt. He knew that. Damen was a very visual person; he fucking loved to see what he was doing.

Laurent clenched around the head of Damen’s cock, fighting to flex his hips back. Damen chuckled in response, bringing his hand down hard on Laurent’s cheek. The sound seemed to vibrate the way his skin did, loud in the quiet of his flat; a sting that made him bite his lip and turn his face against the bedding.

When Damen pulled out entirely Laurent whined, throwing a glare over his shoulder that he worried came out more like a pout.

Damen ignored him, instead stroking two fingers back into him. Not deep enough. Not thick enough. Not fucking enough. But Laurent found his hips pinned, one large palm settling at the small of his back to keep him down as Damen languidly played with his hole like they had all the time in the world.

“Fuck me,” Laurent groaned, trying to move but with Damen sitting on his legs and his body held down it was never going to happen.

Laurent would rather die than admit to him just how fucking much it turned him on. How fucking powerless he felt beneath Damen’s hands. Damen could do anything to him, Laurent would let him, wanted him to. Damen knew his body well after all and he was always hellbent on making it really fucking good. Laurent cared not one bit how Damen got him there.

“I am fucking you baby,” Damen said, sounding far too fucking smug for Laurent’s liking, fingers barely inside him to the second knuckle, idly twisting without moving to stretch him further.

Fucker.

“Fuck off, more, give me more,”

“Oh, I will,” Damen said, voice a dark husky drawl that made Laurent fucking shiver “eventually,” he added and Laurent cursed.

Damen knew what he was doing. He kept it up, stroking slow and careful, occasionally spitting, occasionally tugging on his rim and Laurent was tense with need beneath him until -abruptly- the fight went out of him.

Damen hummed his approval the second Laurent relented, the moment he relaxed he pushed both of his fingers in deep, twisting hard until Laurent groaned, attempting to spread his thighs.

“There you go sweetheart, just give in,” Damen said “this is my show, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Laurent moaned against the bed when Damen thrust a third finger inside him, speeding up, fucking him with them the way he’d wanted.

“I get to decide when you come and how you come, right sweetheart?”

“Fuck,” Laurent hissed hips flexing back without his say so “yes, yours,”

Damen’s approval of his words was apparent in the sudden loss of his fingers. Replaced moments later by the thick slide of his cock and Laurent sucked in an inhale, mouth opening as Damen sank all the way back inside.

Laurent didn’t move. He’d learned his lesson.

“Now we’ll try this again,” Damen said, blanketing him, hips pressing against Laurent’s ass, mouth at his ear, hands tangling with Laurent’s to pin them to the mattress either side of his head “say please,”

The words were out of his mouth before he could consciously consider it.

“Please Damen,”

“Good,”

Damen pulled back, sharp and swift and slammed back inside. Laurent gasped, clinging to Damen’s fingers as Damen took his earlier demand to heart and fucked him into the mattress. The way he wanted.

Laurent pushed back, encouraging Damen to fuck him hard and deep, with long punishing thrusts, his legs kicking up and his toes curling with each fuck in. It was the best kind of overwhelmed. An onslaught of pleasure, covered by Damen completely, surrounded by him, held down in the best possible way. All he had to do was feel good.

And fuck it was good. Exquisite. Exactly what he’d needed.

When Damen pulled out Laurent whined, pushing back to chase his retreat until Damen growled and flipped him over. He landed with a bounce, the breath knocked out of him as he lay on his back with his legs pushed up into the air and Damen bracketed between them.

The sight of him alone had his head falling back and his hand wandering to his cock. He didn’t touch it, not yet, but fuck, he wanted to. He was throbbing, his cock a hard weeping line against his tummy begging for attention.

The second Damen was back between his thighs Laurent was yanking him down, straining upward to meet his mouth in a bruising clench. He wasn’t much of a fan of kissing. He never had been. But he wanted as much of Damen as he could get. Always.

This was his favourite; Damen on top of him, his cock inside him, his tongue in his mouth, and the solid ridges of Damen’s abs rubbing against his throbbing cock. It always pushed him over the edge.

“I’m close,” he breathed, fucking back on Damen’s cock, matching him thrust for thrust

Damen drew back, fucking him hard and fast, all rhythm lost, eyes dark and hungry. He was close too.

“Come on me,” Laurent moaned, watching avidly as Damen groaned, sitting up and pulling out.

“With me,” Damen said and it was the permission Laurent needed to fucking finally wrap his hand around his own cock.

The condom snapped off with a tug and Laurent was transfixed, stroking himself, watching Damen’s thick fingers around his equally as thick cock, his mouth flooding with saliva in some fucked up Pavlovian response to the sight of Damen like this.

When Damen came his moan was a stuttered thing, hot and gravelly, painting Laurent’s stomach with his come. He looked so good, so fucking sexy Laurent’s back was arcing, body tipped over the edge as he called Damen’s name and came all over himself, adding to the mess adorning his skin.

Laurent went boneless, panting as he watched Damen’s head fall back for a long beat before he snapped his gaze down. Damen’s gaze went straight to the mess on Laurent’s skin. His fingers followed.

Damen gathered it on his fingers, rubbing it into Laurent’s skin until he was flicking his gaze up.

“Open,” he commanded

Laurent’s mouth fell open without much thought, sticking his tongue out to accept Damen’s messy fingers. He hummed as he sucked them clean, working his tongue around them diligently and holding Damen’s dark gaze the entire time.

He fully expected Damen’s mouth when it came and the kiss was filthy with the taste of them. Filthy and perfect. The kiss slowed, hunger fed until Damen was rolling off him and grinning up at Laurent’s water-stained ceiling.

“Fuck I needed you,” Damen stretched, cracking his neck, flexing his arms up.

Of course Laurent was staring. Damen was hot like that. When he had just come, when he was glowing with a mix of exertion and satisfaction, chest still heaving slightly and making his muscles dance under perfect olive skin.

Now he was no longer preoccupied by pleasure he was drawn to the marks on Damen’s chest. Eight crescent shaped red marks that tapered off into uneven tails. Scratches.

Certainly not from him.

Laurent’s jaw clicked, lips flattening.

“Nice scratches,”

Damen snorted, trailing a hand over his chest where the red marks were.

“Yeah, didn’t even notice, and he never does, not when he gets like that, he’ll do real damage one day,” he smirked

Unbidden into his mind flashed a vision of Erasmus riding Damen with his head thrown back, nails digging into his chest as Damen panted beneath him.

Erasmus didn’t have to be careful.

“What time do you need to go?” Laurent asked, instead of saying any of the other things on his mind.

Damen tipped his head, glancing toward the alarm clock.

“Twenty minutes,”

Laurent hummed as noncommittally as he could and reached across to his bedside table for his cigarettes. As he lit one and sat up a little against the headboard, Damen produced the ugly fucking Christmas mug Laurent used as an ashtray in his bedroom, handing it over without a word.

“Does he ever ask why you smell like smoke?”

Damen made a noise, a gesture something like a shrug “not really, I’d just tell him it was me, it’s not like he’d say anything,” he said reaching across to snag it out of Laurent’s mouth, inhaling deep before handing it back.

“I smoked all the time when we first got together,” Damen reminded him and it took Laurent a moment to realise he meant with Erasmus.

Laurent had forgotten, Damen only quit because Erasmus wanted him to. He used to smoke after sex all the time before hot got with Erasmus, he’d half prop himself up against the headboard, cock going soft against his thigh, one arm up behind his head and a cigarette between his lips whilst he stroked Laurent’s back or hair. He couldn’t imagine it went over well with Erasmus.

“The first time you fucked him did you spark up after?” Laurent asked, canting his head “did he cough and tell you it was fine when it clearly wasn’t?”

It sounded like something Erasmus would do.

Damen snorted, holding his hand out for Laurent’s cigarette again.

“The first time we fucked we were in the bathroom of some club so no, no smoking,”

A bathroom. Laurent clenched his jaw, turned his face away, tried and failed to make it fit with everything he knew about Erasmus. When? What club? Was it Damen’s suggestion or Erasmus’s? Was it good? Did people hear them?

Did you think of me?

“Surprised?” Damen asked, smirking when Laurent’s attention swivelled back to him

Laurent didn’t answer with anything except an eyeroll.

Handing the cigarette back Damen asked “did I ever tell you I lost my virginity in a bathroom?”

Laurent smiled despite himself, shaking his head “McDonalds?”

“Worse, school,”

Yeah, that checked out. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest. Damen as a young teenager, excited about figuring out what his cock did. Laurent had seen photos of Damen at fourteen, he’d been adorable, dimples and curls and big eyes- pretty. And popular, constantly in trouble, played on the football team, he could imagine it took absolutely no convincing whatsoever to get a girl to do that with him.

“How did you lose your virginity?”

The question took Laurent off guard. So off guard there was no time to put his defences up. Quick as a flash the thought swept across his mind with all the cloying thickness of smoke.

Half asleep in my childhood bed with my pyjamas around my knees, and my uncle’s holding me down whilst a party raged downstairs.

194. The number of seconds he’d struggled for breath and tried to ignore the pain.

33. The years separating their ages.

7. The letters in his parting words.

2. The weeks left before his 14^th birthday.

For a moment it was like he was back there. As if he had closed his eyes but he hadn’t, he still felt it in his body, heard the muffled music and the loud raucous voices of his parents and their friend’s downstairs. He could smell the whiskey, a smell that still made his stomach roll. He could see the exact pattern the street light outside had been casting through the gaps in the curtains when he was finally able to turn his head.

Sometimes he wondered if he’d died there and everything afterwards had been some fucked up purgatory he couldn’t escape from.

“Laurent?”

It was clear from Damen’s tone it was not the first time he’d said his name and Laurent blinked, bringing him back into focus. Damen was leaning up on his elbow, concern on his face apparent in the arc of his brows and the worry line appearing between them.

Laurent held back a grimace when he noticed the ash clinging to the end of his cigarette and flicked it into the mug

“Sorry, I spaced out, my first time was boring, standard kid stuff,” he said flippantly, handing the cigarette back.

Damen didn’t answer immediately, scanning Laurent’s face and half nodding in an annoying unconscious gesture. Laurent fidgeted, waiting for it to pass. When Damen took the cigarette, he took a drag before he answered and the space between made Laurent’s insides clench anxiously.

“Mine was rushed, awful, the condom broke and I freaked out, but it got better… practice makes perfect and all that,” he grinned, putting the cigarette out in the mug and putting it back on nightstand.

Laurent agreed absently and reached out to tug on one of Damen’s curls. Damen practically purred when Laurent flexed his fingers through his hair, dragging his nails against his scalp gently. Damen tipped forward, burying his face in Laurent’s chest.

From his position against his chest Laurent would be very surprised if Damen couldn’t hear how fast his heart was beating. He didn’t like this topic of conversation. Not one little bit. Clearing his throat and trying to calm his raging heart rate he tugged on Damen’s hair again.

“Do you remember our first time?”

Damen smirked, beautiful and sure as he lifted his head from Laurent’s chest “passionate,” he said shifting closer “hot,” he crept even closer as he spoke and Laurent couldn’t tear his eyes from the shape of his mouth around the words “incredible,” he said leaning in to kiss the word against Laurent’s lips.

Laurent opened for the slip of his tongue eagerly, melted into him, let Damen’s deep kiss consume him until he was blinking at his smirking retreat.

He had to clear his throat to speak “yes, very passionate, who can forget the smell of trash and piss,” he said

Damen laughed, shaking his head “I didn’t notice, I was too preoccupied,”

Laurent had been too truth be told. He hadn’t noticed until afterwards. But in reality, their first time had been a drunk fuck up against a wall in an alleyway behind some awful cheap bar where Ancel was celebrating his birthday.

Laurent had flirted with Damen relentlessly all night that night, carefully avoiding his brother. He had thought Damen would tell him to fuck off, that his ex’s little brother coming on to him would be too much for him. But he hadn’t. They’d ended up making out in the bathroom like a multitude of people couldn’t walk in on them at any moment and the thrill had been intense. Then they’d stumbled outside, and Damen had fucked Laurent up against the wall so hard and so good he had barely been able to stand afterward. Laurent would never stop chasing the high of it.

The worst part though, the very worst part about it, was that Ancel’s birthday happened to be exactly a month before his own. Which was fucking inconvenient. Damen probably didn’t remember the date. Why the fuck would he? Laurent wouldn’t usually remember it either but it was emblazoned in his mind. Circled in his head like a fucked-up calendar. It was over two years ago now.

Two years and two months to be exact. Not that he was counting.

It had set something of a precedent between them, one that only ever escalated. It didn’t matter what else they had going on in their lives, this thing had never stopped. It was one of the only consistent things Laurent had in his life. And the longest relationship.

Not that it was a relationship. It was just sex. Incredible mind-blowing earth-shattering sex. But still just sex.

It was all just body parts and pleasure. It didn’t mean anything. Sex never did. Sex, to Laurent, was the same as sating any other need. It held no more weight for him in meaning than shaking someone’s hand or drinking when his throat went dry.

In the two years he’d been fucking Damen there was only one long month where they hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t fucked. After some stupid argument Laurent could barely remember. When they had eventually started talking -and fucking- again Damen had revealed he was seeing that cute guy from your work, you don’t mind, do you?

And he was still seeing that fucking cute guy from Laurent’s work. They’d both always slept with other people. Laurent more than Damen sure, as Damen had been with Erasmus for a year, but it had never been a problem.

Not that it was a problem now. It wasn’t. Damen could fuck who liked. Laurent sure as fuck did. Fuck, he even slept with people he didn’t like, because it didn’t matter.

Damen knew Laurent fucked around. Sex was easy. And he needed it often. More often than Damen could give it to him.

And sometimes in ways he couldn’t bear for Damen to know about.

If he did, he would leave. After all, if Laurent disgusted him so much he decided he didn’t want to fuck him anymore then why would he stick around? It’s not like Laurent had anything else to offer. He knew what he was. What he was good at. Good for.

~*~

Friday night found him on one end of his sofa drinking wine from the bottle with a cigarette in hand as Aimeric sat at the other end, painting Laurent’s toenails a horrific shade of barbie pink.

Laurent had spent the past two days at work quietly smug, sitting beside Erasmus when he could still feel Damen inside him and smell him on the sheets he should consider washing soon. He fucking hated himself for it but he’d long since abandoned the pretence that he was a good person.

Aimeric was slightly drunk, butchering Laurent’s toes and painting his skin along with the nails.

“Do you ever want a boyfriend?” Aimeric asked, holding his hand out for the cigarette.

Laurent snorted “no,”

Laurent didn’t date. Ever.

Aimeric laughed, shaking his head around an exhale of smoke “but don’t you want someone that cares about you? Properly I mean,”

No one cared about him properly. Fuck, Laurent didn’t even properly care about himself. How the fuck could he expect someone else to?

No, it was better not to let anyone close. If he did, let them close, they might start seeing the cracks in his façade; the broken doll underneath the pretty face. Because he was, broken. Broken all the way down to his core. All of his layers were cracked.

He was a pretty Russian doll but only the top layer was intact. For now. That wouldn’t last either. He was 23, pretty, he liked sex and he used it -did it- often. For now that was enough to keep him getting what he wanted but eventually he would get older, time would take it from him. It was fine now, sure. But in ten years? Fifteen?

What would he be then? When the outside started to reflect the inside?

It was a depressing thought.

“Do you?” Laurent asked instead of answering

Aimeric shrugged “I want to be loved,” he said “I want someone to love me the way you read about in books, someone who can just-“ he waved his hand “accept me,” he said “but I have no idea what that means really, or what I’d do with it if I got it,”

It sounded awful. It meant being known. And being known meant losing it anyway. Those were his choices. He could keep someone at arm’s length and lie and pretend. Or let them in and wait for them to leave when they found out who he really was. What he really was.

“Sounds overrated,” Laurent said smirking as he accepted the cigarette back and took a deep drag.

It burned in his throat, telling him loud and clear he’d smoked too much this week. Not that he cared. On his list of concerns it was very fucking low. Sometimes, at his most fucked up, he thought it might even be better. To get ill. Something terminal and horrible. Then people would have to be nice to him, pity him, he’d get away with things because who wants to shout at the sick guy? Even the idea of dying didn’t seem so bad. A dreamless sleep sounded really fucking relaxing actually.

Aimeric scowled “it’s okay for you, you have guys hanging off of you all the time, you just choose not to date,”

Did he?

Those guys Aimeric referred to wanted to fuck him, they weren’t interested in anything else and that’s the way he liked it. Laurent wasn’t fucking interested in them either though. They didn’t matter. They never mattered. Not a single one of them had ever fucking mattered and he preferred it that way. None of them cared about him. Or knew him. And Laurent certainly didn’t let them stick around. Repeats made things complicated so he didn’t usually bother with a second go. Most of the time he didn’t even bother getting their name.

Except Damen. Laurent had never been much good at letting him go. Even when he should. When he wanted to. When Damen got close enough to question him. To know things. See things.

It led to things like arguments, like the one they’d had last year. It had been a complete screaming blow out resulting in not talking for a month and it had been awful. An itch under his skin he couldn’t get at. No drugs could fix it. Alcohol only made it worse. Sex was horrendous, fucking someone else and seeing only Damen in his head for over a fucking month was a frustration he couldn’t bear. Nothing had felt satisfying and he’d been miserable.

When they started seeing each other again Laurent had had to contend with Erasmus too. Had to watch Damen smile as he talked about him, walk off to answer the phone, say no to him because he had plans with his boyfriend.

Frowning, he sat up, kicking Aimeric’s hands away as he got clumsily to his feet. His thoughts were too loud. Pressing in on him. Making his chest hurt and his head feel too small to contain it all.

“We’re going out,” Laurent said already hunting for his shoes.

Aimeric groaned, even as got up to get his shit together like he knew well enough arguing was useless.

“If you ditch me for some guy again I’m gonna be pissed at you,”

“I won’t, I promise,”

He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and struggled to get his boot on at the same time, focusing on them and not Aimeric as he said it.

~*~

The mid-morning Saturday sun was too fucking bright for his hangover. The air was too crisp and with every breeze the alcohol wafted off him in potent fumes, making his stomach roll. He felt rough as fuck. To top it off he had no idea where the fuck he was.

He had let himself out of some guy’s house whilst the guy and his boyfriend were still asleep and now, he was walking down the longest road on planet earth searching for a street sign so he could make sure his glitching jumpy Taxi app map was right.

Aimeric was going to be pissed at him. Laurent had left him after about an hour, heading into the back rooms of the gay bar to suck a few dicks before going home with some guy who had wanted to see his boyfriend fuck Laurent.

It had been fine. Nothing to write home about. Just two dudes in their late thirties playing out a fantasy whilst all 3 of them were too drunk to make it good. Did he even come last night? He supposed it didn’t matter.

Once the taxi had dropped him off at home he headed to the bathroom. Where he stayed for 45 minutes beneath the scalding heat of the spray. Until his skin glowed bright pink and he felt numb. Until the water was nothing but little needles. Until it started to hurt.

When he was dressed and scrubbed clean the silence in his flat was oppressive. Loud. Dangerous. The kind of silence that had never boded well. Not when his head was so fucking loud and screaming accusations at him.

He felt-

He didn’t know. Itchy. On edge. He had no idea what the fuck to do with himself if he wasn’t going to throw himself into oncoming traffic.

He had the tin for times like this.

He tried not to. He tried to distract himself, watch TV, eat something. When he could do none of it without chewing his nail raw or pulling out strands of his own hair he gave in, stomping into his bedroom and dropping to his knees.

He kept the tin beneath the bed. In a cardboard box he’d used when he moved in. Inside the box there was an unassuming collection of old clothes, an old teddy he’d had since he was born, and a framed photo of a smiling boy with icy hair on the shoulders of an older boy with hair nearly golden in the sunlight.

He ignored all of it in favour of the metal box nestled right at the bottom. It was an indistinct tin. Tartan like it had probably once held a variety of confectionaries. Now it held his desperation like a secret.

It was full of medication. Some were foil strips, most of them empty, a few bottles, and fewer boxes. All full of complicated pharmacological terminology and dosage recommendations. Very few had his actual name on them. Laurent still didn’t know if half the labels were for real people or not. He’d never known. He didn’t really care.

He had a love hate relationship with the pills. He loved having an escape. He hated needed one. He loved the way they switched his brain off and made his body quiet. He hated why it had ever been necessary to introduce a fourteen-year-old to that kind of medication; medication he had never needed for any medical purpose.

It came in handy, he supposed, being a doctor. Laurent wondered what street substances he would have been subjected to if his uncle hadn’t been able to write prescriptions for him. He didn’t use them often. Not anymore. He had been better the past couple of years and used them very rarely. If he could help it he didn’t at all but sometimes. Sometimes.

Sometimes his skin was too tight and his body felt all wrong and he felt the echo of invisible strings. Heard the horrible breath that came before an insult or the sting after a wound that left no mark. Sometimes it wasn’t about want.

And right now he needed.

He swallowed the first few he came across because he was running worryingly low. Codeine probably, washed down with half a paracetamol and a generous gulp of wine. It didn’t matter what the pills were, they were all fairly high dosage. The heavy stuff. Three would make him fucking numb.

Whilst he waited for them to kick in, he scrolled idly through Grindr. He wasn’t even really looking at the profiles, didn’t really care who they were, he just needed something. He was in the middle of typing out a reply to a guy who asked if he was down to fuck today but before he could send his confirmation his phone lit up at the top, the screen flashing his brother’s name.

Groaning out loud he decided it would be best to get it out of the way.

“Auguste,” he answered

“Little brother,”

Once upon a time they had been close. Despite having over a decade between them. When Laurent was younger, he’d thought his brother was the coolest person in the world. That he’d hung the fucking moon.

And then somewhere around the time Laurent was first getting acquainted with the wonders of medicinal opioids and Auguste was off having an adult life that consisted of ruining good things, they drifted apart.

It was better this way. Better because the alternative was having Auguste look at him the same way their father did. Laurent might not have cared overmuch for Auguste’s opinion, but he wouldn’t ever want him to be disgusted.

“Did you get the invite to Nan and Grandad’s anniversary party?” Auguste asked “mom hasn’t heard back,”

“Ah yes, I forgot about mom’s rare condition that makes her allergic to the phone,” he said, defensive automatically.

Always. The defensive aggressive bratty persona he’d adopted when he was fourteen to deal with Auguste was the same one he always fell back on even now.

Auguste sighed “Dad said he sent it two weeks ago,”

If their father had been in charge of invitations, he was positive it was no accident that this was the first he was hearing about it.

“Dad, remarkably, suffers from that same rare condition whereby he too is allergic to phones,”

“Laurent stop being a dick, are you coming or not?”

“Not,”

He only had one living set of Grandparents and they weren’t his mother’s side.

“Uncle said you’d be difficult,” Auguste sighed “whatever your problem is with Dad and him just let it go for one night, mom wants you there and Nan was saying she hasn’t seen you in months, they’re old as balls Loz, get your shit together and come see them before they fucking die or some shit,”

Uncle said you’d be difficult.

He swallowed the rush of venom on his tongue, barely tasting it over the bile.

“My problem with them?” he snorted “dad hasn’t looked me in the eye for years but I’m the one with a problem?”

“Stop riling him Laurent,”

“I’m not doing anything,” he snapped

“No? Bringing home guys twice your age? Or junkies? Two guys and sitting at moms table whilst her friends are there explaining what polyamory is?”

Laurent smirked at the memory. In reality he hadn’t been dating either of them, obviously, they were just friends of friends he took home for the sake of it. Mostly to rile his father, Auguste was right about that, but he didn’t need to know it.

“Polyamory is-“

“You’re not poly Laurent,” Auguste huffed “a cunt and a whore, sure, but don’t pretend you don’t do it solely to fuck with them,”

Whore.

Laurent swallowed, slamming his eyes closed as if doing so would prevent the lash of a memory.

All you’ll ever be. A whore. Who could love someone like that?

He sucked in a breath, fighting the slam of it and exhaled “I know what I am,”

“The whole fucking world knows Laurent, my point, you don’t need to flaunt that shit and upset her for no reason,”

“Is that all I am to you then?” Laurent asked “your slutty little brother who makes bad choices?”

Auguste laughed like it was in anyway funny “that’s not all you are, but you do make bad choices and you are a total slut, so fuck off,”

Laurent heaved a sigh and tipped his head back against the arm of the sofa.

“Am I supposed to want to go to this thing?”

“No, you’re supposed to suck it up like a grown up, do you think I want to go? It’ll just be old people asking me why I’m in my 30s and not fucking married yet, plus Damen will probably fucking be there and I’ll just have to deal with our nan and his nan fucking telling us we were such a lovely couple,”

His name had the same effect as someone dropping something heavy and metallic in a completely silent room. Laurent flinched, scowling at his ceiling. Their nan and Damen’s nan were the best of fucking friends. He’d forgotten. It was one more reason not to go because Auguste was right. Laurent did not want to hear that shit.

“I really don’t want to,”

“Shut up, you’re going because our mother wants you to be there, and fucking call her once in a while for fucks sake, that phone works both ways Loz,” Auguste snapped “I’ll text you the details,” he said before hanging up.

All at once he was a kid again. Eighteen and alone. Staring at his phone and wondering why neither of his parents called despite not hearing from him or seeing him for over six months. He had reasoned, back then, that it wasn’t his fucking job to call them. He was the kid. Their kid. They should be taking that responsibility.

Did it still count at 23?

He didn’t fucking care; he was counting it. Besides, he had nothing to say to either of them.

He didn’t read Auguste’s text. He turned the TV up loud and waited for the Grindr guy to come help the numbness along. Maybe then his head would shut the fuck off for five minutes.

~*~

Laurent couldn’t be trusted to work from home. He did three days in office and the other two were an exercise in the kind of fucks he didn’t give and a work ethic he didn’t have. The only upside was no one could tell if he hooked up on work-time, which he did frequently when he worked from home. Even better though, sometimes Damen would come over.

He was an architectural engineer and Laurent wouldn’t pretend to know what he did exactly. But he did know Damen’s job was a good one with decent money and he worked from home whenever he wanted.

Unlike Laurent, he usually worked in the office because he had a lot of client meetings and a team to take care of. It meant sometimes, if the mood struck, Damen could leave the office and come over and work from Laurent’s home. Without Erasmus even knowing.

More than once Laurent had had a team’s meeting with his laptop camera on, staring at the little square of Erasmus’ face whilst Damen worked away on the other side of the table. More than once, Laurent had had his foot right up against Damen’s cock during said meeting, or had a vibrator inside him whilst Damen had the controller.

He was the worst kind of asshole for enjoying it.

Today hadn’t been one of those days though, and by the time he’d logged out he’d had a message from workflow and three from his manager asking what the problem was with his figures.

Because he’d done barely anything and had spent most of the day idly swiping the touch pad of his laptop, smoking and scrolling social media. There was also the guy he’d had over who fucked him in his hallway whilst Laurent was on his lunch break. Mostly on his lunch beak anyway.

Whatever, he’d deal with the messages on Monday and hope for the best.

It had been a long week. Laurent had gotten high at least three times and his pill situation was dire. He had a couple loose one’s floating around the bottom of the tin but he knew what it meant and he didn’t want to think about it. Not yet.

There was an itch beneath his skin. Indistinct and all consuming. The kind of itch that made him restless and tense. Shoulders rigid, mind wandering, no ability to concentrate, unable to sleep properly, leg jumping whenever he sat as his brain went again and again to what he needed. Nothing had been enough this week and really, he knew what he wanted.

It was Friday night and Laurent was rotting on his bed with a cheap box of wine and his laptop open. Watching porn was neither here nor there for him but he used it sometimes. When getting himself off might be the answer to the restlessness in his bones.

He hadn’t gotten very hard and he certainly hadn’t come and now he felt worse. So much worse, he’d resorted to texting Damen an hour or so ago. At about ten on a Friday when Damen was most definitely with Erasmus in the house they shared. Maybe even the bed they shared.

What if Erasmus saw the text? It’s not like Laurent tried to speak in code. I need you to fuck me wasn’t exactly subtle and he knew for a fact he was saved in Damen’s phone under his real name.

It was nearing midnight now and Laurent was scrolling through Grindr on a hunt for someone close. If Damen wasn’t going to fuck him Laurent would have to get it somewhere else. His laptop was still open, playing some show he hadn’t been watching as he fiddled idly with his metal straw emblazoned with fuck yeah turtles.

Technically it was a gift from Damen, part of the gift Damen had given him in front of people but they both knew Erasmus had chosen it. Laurent either used the straw because he actually liked turtles or he just fucking hated himself enough. Wasn’t sure which.

When Damen’s name flashed across the top of his screen he tried desperately to ignore his whole-body reaction. Flashed his eyes to the clock. Two and a half hours since Laurent had text him.

You still awake? Xx

Maybe.

Laurent text back only after a decent interval that didn’t scream pathetic and waiting.

The incoming call was more of a surprise than it should have been.

“Laurent,”

Even the sound of his name in that fucking voice had him humming, already sliding the glass to the bedside table and slamming his laptop closed. Slipping down further in the bedding.

“Damianos,”

“Did you want something love?”

Damen’s voice was low, trying to be quiet and it shouldn’t have turned him on more. It shouldn’t make his insides throb knowing Erasmus was there, could walk in at any second, where there would be no explanation for why Damen was touching himself whilst he was on the phone. Why Laurent was on the other end.

“You know what I want,” Laurent countered

Damen always knew and Laurent always wanted.

“You feeling empty baby?”

And fuck but he was. He closed his eyes, clenched down, felt the aching emptiness where Damen’s cock should be.

“I am,” Laurent said voice dropping to match Damen’s as he let his hand slide down his chest, not pausing until he was cupping himself, nursing the spark, coaxing himself up, hopefully with more success now he had Damen’s voice in his ear “I need something in me,”

Damen’s inhale was half a chuckle, knowing and heady “I know you do, you love it, don’t you? Always need something in you,”

Laurent hummed and hit speaker, resting the phone on his chest as he hurried to kick his underwear off and away to draw his knees up.

He sighed into the phone, let Damen hear the wet sucking sounds his fingers made as he soaked them, and the appreciative hum when he let those wet fingers rub against his hole. It would be nothing to push them inside. He’d take three easily enough.

“Put your fingers inside Laurent, I know you want them, just two though, don’t get greedy,” Damen said

Laurent couldn’t stop the amused huff as he did as he was told. Let Damen hear it, turned up the vocals so Damen would think he’d had to try harder to get them inside. Like he hadn’t fucked himself to no avail a few scant hours ago. As though he hadn’t had a guy over at lunch barely ten hours ago.

They slid in easily, the angle too shallow to really make him moan but enough to make him sigh in relief.

“That’s it sweetheart, pretend they didn’t sink straight in,” Damen said knowingly and Laurent huffed another chuckle, pushed his fingers in as deep as possible “add another, I know you can take it,”

He withdrew, pressed his fingers together and back in, waiting until they were as deep as he could get them before he tried to spread them apart.

“It’s better with three,” Laurent sighed rubbing his fingers at his insides, prodding and revelling in the sensation.

Damen made a low sound of affirmation and Laurent closed his eyes, picturing Damen’s perfect cock with his wide hand wrapped around it. How it would look all the larger for it, the size only ever more apparent when it was Laurent’s smaller hand wrapping around him. Fingers barely meeting. How pretty it was with painted finger nails grasping it. It made his mouth water just thinking about it, made saliva fill his mouth, made his eyes roll back at the thought of the way it felt to be split apart on him.

“I want to watch you fuck yourself,” Damen said, breathing hard and Laurent could just imagine the way he was squeezing his cock, harsher with himself than Laurent ever was.

Abruptly Damen hung up and Laurent frowned, squirming around his own fingers and confused but no less hard for it.

The video call made everything get tight even as he went loose. Better.

When the screen came into focus Damen was in his living room, the TV humming in the background, meaning Erasmus must be asleep. From the fall of Damen’s hair it was immediately apparent exactly what Damen had been too busy doing before to respond. He was still shirtless and he tilted the camera down to show Laurent his hard cock. Hard for Laurent this time. He probably hadn’t been fucking Erasmus when Laurent text him really. He’d probably just been waiting for him to fall asleep so he could slip out of the bed. Laurent clung to that idea.

Laurent lay back, tipped his phone up so Damen could see he was in bed. He didn’t look particularly sexy, not wearing anything special. Damen always seemed to like him like that. In an oversized shirt and nothing else. Damen’s oversized shirt.

It had infuriated him when he’d realised it. When he realised that for all the sexy, outrageous, slutty, or feminine clothes he owned and sent photos in to Damen, the one’s Damen liked best were the ones where Laurent looked like just Laurent.

Not that Damen didn’t appreciate the corset or the latex because he definitely did. But those weren’t his favourites. He liked him -disconcertingly- without the trimmings.

It was endearing.

And awful and shitty of him.

He turned his phone down, showing Damen he still had his fingers buried inside himself. Waiting for his go ahead. His instruction.

“God I fucking love the way you look when you’ve got something in you,” Damen groaned “such a pretty little hole Laurent,”

Laurent groaned, withdrawing his fingers completely to run them over his pretty little hole, pink and clenching and begging to be filled. Damen’s groan was not particularly quiet. Good.

“Go to your toy box,”

Laurent thought about pouting, about saying no but Damen raised one eyebrow like he could see the half-thought of challenge mounting in Laurent’s features and he relented, sliding from the bed to the chest wedged into the corner of his room. There were other things in the there. Spare blankets. Some shit from home. The toy box was what he flicked open. Waiting. He didn’t turn the camera around. It didn’t matter. Damen knew its contents. Had brought him most of it.

“The black one,” Damen said “the silicone one,” he amended “without the suction cup,”

Laurent had expected something a little showier if he was going to perform. Perhaps one of the really big ones, or something that vibrated. This one wasn’t particularly thick, not as thick as Damen’s cock. But it was long. Maybe an inch bigger than Damen. Not that Laurent had measured. Or thought about it. But it was hard not to. Damen’s dick looked like the kind of dick toys were modelled on when they wanted them to be mouth-watering and perfect.

The dildo curved up slightly too and Laurent loved that curve.

Damen’s cock did the same thing though not as obvious. Laurent loved that too; when Damen was over him and in him everything hit just right, caught his prostate whether he really fucking meant to or not. Like his cock had been crafted to play specifically to Laurent’s tastes and to ruin him from the inside.

When asked Laurent usually said his favourite position was doggy. Getting fucked bent double with his legs spread and his face in the pillows. Less intimate. Less personal. It could be anyone behind him and there was nothing to distract him from the sensation inside him. But there was something about Damen or about Damen’s cock in general that made Laurent want to be on his back, legs in the air or thighs split open. Maybe he liked to see his face. Maybe he was just a good kisser. Maybe he was just the hottest fucking thing Laurent had ever seen and he wanted to swallow him with his eyes and mouth and body at the same fucking time.

“Now get back on the bed,”

Laurent went, bouncing back down and arranging himself, letting the toy rest on his stomach so Damen could see the size of it in comparison, could imagine it buried in him, rearranging his insides. It always looked obscene. Laurent loved it when Damen made a point of doing it when he fucked him, rested his cock against Laurent’s, thumb running over his lower belly like he was measuring, seeing how deep inside he was going to get.

“Get it wet,” Damen commanded

He made a show of sucking it, kept his eyes on Damen and let it get noisy. When he pushed it down his throat to choke himself Damen moaned outright and his arm sped up, moving faster as he jerked himself off.

“I love choking on you,” Laurent said voice hoarse and wet

“Fuck yourself now, put it in,”

Laurent was thrumming with the anticipation of it and he drew one leg up, reached down and blindly guided the spit-slick head of the toy to his hole. It took a few awkward tries, a few rough prods and his skin caught on the unforgiving silicone where it wasn’t really wet enough, dragging and sticking until he pushed the head inside and didn’t stop, fed inch after inch inside, past the slim resistance until there was nothing left outside his body save for the flared base.

He had a very vivid memory of this exact toy and this bed and those eyes and Damen working even the base inside of him, following it in with his fingers to push it deeper still. Telling Laurent to hold it there, inside, as Damen withdrew his fingers, the hard clench of muscles around the dildo just up in him. When Damen had asked for it back Laurent had let himself loosen, had only had to bear down a little for the dildo to come slithering back out of him.

It felt so good inside him. It always felt good. Laurent enjoyed the weight of it, the strange sensation of being impaled, the heaviness between his pubic bone and belly, the stretch of his rim, the clench and grip of his ass and the throb settling in his entire body, his cock, his balls, the space behind and between and the pit of his stomach where the want ran darkest.

He spread his legs, holding the dildo inside with the tips of his fingers against the smooth base, panting up at the camera, blinking as Damen took him in. Waiting.

“Now fuck yourself, don’t stop, and don’t come until I tell you to,”

Laurent groaned, back arcing and hips flexing around the dildo from the tone of his voice. The steel of his command. He pulled it out, drawing a harsh breath as he pushed it back in slowly, twisting, fidgeting until he was comfortable, until he found the right rhythm, the right push of his hips, the right angle for the dildo; making him groan and move easier. More fluid. Made his body chase.

He fucked himself, alternating between panting and moaning Damen’s name, biting his lip as he fastened his eyes to the screen held in a shaky hand, watching Damen watching him. It was good. Hot.

It wasn’t really wet enough but Damen had said not to stop so he wouldn’t. Not even to add lube. The drag of the silicone on his rim every time he withdrew was dry, a tugging burn, adding a lick of pain to the pleasure when he pushed back in, making sure the curved head nudged and rubbed at his prostate on every pass. When he pushed it deep he imagined the head nudging at his guts, pressing up and in, drawing a gasp from his throat, his stomach jolting as the unyielding toy tried to bury deeper. It always felt fucking obscene to have anything deep. Obscene and raw and fucking amazing.

Fuck he loved Damen’s dick for that. So fucking sexy.

“Did you think of me?” Laurent asked and he’d meant to sound sultry, commanding. Instead it came out desperate. A whine. Needy. He didn’t need to explain.

“Yes,” Damen said without hesitating.

“Liar,” Laurent forced out, from between clenched teeth, trying not to let his eyes roll as he fucked himself harder, ignoring the ache in his wrist.

“Always think of you,” Damen countered

Lies. Pretty lies. But lies all the same.

He moaned anyway “Damen please,” Laurent said because he was right there, cock painful on his tummy, jumping a little with every fuck in, balls drawing tight, stomach twitching and insides throbbing as the dildo dragged over his swollen prostate on every deep push.

“You wanna come?”

“Please,” he nodded, squeezing his eyes closed, mouth opening silently as he sped up, hips flying off the bed, desperate and abandoned, lost to the feel, to the imminent rush of it, so close he could taste it.

“Not yet,”

He whimpered but didn’t slow down, clenched down hard, still fucking himself wantonly.

“Damen please,” he moaned again, so close he was shaking, shaking with the effort of holding it off, not even sure how he could without stopping but Damen wasn’t going to let him stop.

“Not yet,” Damen said again and Laurent made a sound that was almost a sob, a curse folded on his tongue.

It was building, right there, stymied by sheer force of will and practice. Damen loved to make him beg. Loved to watch him writhe, loved to make him wait.

“Oh fuck,”

His voice was thin, reedy, desperate, and searching.

“Please, please, Damen, please, let me, I need it, I need it I-“

“Tell me how bad baby,”

He let out a frustrated moan, thighs clenching, pulling up of their own accord and he adjusted the angle, legs in the air and phone slipping in his other hand. Damen probably couldn’t see much more than part of his face and he didn’t care. He couldn’t. Not when his thighs were trembling with the strain, when his stomach was knotted, when he was torn between the desperation to come and the desperation not to. To do as Damen said. He clung to the threads of Damen’s voice, to the vision of him behind his half-closed eyes.

“So bad, so bad, I’m leaking so much, so fucking wet for you, Damen- so fucking wet, I’m gonna-“ he sucked in a breath “fuck please,”

“Say it,”

“Please, Damen, baby, whatever you want, I need it, need you to let me, please, Damen-“

“Keep your eyes open,” Damen said and Laurent blinked, focusing on the screen, blinking again and again like it wasn’t cheating. Forcing himself to do it even as his orgasm shook his core, begging him, taking root, past the point of no return so his whole body was chasing, already in the helpless throes of free-fall.

“Damen-“ A warning. If he told him not to he’d have to pull out and it was already on him, it would ruin it, stop it mid-flow.

“Come for me,”

Blessed perfect relief.

He came the second Damen gave the order, whole body stuttering, moan ripping free, hips flexing and stomach jolting, twitching, his body a live wire as he came, spraying all the way up his chest to his fucking chin. Hands-free. Fuck. Yes. It was rare he came like that but when he did? Stars. Blinding, dizzying stars.

He kept going, moaning and cursing and saying Damen’s name as he slowed his pace but didn’t stop, kept squirming, drawing it out until he let go and his legs collapsed, panting and breathless; sucking in air as he tried to focus on the screen again.

When he blinked him into focus he knew Damen had come, he was panting, head tipped against the back of the sofa, lazy smile still utterly predatory on his annoyingly beautiful face.

The dildo was slipping out of him, a hard uncomfortable press that made him hiss but he didn’t move to pull it out entirely.

“You’re so fucking beautiful when you come,” Damen murmured and his voice was rich and sated and a rumble that echoed in Laurent’s chest.

He believed him because he knew he was beautiful. It was all anyone saw. Until they got close enough and saw the cracks, the way he was held together with sheer force of will and stitches over the deeper wounds. Caution tape over the hazardous parts of him that screamed: toxic stay back.

“I’m beautiful all the time,”

“True,” Damen breathed out, stretching, and running a hand down his face “god, I’m so fucking tired, I’m surprised I could get it up again to be honest,”

Laurent swallowed, hummed.

“Did he wear you out? I find that hard to believe,”

“You’d be surprised, he’s insatiable,”

Insatiable. Right. Laurent was so fucking glad he knew that about Erasmus. About them. He lost several long moments imagining what that entailed before Damen breathing his name had him looking back at the phone.

“You still with me baby?”

Laurent hadn’t realised his eyes had slipped closed, hadn’t realised he’d rolled over, taken the phone to his chest. He pulled it back, blinking at Damen. He felt like he was floating. Ready to drift away on a tidal wave of his thoughts. It was always blissful, after Damen had him. His mind worked but he didn’t really feel it. Like he could say anything in this space and still only feel the echoes of pleasure and the hazy warmth of his afterglow. It was the only time he ever felt anything even remotely resembling peace.

“I’m still here,” he yawned

Damen looked tired too. Heavy dark eyes and body loose as he flung one arm up over the back of the sofa.

“You got plans tomorrow?”

Plans. Tomorrow. Right, tomorrow was a Saturday.

“Not really,” he said reaching down blindly with his free hand to get the toy from where it was now wedged beneath one leg. He threw it to the other side of the bed to worry about tomorrow “you?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“Erasmus said he has something planned, won’t tell me what,”

Laurent stomach tightened, turned over like he was on a roller coaster “something special?”

Damen shrugged, not looking at him as he set about propping the cushions back on the sofa “apparently,”

He had a vision of engagement rings and wide smiles and he choked on whatever was swelling in his chest. The inevitable bloom of something acrid in his throat.

“I see,” he said “well have fun, I’ll probably end up sleeping until late then I’ll probably go out, see what trouble I can find,”

What men he could find to distract him from the splintering somewhere behind his ribs. Damen’s expression flattened, a non-committal noise reverberating in his throat.

“Anyway, don’t want to keep you and I need my beauty sleep,” Laurent said

“You busy Sunday?” Damen asked “I told him Nik wants to watch the football,”

He thought about saying yes. Saying yes immediately. But the special occasion hovering on the horizon made him want to run and hide.

“I’ll probably be too sore for you to fuck me,” he said and watched Damen blink at the implication. His expression didn’t change. He didn’t look annoyed. Or even surprised.

“Alright, speak to you later then, have fun,” he said and Laurent barely got the goodbye out before Damen hung up.

He tossed his phone on his bedside table with a clatter and squeezed his eyes closed, ignoring the shiver of his room for a long punishing moment before he tugged the quilt up over himself.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t.

Chapter Text

Sleep didn’t come easy but when it did he slept fitfully until midday. Laurent stayed in bed for a long while with the sunlight blasting through his askew curtains until his bladder forced him up. It took him all of about twenty minutes and half a shower to remember what the knotted tangle in his chest was. Right. Special Occasion.

He swallowed, tipping his head up to the spray and trying to drown out his thoughts with the incessant drum of the water. It didn’t work. Nothing worked. He was restless, on edge, awkward in his own empty flat.

Talk of marriage in Damen’s life wasn’t a new thing, Laurent was very well aware. Damen had talked about it with Auguste. Their grandparents had been all but planning it, hoping and praying for it. Damen had said talk of marriage had popped up really quickly with Jokaste too, a blood red flag he hadn’t heeded. Damen had never actually been engaged though and he certainly hadn’t been married.

He wouldn’t now, surely? He’d been with Auguste for four years. Jokaste for well over a year. He hadn’t been engaged to either of them. He’d been with Erasmus for just barely a year, there was no way, surely? Or was it different now?

Damen had been young when he was with Auguste. Jokaste had come quickly after him, an obvious rebound in Laurent’s esteemed opinion. There were years between then and now. So was it different with Erasmus?

Auguste had been a shit and Jokaste had fucked Damen’s brother but Erasmus, clearly, was a good guy and Damen was older now. Maybe it was different.

Laurent cursed himself for the spiral of his thoughts but it wasn’t his fault. When there was silence his thoughts were always at their loudest. All of his thoughts, as if the barricades had fallen. Everything he always pressed down and pushed away rose up: a tidal wave intent on drowning him without hope of actually killing him. They circled like vultures, vicious, snapping, snarling, spitting in his head the way the remembered words had in reality.

He was going through the motions of getting ready without making the conscious decision to do so, leaving, taking the stairs, and setting off all without pausing to consider it. The park wasn’t too far from his house, a bit of a walk away but it was a walk he welcomed.

When he got there, he only had one destination in mind for the late afternoon and it didn’t involve the families or couples or dogwalkers. Set behind a copse of trees there was a public toilet. The women’s beside it was boarded up and graffitied to fuck. The men’s wasn’t much better. In fact, no one really used it; easier by far to piss up a tree. Probably more hygienic too.

But some people used it. Laurent had, when he was desperate.

It wasn’t his finest moment and he wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk. It was easy really, to hover there, to scroll on his phone and smoke, lean his body just so against the wall. Anyone caring to look would only know what he wanted if they were here for the same reason.

It didn’t take long. The man who approached was older. Perhaps late-thirties. Overweight. He had a patchy beard and eyes that said desperate. Well, so was Laurent.

He pushed off the wall, throwing one look over his shoulder in time to catch the man blinking wide and trailing a hungry gaze over him. Laurent ignored it, this man was a means to an end and one he didn’t want to think about.

He went into the toilets, breathing shallowly as he was confronted by the instant smell of the place. Stale piss, and damp, and animals. Charming.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to think about it. Any of it. Not the place, not his intrusive thoughts, not his past, not Damen, not Erasmus, not the man following him.

He didn’t even really want the man to touch him beyond what was necessary. He didn’t want the reverent hands sliding down his back when they manoeuvred themselves into the cubicle or the low curse when Laurent shoved his jeans beneath the curve of his ass and braced himself against the wall.

“Get on with it,”

“Can I fuck you bare?” the man asked

Laurent threw a scowl over his shoulder, the man too busy staring at Laurent’s bared ass as he took his own cock out and started pumping to notice.

“Even try it and I’ll stab you,”

The man nodded, not heeding the threat and why would he? Laurent looked like what he looked like.

Laurent didn’t face the wall again until the man had rolled the condom down. He didn’t fuck bare. Not after-

Being sixteen with a cocktail of untreated STI’s and sex related issues was enough to put anyone off the idea, he was sure. Having to sit with Aleron in that hospital room had been the worst moment of his life and that included why he needed the hospital in the first place. What it was that had made Aleron look at Laurent like he was the most disgusting creature he’d ever encountered. A creature Aleron hadn’t known existed until that trip to the hospital when he realised exactly what Laurent was.

That look never went away.

Are you ever going to be able to look at me again?

He remembered asking his father after the hospital incident, after the twelve days of silence that had followed. He remembered his father’s voice when he replied, the exact blank expression on his face when he’d deigned to turn his eyes toward Laurent, hovering on the crest on his school uniform.

Some things once learned cannot be forgotten.

It was as good as a no as he was ever going to get. And Aleron had stuck to it. Barely met his eyes even now. Years later. It hadn’t changed, only grown more disgusted. Laurent was used to that look on his father’s face. He was used to the way it felt. It certainly didn’t hurt at twenty-three the way it had at sixteen.

When he swam up from the depths of his thoughts the guy was already buried in him and Laurent stifled a gasp, a brief flare of panic as he concentrated and clenched, and tried to remember where he was, tried to determine if the condom was still on. It felt like it was. The sound alone conveyed it was.

He could hear it, the dry catch of the latex against his rim, the slicker less organic sound of the cock sliding into him. Not nearly deep enough. Not thick enough. The guy not experienced enough or bothered enough to do much more than fuck into him hard and fast; chasing his own end.

Laurent would be lying if he said he didn’t want it that way. To just be used. To do much more than make carrion of his own thoughts and feelings.

He grit his teeth against the smell, the way the man felt, the prod of his rounded stomach against Laurent’s ass and the frantic puff and pant of his breath. His hands were sweaty where they held Laurent’s hips and he wished he’d stop touching his skin. He didn’t tell him to move, just slammed his eyes closed and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. Laurent didn’t try to angle his hips or reach for his cock; he was only half hard, more from reflex than anything else. It wasn’t about pleasure, it was about the way everything drifted further away, a cold veneer that settled like plexiglass between him and the world. It was the hasty forceful shut down of his brain as it retreated, stopping the ricochet of his ever-chaotic thoughts.

The whole encounter lasted no more than ten minutes, but it felt much longer. It felt like hours and by the time Laurent was making a hasty retreat without a backward glance his skin was crawling and the familiar press of fog clouded his brain all the way home. He hadn’t come but that was fine. He hadn’t wanted to. Not really.

He sat in the shower for an hour when he got home, water on high like he could burn it all out of him. Melt the mess of himself so some artist somewhere could pour what was left into a new mould; something less this.

It was fine. He was fine. He’d done worse. He’d had worse. Much worse.

It didn’t stop his head from pounding with it, didn’t stop his skin from itching, didn’t stop Laurent from scratching and pulling at his cuticles or tugging at his own hair.

He didn’t have what he needed. There was only one place he could go.

~*~

The somewhat modest townhouse was far more expensive than it appeared at first glance. It was close to the city centre, in an upscale neighbourhood filled with respectable people who had no idea what this innocuous little townhouse hid within its walls. And the horrors recorded there.

Laurent had started the journey over three times before making it all the way here and it was dark now, the late evening lending an ominous feeling to an already precarious endeavour.

He never knew what to expect from the house but his body appeared to. His pulse was a thrum in his neck and his limbs were shaky, his brain settling into the fatigued kind of anxiety where everything was a little bit further away.

Flicking the end of his cigarette away he fisted his hand in his pocket, gripping hard at his lighter for something to hold as he kicked open the small metal gate and jogged up the steps. He knocked. And knocked again and again in the most annoying aggressive manner he was capable of until the door swung open.

He was met with steely unimpressed eyes, a neatly trimmed beard and a mouth that did not soften upon seeing Laurent.

“I need something,” Laurent said the second the door was open enough, barging past him.

Behind him his uncle slammed the door as Laurent rushed down the corridor toward the living room. The house was only dimly lit, everything neat and expensive as if even this was a façade, a shiny happy parody of a home. The entire ground floor was the same, all neat and respectable in case one of his neat and respectable neighbours popped in. Laurent knew what the upper floors were like. He knew the basement. They were nothing like the showroom he’d made of the ground floor.

When he shoved open the living room door he pulled up short, coming to an abrupt stop on the threshold. There was a boy on the sofa, milk pale, piercing blue eyes and a mop of brown hair. He was beautiful, in the way of young boys who were as androgynous as they were unblemished.

“Laurent how dare you come here-“

“This your new fuck toy?” Laurent interrupted, rounding on him.

The fierce simmer of rage on his uncle’s face made him want to smirk but he lifted his chin instead, kept his face neutral when no answer was forth coming. He supposed there was little point in stating the obvious.

“I need something,” he repeated

He needed it with the kind of desperation he imagined saw junkies stealing from their own family. All addicts had a price. All addicts would stoop to lows that would haunt them forever no matter what. Laurent was no different, except it wasn’t the pills he was addicted to. And he was very well aware.

“Nothing is free,” His uncle said, squeezing himself next to Laurent in the doorway.

Free. As if Laurent hadn’t always been painfully aware of that. He had been given the pills regularly without asking for them until he was 16. Every time after had come with the expectation of payment, as though Laurent had wanted the drugs and wouldn’t have been given away as a favour regardless of what he wanted or how he felt, or what he received. When he was 18 and he’d loosened the noose around his neck just enough to have his toes touch the floor, he’d had a generous stockpile. He’d run away then, moved out of his paren’ts, kept as much distance as possible from his uncle and his haunted house and had only needed to ask for more drugs once in the past five years, when he was about 20. He fucking hated asking now.

He hadn’t needed more before now. He’d been laying off them the past two years. He had thought he was doing better and he didn’t need them as much, that he was learning to live without them. Laurent had no idea why he was circling this fucking drain again, a rat intent on trapping its own fucking tail. He didn’t know what had changed. Made him backslide, shorten the give on the rope around his neck.

He stiffened, aware of every point of lingering contact as his uncle leant closer for a moment before stepping around him into the room. The tension didn’t leave him.

“You want money?” Laurent asked, already knowing the answer.

They both knew his uncle had no intention of taking money from Laurent.

His uncle regarded him, canting his head and taking a half step back as if he were appraising him. The way any merchant appraised a commodity they intended on selling: from top to bottom and back again.

“A favour,” His uncle said

Laurent let out a breath, shrugged one shoulder as though it was neither here nor there to him and avidly avoided the gaze of the boy on the sofa.

“Fine whatever, but I want the strong stuff, as strong as you have,”

His uncle smirked, stroking his beard “you don’t want to know what the favour is?”

“Nope,” he said popping the P to annoy him “I want the drugs,”

The cool disgusted regard of his uncle made him want to shudder but he didn’t. He forced himself still, meeting his gaze the way he wouldn’t have dared five years ago. It was a static moment. A stare off. A silent regard and a game. Always a fucking game.

“Nephew we’re being rude,” His uncle said eventually, giving Laurent what he’d come to learn was a spiteful grin.

“This is Nicaise,” he said

With one hand he gestured to the boy on the loveseat as he shifted, his other hand landing at the small of Laurent’s back, not so gently leading Laurent to the sofa across from Nicaise. A proprietary brand of a touch that made Laurent’s entire body tighten as if bracing for impact.

Laurent let himself be led, eyes on Nicaise who glared at Laurent like a jealous little fool. He sat down, forcing his posture loose and easy when his uncle took a seat beside him. Too close. Always too close. The press of the man’s thigh was a firm distraction against his own and he fought the urge to fidget or clench his hands; forced them still in his lap instead as he put effort into lounging back as if there wasn’t a problem. As if his entire body wasn’t breaking out in a chill or a sweat, or a series of conflicting warning signals Laurent had to ignore.

“So, you’re willing to do anything for what you want?” His uncle said.

The expected response. His uncle did like to draw it out. Since he was sixteen and no longer of interest to his uncle personally Laurent had sat in that very room on too many occasions to number listening to him prattle on before getting to the point. It had taken a long time for him to understand it was supposed to scare him. His uncle fucking loved to make him anxious. Have him on edge. He liked the game.

Laurent shrugged “whatever it is just say it already,”

“Nicaise my dear boy, come here,”

Across from them at the soft purr of his name Nicaise grinned and rose to his feet.

“No,” he said “crawl to us,”

Us.

Laurent shuddered, holding back a grimace as Nicaise did as asked, slinking down to all fours and crawling toward them. He supposed it was meant to be feline, seductive. It reminded Laurent of a snake. Of a puppy that didn’t know it had no back legs. Nicaise paused in front of his uncle, settling on his knees with his head cocked, blinking satisfactorily when a heavy ring adorned hand went to his dark hair. Patting him briefly for being a good boy.

“Nicaise my boy, this is Laurent, my nephew,”

Nicaise’s attention landed on him, assessing, as venomous as he was curious, before he turned his gaze dutifully back to his uncle.

“He’s beautiful, no?”

Laurent shrugged noncommittally “for a child,” he said pointedly, earning himself a glare from Nicaise.

His uncle chuckled “and if I said I wanted to watch this child bring you to your knees?”

Laurent’s insides went cold, whipping his head around to gauge his uncle’s seriousness. He was serious. Deadly fucking serious. Laurent hadn’t considered this, maybe he should have. Expected it even. But he hadn’t. Since Laurent had grown too old for the bastards tastes it was rare he encountered any of the boys his uncle toyed with. He had once or twice, but not like this. He’d never had Laurent do anything to them or with them and maybe it had only ever been a matter of time before such a suggestion reared its ugly head.

Laurent frowned, his gaze wandering back to the boy and despite himself- he considered it. They came intrusively, a parade of them, a sick slide show of images with this boy’s face transplanted over his own.

It would be so fucking easy. And the kid, the stupid fucking doe-eyed kid thought he was special. Nicaise couldn’t see it yet. The stupid little prick was begging for it, licking his lips like some fucked up Lolita and tilting his head like it wasn’t painful and jarring to see seduction on such a youthful face. Nicaise didn’t know yet. He couldn’t see. He didn’t know it was a trap and there was a noose around his neck. His uncle put it there but he would tighten it himself; that was the thing that would kill him in the end. There was a choice every step of the way and the noose just kept getting tighter until you hanged yourself.

Nicaise probably loved it. The secrets, the attention, the gifts, the special bond and the excitement of being treated as an adult. The sex. It could feel good. Laurent knew. Under that spot light. Until it didn’t. And the better those good moments felt the worse it would feel later, knowing you begged the monster for its poison every single time. Nicaise didn’t know he was killing himself, that from here until he was too tired and too scarred to carry on it was just a slow painful stumble to the gallows he was building right there in that room.

It would be so easy. It might even feel good. Great even. To hold him down, to make him take it, to have even a sniff of that power. It would be like fucking himself, teaching his past self a lesson. Teach Nicaise a lesson. It’s not like it would matter, if Laurent knew his uncle Nicaise might already be used to being shared, depending how old he was. Sometimes drugged. Sometimes sober. Always desperate for the fuck, to make something stop, or for the thrill of being good; approval.

“When was the last time you were fucked?” Laurent asked, delighting in the huff and the eyeroll he got from his uncle.

“About an hour ago,” Nicaise said “I’m good at this, let me show you,”

Laurent’s lip curled despite himself as his uncle chuckled.

“Almost better than you I’d say,” he said and Laurent clenched his jaw, tried not to look directly at him as he watched Nicaise’s brows draw together.

“Are you jealous?” Laurent asked, leaning forward to touch his hair, mimicking his uncle “you should be, he kept me around because he has to, but you? You’ll end up in a ditch somewhere, or worse, drugged up to your eyeballs in some illegal brothel somewhere no one cares about,”

“Laurent that’s enough,”

“If that’s the option keep the drugs,” he said, rising to his feet.

He was stopped by the bark of his name.

“Let me make a call,” his uncle said, leaving the room and clicking the door closed behind him.

As soon as he was gone Nicaise jumped up and sat back on the loveseat, pulling his skinny little legs up. Laurent likewise retook his seat.

“So you’re like, really fucked up, right?” Nicaise asked, fishing around in a bag for a packet of cigarettes.

Something about the motion of it made Laurent frown, the cigarette a jarring reminder. Of himself, yes, but also of Nicaise’s age. Of how it was supposed to feel when a kid was doing something adult. The wrongness of it. The smoke curled around him and Nicaise leaned his head back, eyeing Laurent as he blew smoke rings up into the air. Trying to impress him. Posture. He was no more than fourteen, possibly younger, maybe fifteen at a push, but he looked so young with the cigarette in his hand. A child playing at being an adult.

Laurent raised a brow, made himself keep eye contact.

“What’s it to you?”

Nicaise spoke over him, as though Laurent hadn’t said a word “I mean, fucking your own uncle?” he giggled “that’s funny,”

“Hilarious,”

Because it was, wasn’t it? It was a fucking joke and Laurent was the punchline.

“Are you still in love with him?” Nicaise asked.

The instant roll of nausea in his stomach had him tasting bile, heaving against the thick slow crawl of it up his throat, as if he could throw up right on the living room floor. Love. Now that was a fucking joke.

“Broken toys like you and I don’t know how to love,”

Nicaise shrugged “I love him,”

Laurent laughed before he could stop himself, smirking as Nicaise scowled at him, petulant and so young. God he looked so fucking young.

“Do you?” Laurent asked “or did he just tell you that you do? Did he tell you that twisting feeling in your stomach and that anxiety in your chest is just love, a spark, special?”

Nicaise hesitated, frown forming between his brows because yes. Laurent knew the spiel. He knew the speech, exactly how his uncle would have convinced Nicaise it was love, it was normal. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anxiety. It was a spark. Love. And if he couldn’t understand how adult love worked then maybe he was just too young or he clearly didn’t care as much about him as he did about you and they shouldn’t be doing it, didn’t he know just how much he was risking to be with him? If it wasn’t the same for him then…

And it was just that easy. A child could be convinced of anything given enough time and the right few buttons to press.

“It’s not love,” Laurent said “it’s fear, it’s your gut telling you something is wrong and you’re too young and too dumb to pay attention,” he said “that’s why he likes them young, you know, you can make a child believe anything, do anything, and you might not even realise it for years, two, five, ten, it doesn’t matter but one day you’ll wake up and realise everything he did to you, what it really was, and you’ll never forgive yourself for it,”

Silence followed his words, ringing with it, static as Nicaise sucked in several deep breaths, shaking his head as he eyed Laurent with concerned narrowed eyes.

“You’re wrong,”

His voice wasn’t as sure as his expression.

“It’s not about love Nicaise,” he said “it’s about power,”

“If it is he still has it, or else, why are you here?”

Why the fuck was he here?

“I fucked my own uncle,” he said voice devoid of any feeling about it “I’m really fucked up,” he said echoing Nicaise’s words back at him.

Like it was in anyway an explanation.

His uncle came back before Nicaise could puzzle out a response, patting Nicaise’s head as he breezed back into the room.

“I have a friend,” his uncle said

A friend. There was always a friend.

“Shall we?”

Laurent didn’t feel sick. He didn’t feel anything. “Now?”

“He’s waiting,”

His uncle drove a fancy car and Laurent knew better than to ask too many questions or to touch anything when he was in it. The longer they drove the worse the itch under his skin became and he burst out with it.

“What does he want?” Laurent asked

He wanted to fidget, but his body held still. He locked everything down, retreated somewhere deep inside himself like he was watching a film. Playing a game. Moving on auto-pilot instead of having to bother with manual controls. Around his uncle it all came rushing back: he was as pathetic and needy and stupid as he had always been in his presence. Like a child. Still a boy who hadn’t wriggled free of his clutches yet.

Except. Had he ever? Had he really gotten free? If he had he wouldn’t be in his fucking car and he wouldn’t have shown up at his house practically begging for this.

“Nothing more than you can give,” his uncle said, a smirk on his face, no doubt taking great pleasure in keeping him in the dark about it “and don’t worry I told him not to mark your pretty face,”

“Oh good, we wouldn’t want that now would we,” he said derisively earning himself a sharp look.

“None of that,” His uncle snapped “I’m doing you a favour here Laurent, so you be nice to him, he’s a very sweet man, very shy, this won’t be easy for him, he’s not like you,”

Laurent had expected it. Had known to brace, let it wash over him and through him and nodded at the window, watching the streets fly past in a blur of darkness.

“If he asks, you’re 17, you understand?”

He understood perfectly. When he was 16 and too old for his uncle’s tastes, he’d pawned Laurent off on men who didn’t know better. Tell them you’re 14. Make sure you wax. Later he’d been sixteen to those strangers or fifteen if they’d asked. The men his uncle knew, those circles, they never cared for the truth and they wanted them young and pretty. Sick fucks. All of them.

When they pulled up the house was large, a sprawling late Victorian design with a fake spire and wood panelling. It was surrounded by high stone walls and the dark garden beyond was curated, bursting with life and colour and fucking gnomes. Sweet little signs about fairy rings and keeping off the fucking grass. The man was clearly well off.

It was nothing new. It was nothing he hadn’t done before.

His uncle led him up the winding garden path, a hand at the small of Laurent’s back that had his spine straightening, his skin like ice beneath the burn of his palm. He wanted to scream, yank himself away, tell the fucker not to touch him but he couldn’t. Not here. Not if he wanted-

The door opened before they had a chance to knock and they were greeted by a man in his late forties or early fifties. He had neat greying hair with matching neat greying stubble, thick rimmed glasses, a fucking sweater vest in the vilest shade of green Laurent had ever seen, and the physique of a man who probably didn’t leave his house much. All in all, Laurent had had much, much worse.

“Please do come in,” he said his voice a little higher than expected.

They followed him in and the house was kitschy. There were plants all over the place, an overabundance of furniture and stacks of books everywhere. There was a multitude of ceramic figurines and the man was twitchy, his movements betraying something of his nerves. Or worse; overeagerness.

“This is Laurent, as agreed,” his uncle said “beautiful, no?”

The man turned his watery gaze on him, scrolling down him in an uncomfortable caress, not subtle in his appreciation.

“Exactly as you said he’d be,” he said “you can call me Claude,”

From his uncle he received an expectantly raised eyebrow in response and Laurent forced a smile.

“Lovely to meet you,” he said to call-me-Claude.

You can call me always meant it wasn’t their real name. It never made much sense to him when they’d let him see where they lived. What did they think he’d do with their real name exactly?

He supposed an alias gave someone the illusion of safety. It’s not like Laurent used his real name on Grindr and he sure as fuck let those guys in his flat. He didn’t know most of the guy’s names he fucked off there, he didn’t ask theirs and they didn’t ask his. It was just sex. He supposed this was much the same.

He turned his gaze away, drowning out the rest of their conversation and wandered over to a baroque desk piled high with stacks of old magazines. Perched precariously on the top was an empty ornate birdcage. He fiddled with the door, imagining some poor creature sitting inside it. Would it even know it was a prisoner? Or were the bars shiny enough that it didn’t matter?

He side-eyed his uncle when their voices went quiet. From the corner of his vision he saw them nodding, whispering, and exchanging a thick envelope that made Laurent’s stomach churn. He wondered how much this was making him. No. He didn’t. He didn’t want to know, he never wanted to know.

“Laurent I’ll be back shortly to collect you,” he said pointedly, nodding at Claude and retreating without any further fuss.

Laurent listened to the slam of the front door and felt the silence keenly in his uncle’s wake.

“Come through, I made tea,” Claude said, smiling and showing his perfectly white teeth, making his cheeks rounder and his eyes crease.

Laurent nodded politely, stomach rebelling when Claude placed his hand in the exact same spot his uncle had at the small of his back.

The sun room was what Claude called it. Overflowing with plants and white wicker furniture reminding Laurent of photos he’d seen of some 1900s sanatoriums where they thought sun light would cure tuberculosis. He sat. He drank the tepid bitter tea, had a second cup just for something to do with his hands when Claude insisted, he listened to the inane chatter about plants and gardening, getting more and more anxious the longer nothing happened.

It had happened before. People needing some kind of precursor. Some kind of fucking foreplay. It made him antsy. Made him want to fidget, scratch at his skin, fucking scream; something.

“It’s my passion, it truly is,” Claude said eyeing Laurent shiftily

“I can see that,” he said, because yes, that the man had a fondness for plants was immediately apparent. Laurent might as well have been in a fucking botanical garden.

“Would you like to see my greenhouse? I have my favourites out there, they’re truly beautiful, you’d like them,”

Laurent agreed, mostly to get out of that room. Regret started to claw up his spine when they set off down a rolling lawn, a long, long lawn taking them further and further away from the house. From the light of the street beyond it.

Laurent’s heart pounded as Claude pushed past his secret garden door made of brambles and tree branches and led Laurent down a stone path to a set of four greenhouses. He brought him into the second one, opening the door for him and gesturing him inside.

Inside was warm. It was overly bright, spot lights shining all the way down and though the whole fucking place was made of glass everything beyond was obscured by the glare of those lights.

The plants were tall, leafy and exotic, reminding Laurent of clear blue waters and sandy beaches in some distant hot climate.

“It’s just down here,” Claude said, focus locked on him

Laurent took a step forward and his body instantly swayed. Fuck. It was a heat that started in his face, spreading downward like a fever and the dizziness made him reach out to the nearest table for balance.

“What did you give me?” he asked, tongue thick in his mouth

Claude smiled again, fingers going to Laurent’s neck -to his fucking pulse- and nodding slowly.

He’d been drugged before. Too many times to count. He hadn’t seen this coming. Stupid, so fucking stupid. He’d been smarter than this before. The drugs never usually blindsided him but this? Here? He was totally taken off guard.

“Ssh, ssh just something to help you relax, nothing to worry about,” Claude said “come, this way, just down here,”

He let himself be led, body heavy and vision swaying as he was dragged to the end of the greenhouse. The second he made sense of what was in front of him he went cold. Dread filled him, cold and certain and panic made a home in his chest. It was a futile panic with nowhere to go and no means to deter it and was even more cloying for it. He tugged on his arm, but nothing happened, too uncoordinated, his body fighting his brain, his limbs sluggish and heavy and uncooperative.

“Don’t be afraid,” Claude said, dragging him forward to the empty plot.

It was six feet long, two feet wide like all the other plots lining the green house. But this one, this one was just dirt. Dirt with a perfectly human sized hole in it, about two feet deep, the floor removed from underneath, opening the plot to the ground beneath the greenhouse.

Inside the shallow hole there was a black plastic bag. A body bag his mind supplied.

He tried to speak, his stomach protesting, lungs constricting as Claude flicked on another huge bright light and pointed it directly at the hole. At the open body bag.

“You won’t feel a thing,” Claude said, turning to contemplate him, holding his face in two sweaty hands and scanning his eyes “yes, that’s it, there you go, nearly there,”

Nearly where?

He was going to throw up. No, not throw up. Out. He was passing out. He struggled against it, fighting the drag of unconsciousness even as his limbs slackened completely and he fell forward against Claude.

The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was the high glass ceiling of the greenhouse and the total blackness beyond it.

~*~

Laurent was aware of his body before he fully woke up. He was freezing, his mind fuzzy and temples pounding, as if it were the worst hangover he’d ever had and for a long moment he couldn’t remember a single thing. Nothing. A total blackout.

Like he’d been really fucked up last night.

When he braved the headache and peeled his eyes open he had to blink several times to make sense of his surroundings. It was bright, he was on the ground. There was a light shining in his face- no. It was the sun.

It came back slowly, a trickle through the cracks of a dam before it exploded and vividly he remembered. What had happened. Where he was.

The fucking greenhouse.

It was day light outside. A weak watery early morning. He was trembling and everything ached. He chanced a glance down and fought the instant punch of nausea that threatened him. He was covered in dirt. Half inside the fucking body bag. And entirely naked.

He sat up, pushing past the ache of his bones from spending so long on the cold hard ground and brought his knees up. He pressed his forehead to them, breathing through his mouth as though he could make it stop if he wished hard enough.

He needed to get up. He needed to get the fuck out of there before he was buried in the fucking green house for real.

When he finally made it to his feet, he was shaky like a newborn colt. Clumps of dirt fell from him like that sick fuck really had buried him when he was passed out. His feet didn’t even register the chill when he stepped out onto the metal aisle and found his clothes on the trestle table. All folded up as if he was some fucking beloved guest. He dressed quickly, trying not to catalogue the marks on his body. Trying not to catalogue anything.

He didn’t notice the camera until he was leaving.

Set up on a fucking fancy tripod, angled down at the space where Laurent had been lying. Without any conscious thought he turned to the nearest flower pot and threw up. Choked it up as his thoughts raced and his pulse beat the same frantic rhythm as the pounding in his head. He threw up until it was just bile and when he staggered back to his feet he realised the camera wasn’t on anymore at least.

It shouldn’t shock him. He’d been filmed before. He knew that. He knew there were videos out there of him doing any number of things. He certainly wasn’t legal in most of them. But he had never been filmed like this. When he wasn’t awake.

He had no idea what Claude had done to him. None at all. He had no idea if there had been anyone else here. If he’d drugged him again. Injected him maybe. Put anything inside him. He had no fucking idea beyond the notion that he had been fucked.

Making his way to the camera meant having to step over the fucking body bag. He nearly got caught in it, his shaky legs and the horror lancing him making him unsteady and stupid with it. The memory card was still in it.

He rewound it until right before Claude turned the thing off and couldn’t bear to watch anymore. Not when- he looked dead lying in the dirt. That sick fucker had-

He’d drugged Laurent to make sure he wouldn’t move then put him in a body bag and half buried him in dirt.

Laurent didn’t even bother turning the camera off, he fled the greenhouse like it was a real crime scene. It occurred to him on his walk back up the lawn that he should have looked for another way out but some part of him expected exactly what he was walking up to.

Claude. And his uncle. On the fucking patio eating breakfast and sipping tea. Waiting for him.

He couldn’t even be angry at the smirk his uncle gave him, nor the pleased once over at the state of him.

“My dear what have you been up to? You’re filthy,” he said, his amusement apparent in his tone and the smile waiting to break on his face.

Laurent ignored him, stomping up the steps and holding his hand out “give me what I’m owed,”

“Now Laurent, why don’t you sit and-“

“No, give me my fucking drugs and I’m gone,”

His uncle’s face screwed up, vein appearing to pulse in his temple as his jaw clenched for one long second and Claude made a noise beside him like the swear word had offended him. Laurent couldn’t even look at him.

“You seem upset,” his uncle said “It was just a bit of Necro-play, you’re perfectly unharmed and Claude assured me he wore a condom-“

“Oh yes, you see dead bodies carry all sorts of-“

“Shut the fuck up,” Laurent hissed, barely holding onto the bile climbing his throat again at the words being said

Necro-play. Condom. Dead bodies.

“Drugs,” he snapped

His uncle rose to his feet, pulling him close by the nape of his neck, his mouth at Laurent’s ear, forcing all of his hair to stand on end.

“Watch your fucking mouth boy,” he hissed before retreating only far enough to meet Laurent’s eyes “say please,”

Laurent was shaking, part fury, part fear, part something else entirely as he met the bastards’ eyes.

“Please uncle,” he said, the tone that came out of him a different person entirely “I did as you asked,” he said

His uncle let him go, and sat back down. When he looked back at Laurent, he gestured to the paper bag sitting neatly on the chair beside him.

Laurent snatched it up and before anyone could say anything else he left. Through the cursed kitschy fucking necro-den and right down the path to the street.

He garnered more than a few startled looks as he fled, but he didn’t give a flying fuck. He walked until he was sure his uncle wouldn’t immediately see him if he followed and then he called a taxi.

The taxi driver didn’t say a word and Laurent didn’t offer an explanation. He clutched his stupid bag of goodies and jiggled his leg anxiously until he was safely back at home.

He was tearing the bag open the second he got through the door and immediately went cold when he saw the note his uncle had left on top of the various boxes and bottles inside.

Handwritten. Familiar.

For being a good boy.

Laurent dropped the bag, scrambling backward until he hit the wall, fisting his own hair as a piercing whistle echoed in his head. He wasn’t aware of the tears until he tasted them, until he registered his own heaving breaths and the sobs controlling his chest. He moved quickly, dropping to his knees in front of the toilet and vomiting until his throat hurt.

Standing at his sink he caught sight of his own reflection and the urge to punch the glass was so strong he very nearly did it. Was it even really him looking back at him? He was as familiar as a stranger; someone he couldn’t even remember becoming.

His hair was streaked and matted with dirt. He had smudges of it on his cheeks and neck, and his face was red and puffy from crying, his clothes were pristine in comparison.

He looked like he fucking belonged in a body bag.

A dead man resurrected.

His skin crawled with imaginary insects as he stripped off quickly, inspecting himself carefully as he went. The expected bruises he’d already seen, the red stubble burn between his thighs made him sick, but not as much as the dried flaking come on his stomach.

He closed his eyes, turned the shower up as high as it went and forced himself under the spray. It was scalding, his skin quickly turning pink and he clenched his jaw, made himself stay still. Until the water was pin pricks, until his skin was sensitive and the water felt like glass and he was burning and aching. Only then did he scrub himself, thoroughly, over and over and even when he was done he didn’t feel clean.

He never did, did he? Because he wasn’t. He’d need brand new skin, a new soul, and a fucking lobotomy to be anything even approaching clean ever again. He could polish the surface, sure, but underneath he was fucking rotten.

Worthless.

Unlovable.

Whore.

He needed something. The pills were right there but he couldn’t take them. He didn’t know what he’d see if he fell asleep. What he’d do if he didn’t. He needed something more concrete. More real.

He phoned Damen without a conscious thought, his body well ahead of his brain. Damen answered on the third ring, a smile in his voice.

“Hey you,”

Erasmus must not be around.

“I need you to come fuck me like you hate me,” Laurent said by way of greeting, chewing on his thumb nail at the few seconds of ominous silence following his request.

“Are you alright?”

“Peachy,” he said “can you come over or am I going on Grindr?”

“I can be there in 20?”

“Good,” he said before hanging up.

Twenty minutes. He only had to wait twenty minutes.

It felt like 200.

It was only when he was yanking open the door for Damen that Laurent remembered how his bad mood had even started. He stiffened as Damen slid past him into the flat, wary as he contemplated Laurent. Almost as if he had something he didn’t want to tell him.

“Are congratulations in order?” he asked, slamming the door with more force than necessary.

Damen frowned “for what?”

Laurent crossed his arms tightly over his chest, shuffled restlessly on his feet “your oh so special day? I thought he was doing something ridiculous like proposing,”

Damen stared at him for one long moment “no, nothing like that, I think he wants me to do it, he’s hinted he wants that, but it’s not on my radar right now,” he said “what’s up with you?”

Oh.

Laurent, now Damen was not engaged, didn’t feel much like telling him any kind of truth.

“Nothing’s up, I’m fine, I just wanted to fuck,” he said and the lie was right on his tongue.

“You don’t seem fine,”

He wondered sometimes if Damen saw too much. If he ever guessed he never said it out loud, though he’d looked at Laurent askance enough times to make him feel seen. Damen knew he slept with other people; Laurent wasn’t shy about it. Damen didn’t know how bad it got sometimes, how disgusting he really was. If he did, he’d be out the door and Laurent knew it for a certainty.

He wasn’t sure why even that thought didn’t stop him.

“And?” He asked, arcing one eyebrow

Damen sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face “did you call me here to fight or to fuck? I don’t have long either way so make a decision,”

Laurent canted his head, a venomous smile tugging at his mouth “oh I think we can manage both,”

It was already churning in him, a tsunami, a hurricane, all poison, and ill intent.

Damen opened his mouth, jaw ticking when he snapped it shut again and Laurent was aware of the words being forcibly held back. He wanted to know as much as he never wanted to know. Damen’s gaze was a glaze as it slid down him and he wondered, not for the first time, what he was seeing. Nothing good if the grit of his teeth was anything to go by.

“Why are we doing this?” Damen asked

A loaded question. This right now? Or in general? Was he going to call it off?

Laurent was already too full to feel it, he just added it to the pile of crap swimming in his head, pulsing like poison.

“If you don’t want to be here then just fuck off back to him,” he said gesturing to the door “I can find someone else to give me what I want, several someone’s, I don’t need you, I-”

“Why did you call me then?”

Laurent swallowed, lifted his chin “I don’t know,”

Lie. It had to be Damen. He was the only one who could.

Damen nodded, assessing him for one long moment “fine,” he said before turning as though to leave.

“Don’t be dramatic, I didn’t mean it,”

“Then what did you mean? I’m just trying to figure out what you want, you’re being-“

“What? Difficult? Weird? Pushy?”

“Unhinged,” Damen snapped back

Laurent narrowed his eyes, mouth opening to spew unconscious words at him and froze as his gaze snagged on the mark on Damen’s neck. Right below his jaw. A dusty purple and pink that was unmistakable.

An imprint of Erasmus’ mouth.

Laurent swallowed, breath chased out of him and the stab of tears in his eyes and nose made him grit his teeth, shove hard at Damen’s chest, spots and flashes dancing in his vision as his body tensed so swiftly it nearly hurt.

“Fuck you,” he hissed

“Laurent-“

Laurent didn’t relent, he shoved, hitting Damen hard in the chest as Damen tried his best to grab at his wrists. Laurent was aware the whole fucking time as he bombarded Damen with blows from aggravated balled up fists that Damen was stronger than him.

Damen could stop him if he really wanted to. So why the fuck wasn’t he?

“Laurent stop, just talk to me,” Damen said

Laurent growled, stepping back and drawing his hand back, swift and sharp and let the palm of his hand fly against Damen’s face.

The force was enough to turn Damen’s head, to make his eyes spark with fire as he stared at Laurent. There was confusion, he could see it in his face. Anger, sure. But something else too. Laurent’s chest heaved erratically, palm stinging from the blow, Damen’s cheek glowing with it.

“You do not want to play that game with me, you do that again and I’ll hit you back,” Damen said, voice low.

A warning.

“You don’t get it,” Laurent said, raising his hand, unsure if he really intended to hit him again.

Damen stopped him this time. He moved before Laurent could blink, grabbing hold of him and driving him back until Laurent found himself pinned to the wall.

“What the fuck are you playing at?”

“This,” Laurent gasped “more, I need… more,”

Damen scanned his features and Laurent swallowed, breathing just as harsh as Damen was.

“Tell me exactly what you need, don’t try to goad me, use your fucking words for once and say what you really mean,”

“I need you to hold me down,”

“Jesus, is that all? You could have just fucking-“

“No, completely, I don’t want to be able to move at all, I want you to do whatever you want, choke me, make me pass out, fuck me however you like with whatever you like, but I don’t want to be able to move, I want you to make me take it, even if I ask you to stop, I want you to carry on, to ignore me, to fuck me until I can’t walk no matter how much I beg you not to,”

Something flashed in Damen’s expression, a question behind his eyes as he stared back at him. Laurent shook his head, pre-emptively dismissing whatever nonsense he was about to say.

“No, don’t do that, either do it or leave,”

“Laurent-“

“I don’t want to talk Damen, I want to be fucked and if you can’t give me what I need I’ll go find someone who will,”

Would he? If Damen didn’t do this for him? Probably yes, he would almost definitely go hook up. Some anonymous nameless faceless man to fuck him like he didn’t matter. But he wouldn’t ask for it the same way. He wouldn’t let it be like this. He needed Damen. He needed Damen to give him this, he was the only one who could. He trusted him. He wanted him.

“You want it rough,” Damen said, less a question and more a statement.

“Ruthless, brutal, I don’t care if it hurts and if you’re too pussy to-“

Laurent didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Damen’s hand closed around his throat, a threat that robbed him of his breath as Damen dragged him away from the wall, mouth against his ear.

“If you finish that sentence I’ll tie you up and leave you here for as long as I like, let you fucking squirm,” Damen said “if you want rough then you’ll get rough, consider this your one and only warning, so what’s it going to be?”

His voice was low but calm. Not angry. No aggression. No hisses or stiffness. A blunt statement of fact. So very Damen. Laurent nodded into his hold. He needed this. So fucking badly.

“Please,”

Damen didn’t ask again. He dragged Laurent down through to his bedroom and he went willingly, stomach already fizzing even as anxiety pinged in his chest. Damen didn’t say a word, he let go of him and went to rummage in Laurent’s chest where he knew the sex toys were. Laurent swallowed, heart beating an unidentifiable rhythm as Damen pulled out the fluffy metal handcuffs and the softer leather ones. Both of them gifts. One from Auguste like some fucking joke Laurent wasn’t privy to and one from Ancel because that’s who he was. Laurent had never used them. Ever.

“Are you scared?”

“Yes,”

Damen’s expression didn’t change “good,” he said “take your fucking clothes off,”

Laurent shivered, swallowing around the dryness in his throat. He stripped quickly, gaze locked with Damen and the exposed sensation of being naked whilst Damen was fully clothed accompanied by his heavy gaze made Laurent’s limbs shaky, his skin stretched too thin over bones liable to break.

Without a word Damen moved to the head of the bed and attached one end of each pair of cuffs to the headboard. Laurent could only watch, unsettled as the shiver in his limbs spread to his stomach and started to clog in his throat.

“Face down,” Damen said nodding to the bed as he started to undo his belt.

Laurent swallowed, eyeing the handcuffs and the bed like it was another grave. Before he could move Laurent was shoved forward bodily and despite the thrill of Damen manhandling him so easily there was something in him that flinched, something that made him thrash. As if he hadn’t asked for exactly this. Wanted exactly this.

Laurent found himself face down, struggling and protesting, kicking his legs out as something heavy clenched in his throat and dragged slimy hot tendrils of shame against his skin. Damen didn’t heed him, instead Damen’s body blanketed him, stilled him with his mass and his weight and his scent as he bit down hard on Laurent’s shoulder.

Laurent hissed, distracted from his kicking for a moment by the shock of the pain. It was the only moment Damen needed. Gathering Laurent’s wrists and stretching his arms up Laurent found both wrists secured in the handcuffs before he could think to protest more. Still, he tested them, fear striking him in the stomach when his body realised he was trapped.

Behind him Damen moved and the sound of him removing his belt was as loud as the crack of a whip. Louder still was the whimper slithering from Laurent’s throat when Damen slid the belt beneath his thighs, pulling it tight until it pinched his skin and fastened it to keep Laurents legs together. Oh. Fuck.

“Stop,” Laurent said, panic making his chest tight

Damen didn’t listen, shoved a pillow beneath Laurent’s hips and brought his hand down hard on his cheek. Laurent’s skin reacted, his ass bouncing with the sting of impact and he cried out, rattling the handcuffs as he tried to struggle.

“Damen, stop,”

Damen behind him breathed out, the sound of him stripping the only sound in the room beyond Laurent yanking on his bindings. It drew Laurent’s awareness like a moth to a flame. 

“No,” Damen said “you said not to, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do, I’m going to give you exactly what you asked for… but first,”

Laurent was aware of his wardrobe door opening, of Damen rummaging and he tried to crane to see but couldn’t. His heart pounded, the unknown and unknowing a cloying kind of distress itching in his skin and writhing with discomfort.

When Damen returned to him he forced Laurent’s mouth open, pushing material into his mouth like a bit and tied it behind his head. A gag. No way to protest. His heart rate increased, his stomach sank, the sting of waiting tears clogged his nose and throat and he shook his head, groaning when Damen tugged on the ends and the material in his mouth pulled taut. It stretched into his lips, a cracking kind of sting along the bottom of his mouth and right at the corners where the material bit into his skin. The force drew his head back.

“You always do look so pretty with something in your mouth,”

It was a war of emotion, a thrill of pleasure, a shiver of fear. It was heady and intoxicating and disorienting and Laurent couldn’t think through the conflict in his chest. The slam of his drawer being thrown open was loud and Laurent’s breath came faster, a fist tightening in his chest as he listened to Damen tearing open the condom packet.

Damen’s wide palms settled on Laurent’s skin, sliding down to cup his ass, prising him open and spitting directly on his hole. He clenched, hissing, tense and choking on the feeling. Damen rubbed it in, coating Laurent’s hole with his saliva until his fingers drifted, spreading him wider, exposing him thoroughly. Exposing the telling pink marks there Laurent had forgotten about. He flushed furiously, turning his forehead into the bedding to hide his face.

Damen didn’t say anything but his hand came down hard, a loud crack on Laurent’s ass and he mewled, clenching despite himself until Damen was right there, the head of his cock notching at his rim and pushing forward; a slow, dry press that had Laurent’s thighs wanting to shift apart even as his body instinctively fought the sensation.

The pain was a sting, a sharp and sudden intrusion as Damen thrust into him in one long slow stroke. Laurent’s body took it, the panic made him freeze but instinct forced his body to comply. Damen leant over him, his mouth at his neck and his breath a hot familiar caress puncturing the fog of Laurent’s brain.

“That’s it, open up for me baby,”

His voice was a dark gruff exhale and Laurent trembled, his body relaxing into him as Damen’s hands shifted, sliding up Laurent’s sides in soothing strokes and just like that the panic was short lived. Because Damen was right there, pressing inside him and filling him up and forcing the anxiety up and out of his throat, chasing it away with the familiarity and rightness of having him inside. It felt like completion. Surrender in the truest sense. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t even talk. There was nothing he could do.

And instead of fighting the powerlessness building in his chest he let go. Let it have him; gave in to the vulnerability and let himself float. Damen would take care of him. Nothing bad would happen.

Damen paused when he was flush, all the way inside and leaning over Laurent, his breath a tickle at his hair.

“You good?” Damen asked, voice rough with sex

Laurent nodded as much as he was able, let out what he hoped was an affirmative mewl behind the gag. Damen grunted, kissed his hair briefly and let loose and Laurent… let go.

It wasn’t just the useless fight for control or the instinctive panic he forced down, it was making the conscious decision to let his body respond, to give in, to let his brain go. Not in the way that happened without him realising sometimes, rather a conscious shift, a willing capitulation that escaped him on a breath and he let his eyes flutter closed.

He was free to just feel. To let Damen take him where he needed to go. He had asked for something and Damen always delivered. All he had to do was take it. Accept it.

And fuck was he delivering. The angle, the stretch, even the almost dry friction set him on fire, Damen extending himself up on straight arms to nail his prostate on every thrust, making Laurent’s toes curl and his legs attempt to shift. But he couldn’t, he was pinned, there was no relief, nothing but the brutal onslaught and the wash of half formed thoughts grunting from his mouth in vowel-like moans behind the gag.

Damen felt so fucking good. He always felt good but like this? There was nothing Laurent could do. Let the pleasure drown him with no way to escape it and no will to either.

The thread of fingers in his hair had him whimpering, his neck twinging as Damen yanked his head back and leant closer, his mouth a kiss at Laurent’s ear.

“When I’m done I might put something inside you to keep you spread open, leave you like this, go home, come back when I feel like it, you’ll still be gaping for my cock, ready for me to use, and there’s nothing you could do about it,”

Laurent moaned, clenching down hard on Damen’s cock because yes. He’d let him, he’d beg for it even.

“You like that idea?” Damen grunted “fuck Laurent, you have no idea how hot you sound right now, keep whimpering for me sweetheart, try to let me hear how needy you are,”

Helpless to obey Laurent did, a steady stream of desperate sounds, ripped from him by the ruthless fuck of Damen’s cock and the tingles spreading from the fingers at his crown to the curl of his fucking toes. All of them muffled by the gag.

The gag Damen fisted and pulled on, yanking Laurent’s head back and pulling obscenely on his lips. Laurent moaned, long and loud, tongue feeling too big as saliva began to truly soak the material and dribble from the corners of his mouth. He was a mess, burning with ruthless pleasure, floating with inescapable vulnerability, his lips stinging as though they were split; all pleasure and pain and entirely Damen’s.

Damen shifted, one hand closing around Laurent’s throat, the other sliding between Laurent’s body and the pillows to grasp his cock. Damen squeezed at his throat, robbing him of air, cutting him off and the rush of heat was inescapable, had everything pulling tighter, heightened and intense and the second he started pumping his other hand around Laurent’s neglected throbbing cock he came, shaking, trembling, his eyes fluttering closed on a silent scream as Damen’s hand tightened on his throat for one long beat.

When he let go Laurent gasped, spots dancing in his vision and Damen cursed, fucking into him harder, still stroking Laurent’s cock, milking him dry and then some, keeping his grip as he fucked into Laurent hard and deep: a riot on Laurent’s oversensitive insides.

When he came it was with a groan of Laurent’s name, his cock grinding so deep it prompted a kick in Laurent’s cock making him moan and push back, clench down, drawing the pleasure out in silent twitches and hard shudders.

Damen’s weight when it came was a welcome one. A heavy press blanketing him, holding him down as Laurent shut his eyes and settled into the glow and the comfort of being caged in by Damen.

He was shaking, trembling so hard his insides were liquid and his brain foggy. Damen pulling out was a wince that felt far away, the release of the cuffs and the soft press of Damen’s mouth at the red raw skin was a welcome warmth and the slide of careful fingers at his bruising thighs made him sigh. He was rolled over as the gag was removed, the bed warmer and softer than he remembered and he instinctively curled close when Damen dropped down beside him, burrowing into Damen’s side and pressing his face into his neck.

Arms wrapped around him, holding him close and it felt like a dream; like the moment upon waking where nothing seemed quite real yet. A lucid dream that wrapped him up tight and safe and let him just be.

Damen stroked his back, mumbling soothing words Laurent couldn’t quite grasp at. Didn’t need to. Damen’s voice was enough to settle the thrumming in his limbs and skin and deeper; in his chest where his heart was pounding a rhythm Laurent didn’t want to acknowledge or name.

It was so good. Damen was so good. It was as if something in him had been reset. Like the filth and the dirt and the pain had been slapped out of him, shuddered right out of his mouth and his cock and leaked out of his brain until it was gone. It was better than the drugs. Better than the randoms he fucked without getting himself off. Better than hurting himself.

It was a long time before reality started to bleed back in at his edges. Before he found the strength to prise himself away from Damen and roll onto his back.

“You with me?” Damen asked

Laurent groaned, rubbing at his eyes as he stretched his legs out, the twinge in his lower back and the throb of his thighs a pleasant ache. The sting at the corners of his mouth less pleasant but a nice reminder all the same.

“Yeah,” he said, swallowing over the dry thick feeling of his throat “M’good,”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Damen asked, his hand settling on Laurent’s sternum

Laurent stiffened, shoving Damen's hand away instinctively as he ignored the stab of discomfort to sit up and throw his legs over the side of the bed. With the glow fading, the intimacy felt like a slap. Something dangerous. A cheque he could neither cash nor afford to tear up.

“Nothing to talk about,” Laurent said, trying to find the strength to stand up when everywhere ached and the adrenaline was crashing hard.

Damen snorted “yeah, course not, why would there be,”

Laurent stiffened “what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Damen ignored him “did I hurt you?”

Laurent sniffed, pushing himself to legs still shaking like jelly “you’d have to do a lot better than that,”

He could feel the burn at his mouth and his hole and his thighs. Even his wrists hurt. Damen didn’t need to know it. Laurent felt quite pathetic enough as it was.

“Look, I know you mean well and whatever but it was just a fuck Damen, and I really need you to go, I have somewhere to be and Erasmus will be wondering where you are, no?”

He forced himself to meet Damen’s eyes.

“Sure, whatever you want,” he said, rising and putting on his clothes as quickly as Laurent had ever seen him do it.

Laurent didn’t bother. He needed sleep, and some pills. Sleep wouldn’t come easy otherwise.

At the door Damen kissed him long and slow and despite himself and his intentions Laurent melted into it, pressed against him and tipped his face up, let Damen’s tongue pillage his mouth and his thumbs stroke at his cheeks and practically fucking purred for it.

Once Damen was gone the pills went down easy. He’d swallowed harder pills after all.

Chapter Text

Laurent had two small cuts at either corner of his mouth. Tiny little things where the skin had split. They were tender as fuck and, unfortunately, looked like cold sores. Only he knew they weren’t. Well, him and Damen.

He hadn’t seen Damen in the four days since. Laurent had sent him pictures of his bruises and they’d been texting frequently but Laurent got the impression neither of them were in a hurry to meet up again this week. He wasn’t sure why. Not for himself or Damen’s reasoning but he wasn’t about to look that gift horse in the mouth when space seemed necessary.

He knew from his texts earlier in the week that Damen was busy anyway so he probably didn’t even notice the distance. He’d been roped into doing something for Kastor, agreed to help fix some shit at Pallas’ house, spent time with Nikandros, and was working late to finish a big project. Sometimes he wondered if Damen ever stopped.

For as long as Laurent had known him Damen hadn’t been the type to relax and he certainly wasn’t the type to say no when his friends or family needed him. It was irksome. And telling.

He was knocked out of his thoughts by an asshole in a suit bumping into him. No apology was forthcoming and Laurent barely bit his tongue on the annoyed words he wanted to unleash. It really wasn’t his scene. It was a Thursday evening in a pretentious bar in the city centre, where the drinks were expensive, the clientele were business people, and to top it all off it was a work get together to celebrate Janet’s last day. Laurent had never even met Janet but he’d heard drinks and accepted. He really ought to have asked where they were going first.

And who was going. Because he’d been stuck with Erasmus and some of the girls for over an hour, drinking a lukewarm pint and trying his best not to pull a face whenever anyone spoke.

In his defence, they’d caught him as he was rushing back from blowing a guy on his lunch break, painfully aware he was late. Again. Hooking up during the work day was a bad idea but he couldn’t stop.

“Oh, I know him, that’s Damen’s’ best friend,” Erasmus said, gesturing toward the bar

Laurent’s gaze swivelled up, finding Nikandros easily.

Nikandros was perpetually stern and cross with one thing or another. Very type A. He had made it clear on several occasions that he fucking hated Laurent. He might be one of the only queer men Laurent had ever met who didn’t want to fuck him. Not that it mattered, he couldn’t imagine they would be compatible. He knew Nikandros’ type. The lies they told themselves. The rigidity with which they lived their lives bled into the bedroom unless they were honest about what they needed. And they usually needed rules. Someone to tell them what to do. Otherwise it would be a militant posturing kind of affair for everyone involved.

Though if Laurent had ever met someone in dire need of an orgasm it was Nikandros. Laurent could do that, he supposed. Nikandros would fucking hate himself for it and that would be all kinds of fucked up.

Damen, of course, would never forgive him though. Nikandros was closer to him than Kastor ever had been and Jokaste had come between them all too easily. Damen wouldn’t thank him for holding that same mirror up to Nikandros and have him found wanting.

Damen would never forgive Nikandros either because Nikandros was not Kastor. Nik wasn’t in Damen’s head the same way. The way that happened when someone was too young and too dumb not to realise something was wrong. Not to understand the nuance of manipulation and the game that can be made of someone’s head. Kastor, once upon a time, could have told Damen the sky was green and Damen would have wanted to believe him. That’s how they did it. Men like that. They wormed their way in and turned everything around and they did it young, before someone could understand anything of it.

And Damen, idiotic and foolish, stubborn and righteous, was too damaged by Kastor’s games and his daddy issues and his mommy issues to grasp it. Even now. He’d forgive Kastor just about anything if it meant keeping him. He still did his bidding, put up with Jokaste at their family events and on random weeknights when he went to dinner at his father’s, as if they hadn’t been fucking behind his back. Laurent had no idea why he put up with it. Maybe time had made it easier. Maybe it just wasn’t worth the fight or the conflict with the only few family members Damen still had.

In terms of blood relatives Damen had only two paternal grandparents, his father, his half-brother, and an aunt on his mother’s side that lived on the other side of the world. No one else.

Just Nikandros, who was as good as blood to him.

No. Not Nikandros then. There was a line Laurent wasn’t willing to cross.

Still, Laurent sidled up to the bar, propping himself up at Nikandros’ elbow and smirked when he was met by a double take and an eye roll.

“No,” Nikandros said without looking at him

Such a predictable response. Laurent ignored it.

“Nikki, you’re looking large today, new work out or just tighter clothes?”

Nikandros stilled and Laurent was treated to the profile view of the man’s jaw clenching before he turned a steely unimpressed expression on him. If looks could kill…

“I didn’t know they let the riff raff in here,” he said giving Laurent a dismissive once over.

“Only on Thursdays,” Laurent shrugged “do you have a bigger pole up your ass today or just working on your posture?”

“Go away Laurent,”

“Why would I do that when I could stay here and flirt with you?”

“Seriously, go,”

“Damen likes it, don’t you?” he said dropping his voice lower

Nikandros’ gaze darted up and over Laurent’s shoulder, no doubt finding Erasmus. When he did his jaw clenched again, expression going tellingly sour. He hated what Damen was doing, Laurent had been told often enough by both Damen and Nikandros himself. Mr Loved-a-Good-Rule couldn’t fathom doing something as inherently dishonourable as cheating. More than that, Laurent knew, he fucking knew it was because Nikandros hated what it did to his view of Damen.

The hero worship was unparalleled and he did not appreciate Laurent upsetting his view of Damen. Not one bit. He still managed the heart eyes of course, whenever Damen was with him. It didn’t rankle at all.

Several times over the past two odd years he’d wondered if Damen was aware. If he knew Nikandros’ dislike of Auguste, and Jokaste, and Laurent was because the fool was in love with him.

He could spout all he wanted about not trusting blondes or Damen’s bad taste but Laurent knew. He saw something in Nikandros he saw in the mirror every fucking day. What else would it be? He was meant to believe it was entirely platonic? No friends were that close. That annoyingly devoted.

“Please, I doubt even Damen could think anything you had to say was actually interesting,”

“True, I don’t really say anything to get him into bed,”

“I’m shocked,”

“Are you calling Damen easy?” Laurent asked, enjoying the flash of something dangerous in Nikandros’ eyes. Like playing with fire.

Laurent leaned into him, giving him a smirk.

“If he was so easy you’d have managed it yourself by now,”

Nikandros’ expression was one of fury when he turned to face him but a quick flit of his eyes and his expression was dampening into an awkward smile instead. It was so painful Laurent didn’t even need to look to see who was approaching.

Erasmus appeared, all lovely flushed cheeks and a saccharine smile as he greeted Nikandros with a hug and launched into inane small talk. Laurent downed his drink and ordered another, he’d never make it through the banality of it all otherwise.

“Doesn’t Nikandros look decent when he’s in a suit?” Laurent interrupted, eyes on Erasmus, awareness on Nikandros stiffening beside him.

“Stop it,” Nikandros said through gritted teeth

“No, but you do Nik, you scrub up so nicely, I’ll never understand how you’re still single,” Erasmus said all enthusiasm and sweetness.

“Yeah Nik, why are you single? Maybe you’re secretly in love with someone you can’t have,” he said inflecting enough to make Nikandros flare his nostrils and take a deep pull of his drink.

“No,” he said simply.

“Oh!” Erasmus grinned, turning wide eyes on Laurent “you two should date,” he said gesturing between them “it would be so fun, we could double date,”

Laurent burst out laughing because he couldn’t imagine a worse scenario for everyone but Erasmus. Damen would murder someone, Laurent didn’t date and certainly didn’t want to watch Erasmus and Damen on a date, Nikandros hated him and would show up in a biohazard suit if he even showed up at all… it was what hell looked like.

Nikandros grimaced, shaking his head emphatically.

“I’d rather cut off my own balls and never date anyone ever again,” he said

Laurent snorted “aw don’t be like that, you’ll hurt my feelings,”

Nikandros didn’t even dignify it with a response, he grumbled out an approximation of Erasmus’ name before pushing away from them both. Laurent was left with a confused looking Erasmus who only canted his head.

“He’s odd,” Erasmus said watching him walk away “and he’s constantly asking Damen to do things for him, if I didn’t know better I’d assume he had a bit of a thing for Damen,”

Laurent smiled despite himself, trying desperately to hold in another burst of inappropriate laughter. Another thing Nikandros hated: being used as Damen’s excuse and being forced to cover for him.

“Oh, he does have a thing for Damen,” Laurent said, enjoying the way Erasmus’s smile faltered.

“He does?”

Laurent gave him what he hoped was a pitying smile and not a condescending one “he’s been in love with him forever, did you not know?” he asked

Erasmus frowned, head swivelling to where Nikandros stood at the other end of the bar with a bunch of other douchebags in suits.

“No, Damen never said,”

Laurent put his arm around him, steering him back to their table “Damen is the most oblivious idiot on the planet,” he said

And he was, where two people were concerned: Kastor and Nikandros. Anyone with eyes could tell Kastor envied Damen like it was his day job and would constantly only ever want what Damen had. Blind people could also tell Nikandros was so very clearly in love with Damen, it was honestly surprising Damen hadn’t clocked it himself.

~*~

Since Thursday evening Laurent may have ignored all of Damen’s calls and texts. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know why when he wanted to respond. It didn’t make any sense; it was as though he was physically incapable of it. Or he was playing a game with himself where he didn’t know the rules or the prize.

By Saturday morning Damen had stopped texting and calling and the silence was worse. It felt like he’d lost somehow but what had he expected?

By Saturday evening when Damen hadn’t called or shown up Laurent was itching, buzzing beneath his skin with a familiar flare of desperation, his eyes catching again and again on his toy box.

He hadn’t had sex in a week. Almost. He’d sucked one dick. Hadn’t fucked at all. It wasn’t a long time in theory but it was to him. To his specific routine. He had been preoccupied, fixating. On the grave bullshit. On his uncle. On Damen.

On the sex they’d had.

It was probably the most intimate sex Laurent had ever had and he didn’t quite understand why. Or why he’d felt so off balance all week. Not teary, he didn’t cry, just adrift. Off kilter. It didn’t make sense. It had been rough and hard but there wasn’t anything specific to make him feel like he was drowning. No, not drowning. Treading water and floundering.

He fucking hated it.

Even when he was a handful of pills deep and was being fucked into his mattress by some anonymous married guy from Grindr on Saturday night, it was still all he could think about. Half out of his mind on drugs, with his face buried in his pillows, and even then, his fucking brain wouldn’t shut the fuck off.

Damen was the only thing on his mind. Even when he tried not to, his brain went there again and again, holding onto nothing but Damen. And the worst part was Damen’s body was so familiar, had fucked him so much he catalogued every single difference between the married guy and Damen.

The sex left him feeling empty. Empty and frustrated and alone.

When his alarm went off the next morning it was with a reminder for the dinner he was having at his parents’ house. The once every other month routine they all pretended they didn’t hate. It took him the whole forty-five-minute bus journey to realise he’d been so fucking preoccupied he hadn’t even thought to ask someone to come with him to annoy his parents.

It was his father who answered the door, face blank as he searched pointedly behind Laurent.

“Am I to assume your guest is late?” he asked, walking away into the house and leaving the door open.

Laurent didn’t respond, shed his jacket and threw it over the stair banister, glaring at the man’s back. The fresh scent of something delicious baking wafted through the air from the kitchen and the TV was a low hum in the front room, drawing Laurent toward it. He ducked in to find Auguste lounging on the couch with a beer.

“So, what’s it this time? A recently divorced father of 7? An illegal immigrant that will give dad a heart attack? A woman?” Auguste snorted, barely even glancing up from his phone.

Laurent should have gotten high. Or drunk. Literally anything would be better than facing his family on a Sunday evening when he was stone cold sober and decidedly not in the fucking mood.

“I’m alone, happy?” he asked flopping down onto the armchair.

He’d go get himself a beer if it didn’t mean putting himself in the same room as his father and mother with absolutely no fucking buffer.

Auguste looked up, eyes trailing over him as a smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth “you look like shit,” he said “rough night?”

Laurent rubbed at his forehead “try week,”

Or life. Whatever. Semantics.

“Did dad give you a lecture about best behaviour at nan and grandad’s party yet?”

Laurent groaned, slumped more in his chair. He had forgotten about the anniversary party altogether. Joy of fucking joys.

“No, I have that to look forward to,”

“He told me not to invite Margot,”

“Margot?” 

He rarely kept up with whoever Auguste dated, he hadn’t had a serious relationship in a while. Margot, it turned out, was a 21-year-old girl Auguste had been dating for a few weeks, she was pretty and good in bed and that was about everything Auguste had to say about her. Aleron had told Auguste not to bring her to save them the embarrassment because Auguste -in his mid 30s- was too old to be dating a student.

Their mother was apparently a big fan, though she’d been a big fan any time Auguste brought anyone round. She’d just loved Damen. Laurent vaguely remembered the times Auguste had brought him to family dinner, or over on Christmas or whatever. She’d made a huge fuss. Probably because Damen was one of the longest relationships Auguste had ever managed.

Pursing his lips he watched his brother text for a little while before his tongue betrayed him.

“What’s been your longest relationship?”

Auguste put his phone down, half pivoting in his seat “Daphne probably,”

Ah, Daphne, Laurent barely remembered her. She’d been Auguste’s childhood girlfriend.

“Yeah,” Auguste continued “that was what? Six years? Christ we were young, who the fuck knows what they’re even doing at fourteen?” he snorted “longest after that was Damen which was like-“

“Four years,” Laurent finished for him

Auguste didn’t notice and nodded “yeah, sounds about right,”

It was right. Laurent was very aware of it.

“What about you?” Auguste grinned wide because he already knew the answer.

Or thought he did.

Laurent shrugged “I’ve never had a relationship,”

Damen didn’t count. But if he did, it was nearly two and a half years. Half the time Damen had spent with Auguste. Except it probably didn’t even equate to that, given that their relationship was just sex and Damen had fucking lived with Auguste at one point.

Auguste snorted “see, I can’t even argue, it’s easier for sure,”

“You don’t miss it? Being in a long-term thing?”

Auguste paused his scrolling on his phone and fidgeted, his shoulder shifting as if in indecision.

“Sometimes I guess I do, yeah,”

It was on the tip of his tongue. A question he absolutely should not be asking but he just wanted to know. He didn’t understand the way Auguste had ended things with Damen Not when Damen had looked at Auguste like he hung the fucking moon and worse, when Auguste had looked at him the same way. Laurent might be mistaken but he was fairly certain Auguste hadn’t been as serious with anyone since him. His curiosity got the better of him.

“Do you ever miss him?”

Auguste pursed his lips; fiddling with his phone even as his eyes drifted, looking at nothing, focusing on something -someone- that wasn’t in the room.

“Sometimes, yeah,” he said and it was absolutely not what Laurent had wanted to hear “if I could go back I’d do things differently,”

His stomach turned over “you would?”

Auguste nodded, biting the inside of his cheek “I treated him like shit, I know I did, but I was an idiot, I didn’t know what I had until it was gone,”

Laurent hummed absently, staring hard at his brother.

“I spoke to him not long ago,” Auguste added “bumped into him at a bar, he was with his boyfriend, the one you work with, do you see him much?”

“Sometimes,” he said remembering of the last time he’d seen Damen and what they’d been doing “he knows Pallas whose friends with Ancel and that lot so sometimes I see him, sometimes I see him with Erasmus like, around,”

Sometimes. Sure. Around. Around being his flat where Damen routinely railed him fucking senseless.

Auguste nodded “I didn’t think that kid was his type,”

“Kid? Erasmus is 24, he just looks younger,”

Auguste waved it away “still, didn’t think it was his thing,”

He shouldn’t ask. He really fucking shouldn’t. He made it ten whole seconds before giving in.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, can’t imagine that little thing giving it to him the way he’d want it,”

Laurent cringed, jaw ticking, acid burning in his stomach. He didn’t want to know. He fucking didn’t. It was none of his business.

“I can’t imagine Damen bottoming,”

Auguste grinned the second the word was out of his mouth.

“Damen liked it any way he could get it,” he said “fuck, he was good in bed, I definitely miss that, I don’t think there was anything I could have suggested that he would have said no to, he was always down for anything, it was always intense,”

Good. Intense.

Yeah, Laurent knew that first hand. What would Auguste say if Laurent just said it out loud? Told him Damen really was an intense fuck. So intense that Laurent forgot who he was and what he was and all the things that had scarred him.

He couldn’t though. He wouldn’t. Auguste was his brother and whether Laurent wanted to admit it or not he cared about him. He didn’t want the argument. He didn’t want to hurt him and he had a horrible feeling it would hurt him.

It wasn’t going to stop Laurent spreading his legs for his brother’s ex though. Even if said ex was the one who got away.

Fuck, he really was a terrible person.

“And you’d… tell him what to do?”

That didn’t track with his view of Damen at all. Damen was so dominant. With him anyway.

“Oh yeah,” Auguste smirked eyebrows going up “he preferred it the other way but he was good at reading me I guess, could tell what I was in the mood for,”

And oh. Well maybe it did track with his view of Damen after all. Damen read him too, didn’t he?

“So he’s verse?”

Laurent had never asked. He knew, of course, that Damen had been fucked, but he’d never enquired beyond that because it’s not like it was of interest to him or pertinent to the sex he wanted. Maybe he should have asked but it had always walked hand in hand with hearing something he didn’t want to about his brother. Whether Damen explicitly mentioned him or not, Laurent would have conjured Auguste into his mind and equated it to him anyway. Hearing it from Damen directly was not a fucking option he could entertain.

Auguste’s phone went off and he nodded, humming his agreement as he distractedly read his text “whichever I was in the mood for yeah,”

He fucking knew he shouldn’t have asked. Now all he had flashing behind his eyes were visions of Damen spreading his legs for Auguste and moaning for it, holding the back of his own knees up whilst Laurent’s brother fucked him raw. Laurent barely held in a grimace as he worked his jaw, settled his focus on the wall for a long moment instead of Auguste.

Auguste knew things about Damen that Laurent didn’t or couldn’t and probably never would. It was fine. It didn’t matter.

Except.

Laurent had never fucked anyone that way. He’d never topped. It had, until that moment, never even occurred to him. There was probably some hideous kind of logic as to why he had never considered it so he promptly shut the line of thinking down.

When their parents came to join them in the sitting room the chatter passed over and around him and Laurent didn’t have the energy for any of it. Not the conversation or the sideways glances. They seemed happy enough to talk over him and ignore him as if he wasn’t there.

Even when they were all sat around the table, a facsimile of a real family. The four of them. Or rather, the way it had been for a long, long time: the three of them and Laurent, on the outside looking in, even when he was in the middle of it.

His mother’s voice snapped him from his spiralling and he tipped his head up, blinking and surprised at being addressed.

“Are you quite well Laurent? You’ve barely said a word?”

Laurent turned his head up, aware he had been strangely quiet and pushing his food around his plate as if it offended him.

“I’m fine,” he said, forcing a smile as though it mattered to her anymore.

Subconsciously he supposed it was a hard habit to break. He’d been lying to the woman for 9 years, there was no reason to stop now.

She didn’t enquire further, she flashed him a small smile, gave him a nod and that was that. Par for the course.

When his phone lit the fuck up it was a literal flashing neon sign with Damen’s name emblazoned on his screen and it drew Auguste’s gaze beside him. Laurent snatched at it, stumbling over his chair as he got up and excused himself, hoping like hell Auguste didn’t see who was calling.

He let himself outside where the cool June evening was decidedly warmer than the frosty dining room.

“Hey,” he answered, aware as Damen rushed to say hi back that they hadn’t spoken in a week.

Why hadn’t they? Laurent didn’t even know anymore.

“How are you?” Damen asked, his words stilted, his uncertainty loud.

Laurent pressed his eyes closed. Unable to explain any of what the week had been about. Not because he lacked the eloquence, rather it was because he genuinely didn’t know, couldn’t fathom it. Still.

“I’m at my parents so you know, the usual, contemplating suicide and thinking about how fun it would be to totally change the trajectory of their lives by doing it in front of them,” he said

Maybe if he ignored it they could pretend it had never happened. And if they pretended it didn’t happen then it didn’t have to mean anything.

Damen chuckled, the sound so achingly familiar for a second Laurent forgot where he was, tucked his chin to his chest and let himself smile.

“Your father would never forgive you for getting the metaphorical last word in,” Damen agreed

“Auguste would be pissed,”

He was very painfully aware of what he was doing. He fucking hated himself for it. Damen didn’t miss a beat.

“Possibly, though he’d probably appreciate the excuse to be off work, your mom would be worried about you staining the carpet,”

Laurent wasn’t sure if the breath escaping him was relieved or not but he supposed it was close enough.

“And what the neighbours would say when the ambulance arrived,” Laurent added

Damen snorted “true, so maybe don’t do that,”

“Aw baby, would you miss me?”

“I miss you right now,” Damen said “feels like it’s been a long week,”

Laurent swallowed, biting on his bottom lip to stop what was happening there.

“It has,” Laurent agreed, for lack of anything else he could say.

“So, I was thinking,”

“Dangerous,” Lauret mused

“I know, but Erasmus is going down to Ios next weekend for his mother’s birthday,”

Laurent’s stomach absolutely did not squirm. His heart didn’t thud even a little bit.

“And he wants me to go with him but I was thinking maybe I had a work thing? If you wanted, obviously,”

Time. With Damen.

It had been so fucking long since they’d had any real amount of time. No clocks. No timers. No one waiting to steal Damen away. Since Erasmus moved the fuck in with Damen they didn’t have half the chances they had used to.

“Sounds good, but I have a condition,” he said “I come to you,”

He wasn’t sure what made him say it. A test maybe. He wasn’t sure if he was testing Damen or himself. Or maybe he wanted a spot of torture along with his pleasure. Again, if the torture was for him or Damen, was anyone’s guess.

It was a bad idea. A fucking terrible idea really. So much could go wrong. Terrible as it might be, he still wanted it.

“But-“

“Take it or leave it Damen,”

“If that’s what you want then fine,” Damen said “he leaves Saturday morning and he’s back Sunday night,”

“Sounds lovely, it’s too bad you have that super important work thing you can’t get out of,”

Damen breathed a laugh “yeah, too bad,” he said without sounding even a little bit sorry.

 A weekend. With Damen. An entire weekend with Damen.

He slid back into his seat around the table afterwards, even managed a mouthful of food before Auguste punched him lightly on the arm.

“What’s got you smiling like that?”

Laurent hadn’t even realised he was smiling. It really should have been less of a shock than it was that his brother thought seeing him smile at all was odd. He supposed it was in their company.

“I’m not smiling,” he said

“Sure, I’ll just assume a fucking unicorn died somewhere and you’re really pleased about it, or maybe you just learned they found a cure for being an insufferable-“

“Auguste dear can you help me clear the table?” His mother interrupted whatever Auguste had been about to say.

It was actually worse that she called him out. Worse because it meant he was left alone with his father in the stifling silence whilst Auguste followed after their mother. The man didn’t even look at him, continued fiddling with his phone as though Laurent wasn’t even there.

Until.

“Whoever they are you are not to bring them to your Grandparents anniversary party, if you do anything to embarrass us I will make you pay, do you understand?”

“A threat? Should I be afraid?”

Aleron across from him didn’t even look up from his phone, his expression not changing at all.

“It’s a warning,” he said “you won’t like what happens if it does become a real threat,”

The worst part was, Laurent believed him. So he said nothing. Until his mother was back and he could make his excuses about leaving.

Laurent probably wasn’t even going to go to his stupid grandparent’s anniversary party and he hadn’t even considered taking anyone with him. Damen would be there most likely and Laurent didn’t really want to think about why those two thoughts went hand in hand.

~*~

Not for the first time Laurent wondered how exactly Aimeric had inserted himself into his life. They had met when they were teenagers, their fathers introducing them at some function or another. Laurent hadn’t had any friends at that age. Not after he pulled himself away.

He didn’t really have many friends now. He had plenty of acquaintances and people he could call if he wanted to go out for a drink but friends?

Aimeric was the only person he saw with any kind of regularity and he wasn’t quite sure when it happened. He might have known Aimeric since he was a kid but it was only in the past few years or so that they’d been anything resembling friends.

Laurent probably wouldn’t have let it happen if he’d been aware of it growing. Now it just kind of was. Aimeric was his friend, therefore when he received a panicked call at 6pm midweek he took himself over to Aimeric’s shoebox flat with a bottle of wine and a head full of questions.

Aimeric, being an idiot, was falling all over himself over a guy. Jord, to be exact.

If Laurent had known it was that kind of problem he’d have settled it on the phone. Instead he’d spent three hours listening to Aimeric talk about Jord, as if Laurent didn’t know who he was already.

Laurent wasn’t good at advice, hadn’t ever had a real relationship, and found himself listening and nodding and trying to curtail Aimeric’s instincts to triple text the poor guy.

Apparently Jord was not getting the hint. Laurent couldn’t be bothered to tell him that Jord never would. Jord wasn’t a very aware kind of guy and Aimeric might well have to beg him, naked and fucking presenting, before Jord caught on to Aimeric liking him.

Aimeric had excused himself to the bathroom, still half rambling about why doesn’t he notice me or something equally as inane and Laurent was desperately trying to light his cigarette from the mug of lighters Aimeric kept on his coffee table. Not a single fucking one of them was working anymore.

“Fucks sake,” he cursed, giving up “you got a better light?” he called through to the bathroom.

“Front pocket of my bag,” Aimeric shouted back

Laurent didn’t mean to get nosey. It was an errant idle thought that took hold after he’d located the lighter, apparently so pressing he didn’t even light his cigarette straight away. Aimeric’s bag was mostly filled with crumbs and coins and some old receipts. An umbrella, a journal, a bottle of water, and an apple that had seen better days and -

Laurent blinked, turning the box over in his hands as he stared at it. The otherwise nondescript white box with the big blue circle. Codeine Phosphate. 30mg. Prescribed for a Mr Kevin Mayfield. To be taken as needed.

He dropped the box, digging through the rest of the bag until he found a strip of diazepam, and a stray couple of distinctive half green-half yellow pills Laurent knew all too well were tramadol.

It felt too similar. Too familiar.

He swallowed, clutching the pills in his fist as he turned unseeing eyes at Aimeric’s bathroom door. Aimeric and his people pleasing syndrome. Aimeric, with his big pretty eyes and perpetual scowl and the lithe androgynous body. Aimeric who wanted to be loved.

Aimeric. Whose father worked with-

“No,” he said out loud refusing what every single bone in his body was telling him.

“No what?” Aimeric asked, coming into the room all curiosity and lazy smiles.

Until he saw Laurent’s face.

“You’ve gone white,” Aimeric frowned before a smile split his face “are you going to be sick?” he laughed

Laurent held out his fist and unfurled his fingers, his only offer of an answer.

Aimeric frowned instantly, shoulders stiffening as he made a grab for them “those aren’t- did you take any? Tell me you didn’t because they’re strong and-“

Laurent moved his hand away, holding Aimeric off.

“Why do you have tramadol?”

Aimeric froze, gaze flitting to his half-upturned bag and back “you went through my stuff?” he asked incredulously, voice going shrill.

And if he didn’t know already, if he hadn’t been sure, Aimeric’s reaction was enough to tell him exactly what this was.

“I didn’t know you were changing your name Kevin,”

Aimeric stiffened, snatching the pills out of Laurent’s hand “they’re just painkillers,”

He said it like they were a couple of stray ibuprofen, not an opioid that was addictive and only available on prescription for some pretty severe pain.

“Where did you get them?”

“Why are you making such a big fucking deal about-“

“Tell me where the fuck you got them,”

“You’re acting insane right now, you know that right? I know you don’t care about drugs so why-“

“Aimeric who prescribed them?”

It was the right thing to say. Aimeric paused, eyes going wide as he stared back at him, attention flitting to the bag and back again.

“You knew what they were,” he said the words forming on his tongue as though he were searching for an excuse. A reason.

“I know what they are,” Laurent said “he gave them to you, didn’t he?”

Aimeric flinched, swallowing hard even as his chin went up “I have no idea-“

“Fuck he did, oh my god,” Laurent said more to himself than to Aimeric.

He turned away, feeling sick with it.

They were about the same age. Aimeric was about fourteen when his family moved and his father started at the same GP surgery his uncle worked at. Laurent remembered being jealous of him. Jealous of how big his family was and how his mother doted on him. Jealous that he was normal. And pretty.

“How old were you when you spread your legs for my uncle?”

The silence following his words was familiar. It was the suspended moment after the ringing impact, the shriek and disorientation after a blow to the head. A silence loaded and waiting and buzzing with words clamouring for a way out.

Aimeric was wide eyed, fish mouthing as he stared at Laurent and down to the pills in his hand. He shook his head, taking a stumbling step back as he eyed Laurent, breathing unevenly.

“You knew,” Aimeric said “you know,”

Laurent heard the accusation. The deeper meaning. Aimeric didn’t say it as if it were a question, he said it the way someone says something they can’t make sense of, as if tasting the words and testing them on his tongue could give him clarity.

“I know,” Laurent said, stressing the words with an emphasis he hoped was telling.

Aimeric shook his head again, dropping the pills to the floor as he folded his arms over his chest.

“No,” Aimeric said looking at him as though he’d never seen him before

“You already know, I can see it in your face, there are few reasons I’d know where and how you got these,”

“It’s not the same,” Aimeric breathed more to himself than to Laurent

“Ask me,”

“No,”

“Aimeric, ask me,”

“No,” Aimeric hissed “I can see it in your face, I can tell, I can tell that you- that he- that it-“

“Say. It.”

“He fucked you,”

Laurent let the words hang, didn’t need to nod his head, Aimeric still got it, whole face twisting up.

“Are you that fucking depraved? That much of a fucking whore you’d even spread for your own uncle?” Aimeric gasped, his face the perfect picture of revulsion.

Laurent refused the shape and sting of those words, refused to see the mouth that formed them in his mind.

“I mean Jesus fucking Christ Laurent, I know you love sex but he’s-“

“My uncle, yes, we’ve established, I was a kid let’s move on from the incest to the real fucking point here,”

“Do you even hear yourself?” Aimeric gasped “incest Laurent for Christ’s- have you fucked anyone else? Auguste?”

Laurent’s entire field of vision blurred, his ears echoing with a slow static kind of hum that might have been his pulse. His fingers were tingling and Aimeric in front of him swam out of focus, his words blending and bending and binding themselves to the poison housed in Laurent’s brain, in his veins, in his fucking lungs where air should be.

“No,” he said and his voice came out weak “he wasn’t- Auguste is good, he’s not- that’s not how it was,”

Aimeric was shaking his head, ghostly pale like he might throw up before he froze, brow tugging down.

“You said you were a kid, how young exactly?” Aimeric asked

“I was turning fourteen,” he made himself say “it went on for two years, maybe a little longer,”

He never could remember the exact details of that time. Not well. And he had no inclination to try. Something flashed in Aimeric’s expression, a fissure cracking in his features, bleeding pain.

“We’re the same age,” Aimeric frowned

Oh. oh.

Laurent burst out laughing, wide eyed and startled as Aimeric, kittenish in his response to the crack of sound, drew himself up taut, lifting his chin even as he hugged himself close. Laurent didn’t think he was aware he’d instinctively flinched, turned his body half away from him as though to make himself a lesser target. Smaller. Slighter.

“You stupid fuck,” Laurent said “did you think it was just you? Aimeric he has a whole horde of fuck toys at any one time, you can’t seriously be jealous or hurt right now? Are we even having this conversation?”

“He loves me,”

“Fuck Aimeric, no he-“

Laurent snapped his mouth closed, scrutinising Aimeric as his brain ground to a halt.

Present tense.

Glancing from Aimeric’s tense posture, to the hurt radiating in his expression, back down to the pills lying forgotten on the floor, the disbelief was second only to the incredulity.

“Not even you’re stupid enough to think that,” He said shaking his head “please for the love of god tell me you don’t still believe him,”

Aimeric jutted his chin “he loves me, what we have is different you wouldn’t understand, you’re his nephew you were just a toy to him, you probably seduced him, or maybe he just knew you well enough to know you needed to be put in your fucking place but it’s not like that not with me, he loves me and I love him,”

“As in, right now? Right now standing here you love him and think your relationship is special? You think you’re his boyfriend?”

Aimeric frowned “we don’t need labels,”

Laurent laughed, couldn’t help himself, laughed so hard he had to double over and put his hands on his knees because this couldn’t be happening. Aimeric couldn’t be that fucking stupid.

“So what? He gives you the pills still because he loves you?”

“They’re gifts,”

“They’re payment,”

“No, he doesn’t pay me, they’re not payment… does he do that for you?”

“Yes,” Laurent said “he gives me the pills I want and then he gives me to his friend in payment, that’s how it is,”

Aimeric stiffened, blinking furiously as he shook his head “it’s not the same,”

“Does he still fuck you?”

Aimeric stiffened further “does he fuck you?” he hissed right back

Laurent laughed “no I outgrew his tastes,” he said “and so did you, if you’re dumb enough to still get on your knees, if you’re too blind to-“

“No, shut up, just stop you have no idea, none at all, whatever it was like for you it wasn’t and isn’t that for me, you’re just jealous, jealous he still wants me even though I’m old now, he loves me and-“

“Jesus listen to yourself Aimeric,” he hissed “he doesn’t fucking love you,”

“You might be just a whore to him but I am not,” he yelled “I’m not,”

“No?” Laurent laughed “he doesn’t pimp you out to anyone willing to pay and then what? If it’s not the drugs he pays you with then what? He brings you home, lets you suck his cock and calls it love and-“ Laurent snorted “my god he pays you with compliments and words and you’re fucking stupid enough to let him,”

“You don’t know anyth-“

“I know you disgust him Aimeric,” he said “he’s a paedophile and bodies like yours just don’t do it for him, and love? He loves how much power he has over you and not a single thing else, you have to-“

He should have expected the knuckles colliding with his jaw but he didn’t.

He staggered.

“Get the fuck out,”

Laurent didn’t hesitate, he swept out of the apartment, his entire mind blank as he retreated home. The first thing he did was get his pills out, line up the strips and stare at them, turn them over in his hand and wonder if this was how it had been for Aimeric?

They were the same age. Laurent should have pushed for an answer on how old Aimeric had been when it started but he didn’t need to. He already knew: as soon as his uncle could get his claws into him.

He had access to Aimeric, not as easy as he had to Laurent, but Aimeric’s father was a doctor too, they worked at the same practice. They socialised with Laurent’s parents in their little circle of middle-class assholes doing whatever it was middle class assholes did for fun.

He only really needed time to get to Aimeric enough to coax him away from his safe places. To get him alone. Once he’d showered him with enough attention, built a rapport, it would have been moved to messages. Snap chat maybe, something similar. And Aimeric would have trusted him the way they all did. He was a doctor. He was friends with Aimeric’s dad and Aimeric, young and naïve, youngest in a family that already had too many children, would have fallen all over himself at the attention.

Laurent had too, once. When he was starved for it, when he existed only in Auguste’s shadow, a constant disappointment to his father with a mother so indifferent she was practically a stranger. He had been so fucking desperate for anyone to fucking notice him, to see him, that he hadn’t cared that it hurt, that it was scary, that it felt wrong.

And Auguste? Christ Laurent had wondered so many times, too many times to count. If he’d done the same thing. If he’d been as caught in the web.

Now he was older and understood the game, Laurent knew the way he never could have as a kid: Auguste would have been too much trouble. That was the thing about monsters, they could snatch anyone, do anything they wanted, make a meal of anyone that struck their fancy. But kids like Auguste were not the type to be kept. He had too much attention, too much confidence, too many friends. Just too much of everything.

No, vulnerable was always better. It would have been too dangerous for his uncle to try to get his claws into Auguste, too much hassle. Too much effort.

Not like Laurent. Not like Aimeric.

He thought back through the years. Tried to remember a time where it had ever been obvious. If Aimeric had ever done anything Laurent should have picked up on but the more he thought about it the worse it felt because if there had been, he hadn’t noticed. Not a damn thing.

Not that it mattered. Aimeric was in deeper even than Laurent was and he didn’t know how to get himself out let alone Aimeric.

He had enough problems of his own. He didn’t need to add more.

With that thought in mind he swallowed a handful of pills, let himself float in the uneasy space between waking and dreaming and let his body melt into his bed. Staring at the ceiling he wondered if this was all he’d been put on Earth for and if it was, what was the fucking point of anything?

It was funny really, he should maybe feel a little bit like he and Aimeric were tied together now somehow but the truth was, he’d never felt more alone.

~*~

It had been months since Laurent was last at Damen’s house. He half expected marked changes, for everything to be wildly different, like a house he’d never been in. Whilst it wasn’t totally unrecognisable there were subtle markers and Laurent’s eyes sought them entirely without effort.

Like the throw cushions on the sofa that definitely weren’t there before. The manga books on the shelf Damen would never read. The fucking yoga mat, the extra pair of shoes by the back door, the ugly scarf on the banister…

Erasmus was almost a living and breathing presence in every room. And every space he occupied spoke of a life Laurent wasn’t privy to. He didn’t know what they did together, what their quiet moments were like, what they argued about, what their morning routine was. He didn’t know any of it and he was suddenly blindingly, viscerally, desperate to know.

The bedroom was the worst.

It was clear Damen had changed the sheets, they smelt fresh, had the crisp pleasant sensation of newness and there were spaces on the bedside tables and dresser where Damen had so clearly moved things. Question was, was he hiding them from Laurent or from himself?

To distract them both from that question Laurent shoved Damen down onto the bed, settled into his lap and attacked his mouth. It wasn’t long before Damen flipped him and Laurent went, kissing and kissing and kissing like they were teenagers.

Laurent had never had that. Especially not as a teenager. Not even really with Damen before their stupid argument, before Erasmus, when they had had time.

They shed their clothes in increments, mouths and hands wandering and it was hard not to luxuriate in the attention, in the time, in the wonder of not having to hurry. Damen kissed him everywhere, and then flipped his legs up, his tongue hot and wet and thorough at his hole as he brought Laurent to the brink with his mouth.

Impatience got the better of him, not above begging for it, for asking for it hard and with minimal prep. He didn’t really need it but Damen didn’t listen, set his fingers in him like Laurent was a virgin, taking it painfully, deliciously, slow.

Until he was inside him.

Then Damen let loose, done holding back, and fucked him into the mattress, both of his legs flipped up over Damen’s shoulders until all Laurent could do was scramble for purchase on Damen’s skin and ride it out, feel every blissful moment.

By the time it was getting dark Laurent ached in all the best ways, sated in a way that felt foreign and if the way Damen smiled at him made his chest flutter it was no one else’s business.

In nothing except Damen’s t-shirt Laurent sat up on the kitchen counter, smoking as he watched Damen cook. Shirtless the fucking tease. With low hanging grey joggers showing the cut of his V and a hint of the dark shadow of hair at the base of his cock.

It was making Laurent’s mouth water more than the smell of the food was. Damen liked to cook; he liked to do anything with his hands. He was always good at it too the bastard. He’d never cooked for Laurent before though. Before Erasmus they’d ordered take out if food became imperative. Even if Damen was working from Laurent’s flat he’d go down and buy something to bring up rather than make anything with Laurent’ meagre kitchen supplies. Those times were all decidedly less domestic than this. Even when he’d stayed the night, though they’d only ever done so once or twice before. And then by accident. Like an unspoken agreement.

What if they’d never argued? Would it be like this all the time if Erasmus wasn’t around? Or was Damen always going to find someone else to have that with? Someone that wasn’t Laurent. Someone to share his life with and not the shady secret sex that existed only between the two of them? Hidden away.

Laurent was good at being hidden. He had experience being the dirty little secret at least.

It could be like this. The voice was traitorous. A dangerous whisper that Laurent didn’t want to listen to or think about. Because it couldn’t be like this. It wouldn’t be. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t his. Maybe it could have been. Once. But Laurent had fucked it up.

Did Damen still mean any of the things he’d said? Probably not. A year was a long time after all.

“You’re pretty, did you know that?” Laurent asked swinging one leg lazily as he put his cigarette out in the mug Damen had given him to use as an ashtray.

He hadn’t even told him to go outside. As if Erasmus the avid non-smoker wasn’t immediately going to be able to tell someone had smoked in there. Laurent well knew it left a very strong smell that was very difficult to get out. Maybe he’d spark up in the bedroom later, see if Damen told him no then, when it could cling to the sheets and the mattress and the clothes so easily.

Damen smirked at his question, raising one eyebrow “sometimes, though it’s not really the word people tend to say to me,”

No, he imagined not. Even with a face like Damen’s, pretty wasn’t a word people gave to men like him. They said hot. Handsome. They didn’t say pretty.

“Do you mind being called pretty?” Laurent asked

Damen didn’t even look at him, too busy throwing something into the pan from the chopping board.

“No, why would I?”

Laurent shrugged, watched Damen’s arm flex as he pulled open a cabinet and reached up for some spice or herb or something Laurent had never owned.

“Sometimes I mind,” Laurent offered

Damen sprinkled it in the pan and turned, coming closer, one large palm settling on the outside of Laurent’s thigh, stroking it. He didn’t say anything, canted his head, his big eyes so fucking loud he didn’t need to.

“Sometimes I think my life would have been better if this wasn’t my face,”

Damen frowned, his other hand reaching up to cup Laurent’s cheek, tip his face up, thumb a soft stroke at his cheek bone.

“Why’d you think that baby?”

Because maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe he wouldn’t have wanted me. Maybe I’d be normal.

“I don’t know,” he said instead “it’s all people see and pretty doesn’t even last so I don’t know what will be left for anyone to care about once it’s gone,”

Damen shook his head, leant in to press their foreheads together and Laurent let his eyes close, relished the warmth of him, the closeness, the way his hands felt holding him like this. Damen was so fucking big, he could be intimidating, his stature, his presence, his confidence. A brick wall of a man. Damen never made him feel like he was blocked in. More like the rest of the world was blocked out.

Safe. Damen made him feel safe.

Which realistically was the very last thing he was.

“There’s so much more to you than pretty baby, please don’t ever think that,” Damen said against his mouth, pressing a sweet kiss there before meeting his eyes again “you’re smart and witty and interesting, I’ve never met anyone else like you,”

He wasn’t sure that was a good thing but he refrained from saying so, instead he chased Damen’s mouth, kissed him slow and deep until the stove started to hiss and Damen groaned as he stepped away to see to it.

“There’s plenty to care about Laurent, it’s not all about your face,” Damen said half distracted as he turned the ring down and started to stir.

Laurent wished he believed him. He wished it was the truth.

Dinner was good. Probably the healthiest meal he’d had in years, mostly because it consisted of actual cooking. Usually if he started to worry he’d get scurvy he’d just buy a bag of some watery pre-made salad, drown it in dressing, and eat it out of the bag like a fucking salt and shake packet of crisps.

He should probably learn how to cook. Maybe Damen could teach him.

Laurent was about to ask, swivelling to Damen who was loading the dishwasher when his phone vibrated on the counter. From the guilty expression he darted Laurent’s way he could well guess who it was.

“I’m sorry, I have to-“ Damen said, holding the phone in his hand as Erasmus’ name flashed on the screen.

Laurent nodded, motioned to the door. He had absolutely no interest in listening to their conversation. Instead he dismissed himself back to the bedroom. Even inside with the door closed the thrum of Damen’s voice carried and it had a siren blaring in his head. A loud cantankerous kind of screech sending his eyes pinging around the room until they settled on the laptop. Damen’s laptop. He knew because he’d spotted another one downstairs, covered in stickers and that certainly wasn’t Damen’s.

He bounced down onto the bed with the laptop in hand before he even really registered his intention. But he’d already mooched through the drawers and the wardrobe, this wasn’t any different.

He knew Damen’s password. Did Erasmus?

He sorted through the files idly, biting on his thumbnail and adamantly not listening to Damen’s muffled voice from the floor below when he found it.

The beat of his heart and the warning in his head told him loud and clear he should absolutely not open the folder. Laurent didn’t need to click on it to understand what it was. He could fucking read.

The cursor slid over the icon, he double tapped, the folder opened and Laurent was confronted by all the visuals he had known he would get.

And still, despite knowing, his stomach sank, rolling, a lurching kind of twist echoing as he scrolled through the various photos. Of Erasmus. And Damen. Erasmus with Damen. And definitely not the kind people put on social media.

Laurent had sent photos to Damen too, sometimes on snapchat, sometimes not. Where did he keep those? In a locked folder on his phone probably. He definitely didn’t have a whole fucking album of uploaded photos on his computer of Laurent.

Blinking through a haze it took him a few moments to realise not all of them were photos. Some of them were videos.

His instinct said absolutely the fuck not. Somehow despite his instinct, he clicked one anyway, opened it, jumped to half way through and was glued to the screen. Watching Damen. And Erasmus with his head thrown back against the pillows Laurent was lounging on, flushed blotchy pink, hair a chaotic tumble, dappled all the way down to his perfect pale chest as Damen fucked into him. No. Not fucked. They weren’t fucking.

Making love.

Damen’s mouth was moving, the hum of his voice familiar, too low to make out. Erasmus was reacting, whimpering, nodding up at him with big wide eyes and fingers curled in Damen’s hair as Damen moved inside him.

He had thought, in an idle and abstract way, that watching Damen fuck would be all kinds of sexy. Watching his back ripple, the power in his arms, the flex of his ass, the sweat beading in the dips and groves of his impressive body, seeing him from the outside. He had thought it would be hot as fuck and that it would get him off. He’d fantasised a time or two about it, about watching him let go.

He was wrong.

Sure yes, Damen looked amazing. He looked fucking incredible and it was sexy because he was sexy. Laurent had not accounted for the acidic burn in his stomach or the punch-drunk ache in his chest at the sight. He wasn’t getting off, he wasn’t even hard. Not even a twitch. If anything it felt embarrassingly like his cock wanted to retreat up inside his body and join his stomach in the rolling discomfort.

Distracted and chewing on his lower lip as he frowned at the screen, he didn’t hear Damen until he was opening the bedroom door. At least he didn’t have a chance to feel guilty, to force any kind of reaction, Laurent could only turn toward him, laptop open beside him and the video playing.

Damen balked, eyes flaring comically wide and flashing with an emotion Laurent couldn’t place as the lewd obscene sounds from the video filled the room. Damen was shaking his head, cautious as he moved forward, getting a better look at the screen.

Laurent fidgeted the longer Damen stared at the screen without speaking and he held his breath as Damen flipped his focus to Laurent, fixing him with an imposing searching look. Scrutinising.

With gentle fingers Damen reached out and pressed the laptop closed cutting the sound off, gaze never leaving Laurent’s, one eyebrow raised pointedly.

“I can see on your face you know you shouldn’t have done that,” he said as he moved the laptop back to the dresser.

Laurent shook himself out of it, fanning his hair out, squaring his shoulders. Tried not to picture chickens and feathers.

“I know, it was boring anyway,” he said lounging back against the pillows “come here and I’ll let you do all the things your boyfriend won’t and I’ll still beg for more,”

Damen didn’t react immediately, long enough for his stomach to pinch, for his nerves to fray. Damen’s smirk was slow as he reached for Laurent, grabbing at his ankles and tugging hard, dragging him down the bed until Laurent’s legs were spreading around Damen’s hips.

“Sweetheart,” he said, one corner of his mouth tipped up “there’s very little he won’t do,”

Laurent’s smile faltered. Damen saw it, smiled wider, one hand pushing Laurent’s t-shirt up around his chest as his other moved between his legs, stroking his inner thigh.

“Well,” Laurent said, finding his smirk, fixing it in place as he propped himself up on his elbows, pulled one of his legs up and planted his foot on the bed, spread himself wider and drew Damen’s gaze “what doesn’t he like? I’ll do it with you, it’ll be fun,”

Damen’s fingers wandered, the tip of one pressing against Laurent’s hole, distracting him even as he answered “no,”

“Tell me,” Laurent said punctuating it with a heel against Damen’s chest to get his attention. His eyes.

“No,”

Laurent pressed harder at Damen’s sternum with his foot, nudging him back as Damen attempted to advance.

“Is sex with him good?”

The question took them both by surprise. Internally he flinched, wincing at the question and where it had come from. He fought to keep his expression impassive, keep his attention fixed on Damen.

The slow grin spreading across Damen’s face landed like a slap on Laurent’s. It wasn’t a private smile; it wasn’t shy, it said everything Laurent really didn’t want to hear.

“Yes,” Damen said easily “he’s a dream to fuck and he wants it all the time, why wouldn’t I love it?”

Damen loved it. More than the sex they had? Probably, he was in love with Erasmus, right? Or was it just something he said? Did he mean it?

“So tell me what he doesn’t like,” Laurent insisted

Damen snorted, eyebrows climbing as he regarded him. Laurent knew him well enough to know exactly what he was doing. Cycling through every fetish he could think of to find one he knew Laurent would hate.

Laurent wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

“Water-sports,”

Fucker. Damen knew it too, smirking, amused. Challenging.

Laurent wanted to recoil, scrunch his nose up. He’d never given it much thought but bodily fluids weren’t exactly on his list of turn-ons. He wasn’t fond of come, didn’t swallow, didn’t even like spit and he certainly didn’t fuck with any other bodily fluid. Which Damen knew.

There goes his stupid big mouth and his stupid pride working in tandem to get him into a trouble again. Fuck.

“Could be fun,” he said even when he wanted to bite down on his own tongue and retract his statement.

Damen looked at him dubiously. Like he knew exactly what Laurent was thinking. Damen knelt up onto the bed, settling himself between Laurent’s thighs, draping them over his own, hands stroking idly up the outsides of them.

“Oh really,” he said, grinning and not buying it.

Well. Laurent was an excellent salesman and Damen was probably as not-turned-on by the idea as Laurent was. Chickens again. A game this time.

He shrugged.

“It’s just piss,”

Damen laughed “sure, you don’t like to swallow but you’re fine with a golden shower?”

Asshole.

“It’s different,” he countered and hated the flash of satisfaction in Damen’s eyes like he’d won something with that point. With Laurent’s reply.

“So do you want to piss on me or in me?” he asked and Damen sucked in an audible breath.

“Fuck,” he said eloquently and he saw the surprising flash of sudden burning interest in Damen’s gaze.

Damen’s eyes were dark, his expression going thoughtful and Laurent couldn’t help himself. He never could, reacting to the nuances of Damen like he always did, feeling out the places where all their jagged edges met.

He slid upward, sliding himself into Damen’s lap, spread over his thighs, fingers clasped in Damen’s hair as he met his mouth in a kiss that was all breath.

“You like that,” Laurent said and he wasn’t asking “what is it Damen? Hmm? The thought of marking me like that? You want to degrade me? Or is it the filthiness of it? How disgusting I’m willing to get for you? Hmm? Which is it baby?”

“All of it,” Came the instant reply as Damen shifted, hands like brands at Laurent’s thighs as he tugged him closer, lifted him entirely so he had no choice and wrapped his legs around him to settle into his lap.

“But especially the for you part?”

“Yes,” Damen said distracted by the way Laurent was undulating against him.

He reached down, tugged the t-shirt back up to give Damen a better view, so he could watch Laurent’s cock filling with the friction. Damen groaned, hands roaming, sliding back until he was cupping Laurent’s ass, thick fingers teasing his crack.

“Because I would Damen, you have no idea how fucking far I’d go for you, how fucking disgusting I’d get for you,” he stopped moving, framing Damen’s face with his hands to force eye contact “and only for you,”

Damen’s answering groan was almost a growl; deep and thrilling. He had no idea how honest Laurent’s words were. He probably thought it a lie but it wasn’t. If he had a limit where Damen was concerned, they had yet to find it. Besides. There was nothing Damen could suggest that was worse than something he’d already endured. Damen wasn’t fucked up enough to suggest any of the truly fucking messed up stuff. Laurent trusted that. He trusted Damen.

A small obnoxiously familiar voice in the back of his head let him know it wasn’t really about trust right now; it was about competition. About Erasmus. Being good enough. It sounded awfully like someone he’d rather never listen to again.

He shook it off, came back to himself with Damen staring down at him, hand stroking idly at Laurent’s hip, body resting off to the side. His concern apparent in his expression and Laurent cheeks flamed, tried not to think about when Damen had moved them or how long he’d been on his back.

He fucking hated the disoriented feeling of losing time, or blinking the world back into focus after it had started to look like a movie. He never knew when it was going to happen and didn’t know how to stop it. The only time he was sure it would never happen was when Damen was inside him. He didn’t know what that meant, not when it happened all the fucking time when he had sex with anyone else.  

“Where did you go?” Damen asked

He snorted, fisted a hand in Damen’s hair and tried to tug him down.

“Laurent are you okay?” Damen asked, holding him off

“Do you know how annoying you are when you stop to do that? Do I look like Erasmus to you? Like I want to be coddled?” he snapped

Damen, blinked “I wasn’t-“

“Look if it was that important I’d tell you so either fuck me or fuck off and I’ll go find someone else,”

For a precarious second he thought Damen was going to get up. But he didn’t, sighing, he reached down and Laurent pretended not to notice Damen’s kiss was much gentler than it had been and he pretended he didn’t shudder as Damen’s fingers carefully traced the shell of his ear.

“Brat,” Damen said leaning down to sink his teeth into Laurent’s bottom lip

Laurent grinned despite himself as Damen’s thumb traced below his bottom lip.

“So are you pissing on me or not?”

“Not,” Damen said “but I should punish you for watching that video,”

The word surprised him, enough to have him sucking in a breath as his mind snagged on it, on the thoughts it brought to the surface, the strange desperate frantic pulse singing through his chest. Damen watched him closely and blinked down at him, head canting.

“Yeah?” Damen asked “you want to be punished?”

Laurent swallowed, his chest and his head saying two different things. Demanding two very different things. Both of them screaming.

“I- yes,” he breathed out

Damen eyed him for one long moment before nodding, one big hand splaying over Laurent’s chest, sliding down to the hem and pushing his t-shirt back up. Damen’s fingers traced the ridges of his abdomen, eyes not once wavering from Laurent’s.

“I think I should spank you, show you how bad you’ve been,”

Laurent breathed out, nodding shakily, accepting it.

Damen got off the bed, stepping out of his joggers and Laurent watched him, eyeing Damen’s cock where he was mostly soft, still thick, still big. When Damen nodded at him Laurent sat up, reaching behind himself to tug the shirt over his head.

“Where do you want me?” he asked, nerves making him sound far too fucking shy.

Damen slapped the end of the bed pointedly. Laurent was on edge as he shifted to follow his direction, bending himself over the end of the bed, elbows making divots in the mattress as he stuck his ass up in the air. It wasn’t an unfamiliar position and yet it felt brand new as his stomach churned and the anticipation of waiting made him restless.

“How many do you think you deserve?”

He got caught on that word too. Deserve. A clanging harsh noise that made him want to flinch, retreat, recoil. How many did he deserve? There weren’t enough hours in the day for what he deserved.

“Ten?” he said instead

He’d been spanked before, during sex, a playful slap to his ass, some guys liked to watch it bounce, liked the way it made him clench up around them. But never like this. Never so purposeful or more than one or two little slaps. He wasn’t sure what it meant that he heard the words punished and deserved and capitulated to the request. Undecided between wanting and needing and afraid.

“20 it is then,” Damen said

Laurent let out a quiet amused huff and threw a glance over his shoulder, catching on Damen’s familiar smirk and his sparkling eyes. It would be okay. It was fine. He was fine. Laurent nodded, as though the action would make his body believe it as he turned his face and pressed his lips together.

Waiting.

The anticipation of expectation put him on edge, made him flinch when Damen’s palm landed on his side, soft, gentle, a caress and not a slap.

“Tell me why you’re being punished,”

Damen’s voice was dark, low, full of promise and laced with determination.

Laurent’s swallow was audible.

“Because I looked at something I shouldn’t have,”

“Why did you look at it?”

Because he wanted to torture himself. He wanted to see what the fuss was about. He didn’t say it though, it wasn’t the acceptable answer.

“I wanted to see,” Laurent said “I like watching porn,”

“Not as much as you like being fucked though, isn’t that right baby?”

Damen wasn’t wrong. Sometimes he put porn on just to watch, no real intent, something to idly flick through when he was bored.

“Yes,”

“You’re such a slut for it, aren’t you? Maybe I should be punishing you for that instead,”

Slut. The word tangled around his thoughts, a chaotic kind of knot tying him up inside. Almost but not quite. The tight hot coil of shame that followed the word made him choke on a noise, a noise that morphed into a gasp when Damen’s hand came down hard on his left cheek.

“Was that a yes?” Damen asked

Damen didn’t give him chance to answer, spanked him again, the opposite cheek, just as hard. Just as stinging.

“Yes,” Laurent gasped out

Damen chuckled, fingers biting into Laurent’s cheek, making the sting of impact linger.

“Yeah, that’s what you are, a filthy little slut, aren’t you?”

“Whore,” Laurent managed, chest constricting

The word felt loud. Even if he barely breathed it. Behind him Damen paused.

“What was that?”

He swallowed thickly, releasing a shaky breath “say whore,”

Laurent didn’t dare look at Damen for his reaction, not even in the long tense few beats it took for Damen to make a sound.

He hummed, gliding his palm across Laurent’s cheek.

“A whore,” Damen ventured “that’s exactly what you are, isn’t it?”

Whore.

Laurent pressed his eyes closed turning his face to press his cheek to the mattress. Damen’s palm was a swift striking force against his ass, a radiating bloom of pain that startled him, made him yelp.

“Answer me when I ask you a question,”

“Yes,” Laurent said

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I’m a whore,” he managed, stomach turning over as the words fell out of his mouth.

Damen had no idea how true it was. Just what he was really admitting to.

Damen hummed, fingers biting into the flesh of Laurent’s ass again, right over the place he’d marked him. Laurent hissed, squirming at the sting.

“My whore,”

When the next slap came Laurent moaned, the words or the sting, or the intimate sensation of Damen’s skin meeting with his suddenly visceral and present in a way he couldn’t comprehend.

It felt good, even as it felt bad. A confusing blend of pain and something else- something he couldn’t name, couldn’t place, it tasted like relief except soured somehow. Tinged by desperation. Until he was panting, sweat beading on his brow from holding himself still as Damen spanked him several more times in quick succession.

When Damen’s voice came it was as rough as the hand groping him.

“Had enough yet? You’re halfway there,”

He fidgeted, unsure whether he was pushing into or away from the fingers digging in to his raw flesh

“Was that 10 already? I barely felt it,”

Lies. All lies. He was feeling it. On his skin. In his bones. Deeper still, in the fucking heart of him.

“Oh is that right? Maybe I should stop holding back, double it again because you’re being a brat about it,”

Fuck. He was holding back? Of course he fucking was, Damen’s biceps were no joke. Holy shit. Was he going to give him 30 more?

“No,” he protested, hissing as Damen spanked the opposite cheek, fingers still making indents on his left one.

“Why not?” Damen asked his hand smoothing over the raw flesh and further, past his balls, until he was wrapping his fingers around Laurent’s cock. It was heavy, hanging tellingly between his legs.

“I-“

“You love it, my needy little whore is dripping for me,”

Laurent’s face flamed as Damen’s hand met his skin twice in swift succession, the exact same place, twice as hard as the previous hits had been. Laurent cried out, his hips slamming into the edge of the mattress with the force and the spark behind his eyes was hypnotic.

“Look at me,”

Laurent swallowed, panting hard as he turned a glance over his shoulder to meet Damen’s gaze. Damen assessed him, searching him so intensely Laurent was prised open, split apart, unspooling and unravelling as he silently prayed Damen would find whatever it was he was looking for.

“Good, turn back around and hold on, I’m not stopping again,”

Laurent’s breath left him in a whoosh, as the next impact made his skin sing, a loud vicious peel echoing in the room and blooming through his skin. After ten more he was panting hard, struggling to think clearly. The ten after had him howling, his body on fire and there was only one word pounding in his brain.

Damen. Damen. Damen.

There was nothing else, just him. What he was doing. What he wanted. What he wanted of Laurent and he couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to. He let go.

Laurent was aware of nothing, only registered the heat of it, the same feeling echoing in his flaming face as he held himself still beneath Damen’s onslaught. His hand and his words. The wrecking two-fold sensation of relief alongside the intense sting of pain had him shaking.

A tremble, one he felt inside and out as his entire body snapped, the thread cut, the anchor pulling up, until there was nothing holding him down, holding him in place, holding him together except Damen.

It was almost like he was drunk. Like nothing was real and yet nothing had felt more real.

“Last one,” Damen said

When it came it was the hardest yet and he felt it from far away. His body was moved, shoved forward so hard his face careened into the bed and he had to go up onto his toes to avoid toppling over completely. He sagged forward hard, knees shaking, unaware of anything except for the fact Damen’s hands were no longer on him.

“Fuck, look at you,”

Laurent whimpered, his throat tight and his chest too loose as he registered the tearing of a condom packet and something cool sliding between his burning cheeks. He couldn’t think, everything was foggy, far away and too close. Nothing but sensation, his brain scrambled and desperate in a way he couldn’t understand.

Laurent’s entire body went still without pausing to ask his own brain whether he should. He was panting, staring at the duvet, his cock so fucking hard, red and leaking and heavy, throbbing from the spanking and begging.

As was the rest of his body.

Damen positioned himself behind him, lining his cock up. His fingers sank into Laurent’s hair, tugging hard, wide palms settling on Laurent’s scalp and grabbing fistfuls of his hair as he pressed inside him. One long hard thrust, not even pausing as he started fucking him.

Laurent let him, already lax and docile, relaxing into his hold; into the thrust of his cock as he was fucked ruthless and relentless. The sound was obscene, slick, slapping, rhythmic, punctuated by the noises Laurent had no control over.

Behind him Damen said his name like a curse and Laurent thrilled beneath it. Damen was everywhere. All of his senses entirely overwhelmed by Damen. He wanted. He wanted to please him. He wanted him to think of this, of Laurent. To want him as desperately as Laurent wanted him. He wanted Damen to want to please him too. To give it to him. Whatever it was. He wanted it.

Trying to stop his eyes from slipping closed was a struggle, a battle he was losing as his awareness condensed and shrank to Damen and his cock and the way he felt inside Laurent’s body.

Laurent couldn’t breathe, he was squirming, distracted by the slick sound of Damen fucking him and the needy panty breaths spilling from his own mouth. He was close, so fucking close, his vision going cloudy, his thighs fucking shaking with it, his cock leaking and leaking all over the bedding.

He wanted to reach down, but he couldn’t move, his body was not his own, nothing but a hole for Damen to fuck as he pleased and he writhed instead, hips trying desperately for friction until Damen changed the angle, lifting one foot up onto the bed and slamming into him just right.

Light exploded behind his eyes and Laurent went rigid, body pulling taut for one long suspended moment as pleasure coursed through him, thick and fast and so good it was nearly painful. And then he shouted, moans spilling from him as he came against the bedspread in long puddling pulses, body shaking and hips bucking wildly as Damen cursed and fucked him through it, hands like brands on Laurent’s waist as he drove down into him.

He choked on air, gasping, eyes pressed closed and entire body shaking, breath hitching. Damen said his name as if from far away and fucked him harder, driving into Laurent over and over, hips slamming against his bruised ass, pounding at his sensitive prostate, making him shake and shudder long after he’d stopped coming.

Or maybe he was still coming, clenching and unclenching and moaning and whining around Damen’s cock, gutted little noises spilling out of him as his whole body continued to tremble, his pelvic muscles contracting so much he felt like he might lose control of his bladder any second.

And he didn’t care.

Before he could lose control completely Damen was slamming deep, holding himself there and saying his name around a sexy groan that had Laurent’s toes curling. Damen pulled out as soon as he was done and Laurent was bereft, empty, sore and sated as Damen gently turned him over.

“Don’t cry baby, you did so well, so fucking good for me Laurent, so perfect,”

Cry?

Was he crying?

He wasn’t aware of it. But Damen was kissing him, tugging him in and Laurent went, arms curling sluggish and shaky around his waist as Damen held him close, running one gentle hand down his back.

The caresses were nice. Damen felt nice. Everything felt-

Quiet. Loose. Like something somewhere had shaken free and Laurent was suspended between moments. In his body and out of it. A part of and apart from reality. It wasn’t the same as when it happened without his notice, those times he slipped from reality without meaning to. This was warm. Inviting. Like an embrace, not a cage to keep the world out.

Damen steadied him and pulled back, cupping his face and wiping at the tears Laurent still couldn’t really feel.

“You alright?”

Laurent nodded, humming as he soaked in Damen’s warmth. His smell.

“So good,” he managed, tongue thicker in his mouth than was normal.

He didn’t have it in him to care, not when it was so fucking good.

Laurent swayed on his feet, fighting the lethargy and the softness and the hazy edges of reality.

“You’re sleepy,” Damen said softly and Laurent turned to his voice like a moth to a flame, blinking owlishly up at him.

Damen’s answering smile was one Laurent could not place, could only study it as Damen carefully tucked Laurent’s hair behind his ear “you’re so fucking cute,”

Cute.

Despite himself he smiled.

Damen seemed surprised by it because he went uncharacteristically shy as he leant forward to give Laurent a sweet, soft kiss to his upturned mouth.

“Come on sleepyhead,”

“Mmm,” Was all Laurent managed because Damen was guiding him to the bed and pulling the blankets down. He wasn’t particularly present as Damen arranged them, was asleep before Damen even settled the comforter around him.

~*~

When he peeled his eyes open the sky was lightening beyond the windows and Laurent was curled against Damen’s side, head on his chest. Damen had an arm around him, the other flung over his head. He looked-

He looked unreal; face cast in a column of dappled moonlight, all angles and sweeps and darkness. His breath came in soft puffs, chest rising gently. There wasn’t a part of him not tangled in Damen. Not a single fucking part of him.

He wanted to run. Get up without waking him and leave him in the bed he usually shared with someone else. Leave him to wake up to a day of cleaning the sheets and erasing the evidence. As though Laurent had never been there at all.

Laurent didn’t want to be erased. He didn’t want to be reduced to a stray blonde hair on Damen’s side of the bed, on the collar of a jacket, to someone who could come and go so easily, could be swept so easily away.

He wanted-

He cut the thought off, blinking against the darkness and settled back down on his chest. Damen shifted, humming, turning toward him more fully, holding Laurent tighter. Did he know which one of them he was hugging? Did he care? Was one equally as good as the other and he didn’t much mind which one of them he woke up to?

He probably thought it was Erasmus. Laurent was good for a fuck, sex, and tantalising thrills but he wasn’t this. This wasn’t his.

Laurent still buried his face in Damen’s skin, breathed in the familiar scent of him and tried to plaster himself tighter to him. It was too much though because it woke him. Damen was huffing a small sound, arms tightening for a beat before he relaxed. Laurent turned his eyes up as Damen peeled his open.

The smile breaking on his face was devastating. For so many reasons. So many reasons Laurent couldn’t name half of them. Damen’s hand was on his cheek, cupping his face, sweeping tendrils of his hair away.

“Hey,” he said softly “you feeling okay?” he asked voice gruff with sleep.

He looked concerned. Oh. Right. The spanking. The tears. The haze.

He cleared his throat, cheeks heating up despite himself “I think so,” he said

Not the real answer. Yes. No. Physically he was fine.

“You would tell me? If you weren’t?”

Would he?

“Yes,” he said because it was what Damen needed to hear.

Damen snorted like he didn’t believe him but he leant down anyway, brushed their mouths together. Laurent let him, melted into it, tipped his head up and closed his eyes and savoured the softness of Damen half asleep.

Most of the time, almost all of the time, they were so desperate for each other, so pushed for time that they went hard and they went rough and as much as Laurent loved it, thrilled to it, he liked this too. The sweetness, the tender way Damen caressed him, the rhythm of his heart beating steady and strong beneath Laurent’s palm.

“Are you sore?” Damen asked, palm sliding down Laurent’s back to cup his ass

Laurent hissed, because yes. More sore now than he had been initially, the kind of pain that spoke of bruises. It wasn’t bad. It was almost good, the kind of thing worth clinging to when he needed it.

 Punished.

Deserved.

Whore.

“Yes, but it’s good,”

Cathartic almost.

Damen grinned, seeking his mouth and Laurent gave it to him. Let himself be kissed until he was being pushed onto his back, Damen following him over, kissing him slow and deep and messy.

“Too sore to fuck?” Damen asked against his mouth

Laurent shook his head, clinging to Damen’s curls and made sure to look him in the eye.

“Get inside me,”

Damen sat back, reaching for the box of condoms on the side and tearing one open. He rolled it down quickly, adding lube before slotting back between Laurent’s thighs.

Laurent lifted his legs, wrapping them around Damen as his cock kissed at his hole. Damen’s mouth was a bruise as he pushed in slow, sinking inside like he’d never left, filling him up, making him whole.

It was unhurried, the kind of sex that made Laurent’s toes curl, the unfamiliar sensation had him huffing, restlessness beneath his skin, a clawing in his veins, an insistence it couldn’t be like this, it shouldn’t be like this. This was too much, not what he was good at or for. He didn’t know this.

He tried to urge him on, tried to slam his hips up but Damen held him off, smiled against his mouth and shook his head “I’ll get you there,” he said with all the confidence of someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

Laurent’s body stilled despite himself. Went docile in Damen’s’ arms and gave himself up and over, let Damen roll their hips together.

It was too quiet, too still. The whole world was far away as Damen held his gaze and thrust into him, so fucking deep, the grind of him making Laurent’s legs twitch and his body throb, the sight of him catching dangerously in Laurent’s throat. It was overwhelming, too much. Far, far too much.

He couldn’t stop it, didn’t want to stop it. He wanted to stay right there beneath Damen with their gazes locked and their mouths open, sharing damp air as their bodies pushed and rolled and undulated together; as seamless and unrelenting as waves. Slow and savouring.

“I’d have you like this all the time,” Damen confessed against Laurent’s mouth, a soft caress of words that slid down Laurent’s throat like the finest wine.

He gulped it down even when he didn’t know what he meant. Quiet probably. Docile.

“Fuck, the way you feel,” Damen groaned, tipping down to press their foreheads together, eyes squeezed closed “every time I think I remember it and every time you shock me all over again with how-“ he moaned “good you feel,”

“Yes,” Laurent confessed right back “I think I remember but it never does you justice,” he said sliding shaking hands from Damen’s hair to his jaw, clenching as though Damen had any intention of looking away.

Damen was splitting him open, with his hands, with his cock, with his eyes. Fuck- those eyes. He needed to look away before he drowned. He needed to. But he couldn’t. Like a doomed sailor following a siren song.

His head was quiet, still, focused on nothing but the way it felt, how good it felt. How different. Had Laurent ever been fucked like this before?

But then, saying Damen was fucking him didn’t feel right. He didn’t know what it was but it didn’t feel like that. It was much too close. Much too good. Nice like it was everything, everything he’d never had and everything he might want.

Damen was treating him like he might be worth something, like he cared and he felt- special. Almost. Stupid, so stupid. He’d felt special once before and he’d been wrong then too. He knew it yet he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stem the flow of those emotions as they gripped him tight and wrapped around him, urging him closer, urging him on, urging him to say it.

He held his tongue. This wasn’t his to want.

The traitorous voice in the back of his head whispered a reminder: it could have been.

Chapter Text

Laurent was still sore on Monday morning, his ass coloured by bruises in the shape of Damen’s palm. It was a nice reminder every time he sat or shifted, grounded him when his head was full, he’d spent hours inspecting and prodding at them, remembering the curl of shame and how it had felt to be powerless beneath Damen hands. Submitting. Taking what he deserved.

He didn’t hate it.

The unfamiliar number lighting up his phone was an unwelcome distraction. Laurent was in the middle of a work email that he’d already had to rewrite twice when he realised it sounded as fucked off as he felt and it was -apparently- time critical. Sure, most things were in his job which was to say nothing really was.

It wasn’t a mobile number flashing on his phone screen and the area code was for Marlas so it wasn’t some scam call from God knew where. He still didn’t answer. What self-respecting twenty-three-year-old answered their phone when they weren’t expecting a call?

Laurent ignored it, hitting send on the email and pressing get next work.

Except his phone lit up again, the same number. Insistent and probably a real person at least. Curiosity got the better of him.

“Yeah?” he answered

“Hello is this Mr Laurent Vernier?”

“Unfortunately,”

“Hi I’m Jana, I’m calling from Ashford Lodge Surgery,”

Laurent stiffened, heart stuttering awkwardly in his chest as he the unexpected name slammed through him.

“Doctor Vernier would like to book you in to discuss your test results,”

“Test results,” Laurent parroted

“Yes, are you free tomorrow? 4pm?”

He should say no. He should tell her there had been no fucking test and he hadn’t been to the doctor’s surgery he was registered at since he was 18. If he was ever ill enough to need a doctor he went to a walk-in clinic. But Laurent knew exactly what this was and if he said no his uncle wasn’t likely to let it go.

He’d rather it happened at the surgery than at the prick’s house or worse.

“Fine,”

He didn’t hear anything else the receptionist said, he was too caught up on what it meant. The second she hung up he called Aimeric. Even when the chance of him answering was painfully slim.

“Come on you stupid fuck, answer the phone,”

When he rang three times to no avail he settled for a text, asking him what the fuck he’d said.

The little blue ticks appeared confirming Aimeric had read it but no response came. Fucker.

~*~

The surgery hadn’t changed in the years since Laurent had last been there. It was still cold and sterile and fucking packed with people. People who had probably waited a long time for an appointment and here Laurent was, not needing one, and wasting everyone’s valuable time.

Whilst he waited at the check in line a poster declaring the staff had a right to work without harassment and violence caught his attention. Had anyone ever gotten violent with his uncle? Probably not, it was never the people who fucking deserved it.

He had barely sat down in the waiting area before his name flashed on the screen, summoning him to Room 3.

He didn’t sit in the patient chair when he went in, he went to the window, gazing out across the lovely view of the back of the building where there was a large industrial bin, a generator and not much else.

“What do you want?” Laurent asked, perching on the window ledge.

His bruises still twinged, enough to make him focus. To ground him. His uncle watched him, hands clasped in his lap, his expression all faux-amusement. Laurent refused to fidget the same way he refused to meet his gaze. He reached instead for his cigarettes, made a show of lighting one.

His uncle didn’t comment but he flicked the desk fan on and rose to his feet, prowling forward, attention never leaving Laurent as he stopped far too close and leant across him to open the window.

Laurent held still, freezing the way he’d been trained to do, to ignore the instinct to pull away or shove him. His uncle didn’t immediately pull back, let himself linger, face inches away from his own, looming over him and trapping him against the window. He didn’t speak, he didn’t have to.

Laurent’s heart was rabbiting in his chest, his veins alight with a sickly kind of quiver, letting him know his hands would shake when he raised the cigarette to his lips. When the prick did eventually step away Laurent didn’t relax, there was no ease of the tension pulled taut in his shoulders. He took a drag or three of his cigarette instead.

His hands were shaking.

“You know why you’re here,” His uncle said, finally taking a seat back in his fancy fucking desk chair.

“Did I fail my test?” Laurent sneered, making absolutely no effort to flick ash out of the window.

His uncle eyed the black and white flakes on his window ledge, jaw ticking as his gaze narrowed.

“Yes, as it happens, you did,”

Laurent hummed, turning away from the grey scape beyond the window, passing over his uncle who had canted his head, perfectly at ease, relaxed in his seat. It was worse than rigid and mad. Relaxed and amused never meant anything good for Laurent.

His eyes refused to settle on him, no matter how hard he tried and they went instead to the examination bed. The blue padded leather was covered by a roll of paper, shiny and clean, the sterile wipes still open on the counter beside it. There were various paraphernalia beside it, the light attached to the head positioned as if to shine it right in someone’s face.

Laurent could feel the paper against his skin, the way the cracked faux-leather would give beneath his fingernails. His vision was blinded by the flash of a light, glaring in his face, the burn of cold unyielding metal between his legs…

Bile scorched up his throat and he forced his eyes down to the floor, sucking in a deep breath and another inhale of his cigarette before he was composed enough to lift his head again.

“When did you start fucking Aimeric?”

His uncle’s grin was all amusement, glittering like this was in any way funny. To him he supposed it was.

“You used to be such a sweet boy,”

The words rankled, slick as tar and as weighted as lead as it settled in his stomach.

“Aimeric was sweet too, he’s still sweet,”

The not like you went unsaid but Laurent heard it all the same.

“Do you have to close your eyes and picture a child when he sucks your cock?” Laurent asked, flicking his cigarette end out the window “does it turn your stomach to see him down there? Old and used and entirely aware of everything? Is he too willing now he’s old enough to consent? I can’t imagine that gets you off,”

His uncle didn’t falter, his expression didn’t change. He didn’t glance at the door even though Laurent’s voice was not quiet. He didn’t have to, he didn’t care, he’d been doing all sorts of atrocious things in this surgery for years and no one had ever stopped him.

No one ever would.

“You’ve upset him,” his uncle said

“I upset a lot of people,”

“I don’t like when people upset what’s mine,”

The hard proprietary way he said it made Laurent’s stomach turn over. It was the worst kind of possessive, it was ownership, the way he’d talk about a dog, about his car, about something he still had use for. It wasn’t sentiment, it was too cold, too matter of fact.

“You’ll apologise to him,”

“I didn’t-“

“You will apologise to him,”

He didn’t even raise his voice, didn’t harden it, he just said it again, even and calm and cool. There was no need for a threat. He was the threat and he knew Laurent was all too aware of it.

Still he jutted his chin “and if I don’t?”

His uncle’s smile bloomed, almost soft as he turned to hit a button on the keyboard and the sound of the printer whirring to life drew Laurent’s attention. His uncle leaned across, taking the green thin paper as it came out and scribbled his signature on it. He folded it neatly, holding it by the corner between his ring and middle finger.

“You will,”

Laurent slid down from the ledge, squaring his jaw as he crossed to him and snatched the prescription from him. Before he took another step there was a hand wrapped tight around his wrist, a hard squeeze, rough thick fingers digging in, harsh even through the thin material of his jacket.

“You saw him once,”

Laurent frowned, staring as his uncle rose to his feet. Laurent didn’t step back, he never did, had never learned how to make his feet move when his uncle stepped in close, leaning down to brush his mouth against Laurent’s ear.

The shiver trembling through his skin was ice, a cold burn clawing at his spine as his mind screamed, to move, to get away, to not have the familiar breath at his neck, making his stomach roll and memories roar and riot in the back of his head as they tried to escape the confides of their cage.

He kept his gaze on the wall, sliding, sight going unfocused until the whole field of his vision was one big blur. It softened everything, a retreat that was all too familiar as he refused to feel this.

“You crept from my bed and you came down the stairs, sweet and stiff, you always tried to pretend you weren’t but I could always tell and I loved to see you limp,”

Laurent breathed. Pulled himself harder into his own head as though to wrap himself tight enough in his own thoughts to stem the flow of his words. It was a softer kind of blow, but it was a blow all the same. He’d feel it later, like a drunk falling down the stairs, not aware of the bruises until the next day.

“You came into the living room and he was there, on his knees, being such an eager boy for me, you looked like you’d been slapped, so sweet Laurent, always so lovely, you came in and did as you were told, holding his head down, don’t you remember?”

No. He didn’t. He didn’t remember it at all. It felt familiar, the way a story did because it had been told often, so it was probably true, back there swimming in the void of darkness he kept locked up tight. It could, equally, be a lie. Aimeric would have known about Laurent otherwise and he hadn’t. Or did he not see who it was holding his head? Did he keep his head from turning and told Laurent to-

“You went right back upstairs like a good boy when I was done, didn’t even have to ask you to,”

Bile. Sickness. Shame.

“You’ve had his spit inside you, did you know that?”

Laurent’s chest protested and it snapped him from his head. He tugged his arm free, forcing himself to look up at his uncle’s smirking face.

“Fuck you,”

The words felt weak. Not enough. Nowhere near enough but there was nothing else to say, nothing else that would accurately reflect any of what he was thinking or feeling.

His uncle’s laugh followed him all the way out of the surgery and Laurent was half way home before the world came back into focus. He had no memory of the walk, no memory of crossing any roads or rounding any corners but he found himself on a familiar street, shaking, nausea throttling him and the prescription still clutched in his clammy fist.

He peeled it open to see what his payment was, breathless as though he’d been running, sweat clinging to the back of his neck and skull, making his hair damp.

Methadone.

It was a taunt. A tease. A fucking joke. It said everything his uncle hadn’t said out loud. Laurent had never had methadone; he’d never had heroin but with one slip of paper the accusation was loud. The label was loud.

Dependent. Needy. 

A cycle Laurent couldn’t break and couldn’t escape from. Even now. A compulsion he couldn’t fucking stop.

Like an addict.

He wasn’t sure what was worse, that his uncle gave it to him, or that he kept it. A long fucking half-life indeed.

~*~

By Thursday Laurent was crawling out of his own skin. Damen’s bruises had faded past pain and with them the grounding comfort of them. The moment they were gone enough Laurent could no longer feel them, with the prescription for methadone still sitting on his night stand and his stash of pills a whole strip lighter, he called Ancel.

He hadn’t spoken to Aimeric, he hadn’t fucking apologised. He wouldn’t. So if he couldn’t drag Aimeric out to get drunk with him Ancel was the only other person he knew who would be up for it mid-week regardless of responsibilities.

Ancel had brought Isander with him and some girl Laurent had never met before. They were dancing under the flashing club lights, laughing with their heads tipped back and swaying into each other as Laurent stood motionless beside them. There were men everywhere, some women, but mostly men, packed onto the dance floor of the gay club they were at. It was all he could see; all he could feel. The humid stickiness of other people’s body heat and the pound of the bass beneath his feet and thrumming in his ears.

He couldn’t let go. Rigid and unmoving, his entire body vibrated with a restless demand he didn’t want to heed. Didn’t. But would. It had been days and the last time-

He didn’t want to think about Damen. Not right now, not if he couldn’t have him.

Downing the rest of his drink he let the plastic fall to the floor and pushed away from his friends, his body moving on autopilot. He shoved his way through the throng of people to the black curtains at the back where a neon sign announced the back rooms for what they were.

He was no stranger to those rooms, or other’s just like it. It was dark, sweaty, the smell of sex was rife in the air and there were hands all over him as he moved through the corridors, stroking down his arms and reaching out for him.

Laurent had told himself, so many times, that it was fine. It didn’t count if he didn’t fuck anyone in those dark rooms. Where it was too dark to see if there were condoms. He was a mess, but he wasn’t that far gone. Blow jobs weren’t anything. It didn’t matter and it didn’t count.

He was on his knees in moments, a thick cock ramming into the back of his throat. He didn’t even have to do anything, just ride it out as the stranger fucked his face. The second one required more effort and Laurent let his body move on autopilot, the clenching in his chest loosening in slow increments as everything retreated.

It didn’t happen when he was fucking Damen. But with strangers like this the retreat was complete, a veil pulling down, glass separating him from reality. The sensation of it all softened the edges, blurred out reality, the moment cut loose from his being. He let it happen. Wanted it to happen. Until his jaw ached, until his knees hurt, until he’d lost count of how many he’d had. As if everything was happening to someone else and he was a mere spectator.

Catching his breath he spat the last load out of his numb mouth, his lips swollen and raw. His throat aching. He leant against the wall for a moment, closed his eyes and listened to the pants and moans and the half-muffled thrum of music.

On his way out one of the doors to the side rooms was wide open, a crowd gathering around a breeding bench and for a second, one horrifying second, he wondered what it would be like. If the men here decided they wanted it. Wanted him. If they held him down or forced him. If they just took it, fucked him one after the other like he was just a set of holes, not a real person at all.

What did it say about him that he wished they would?

A messed-up craving to answer the deep fissures in his chest and in his head and the remembered words that lived there. The little voice that told him he was tempting fate by being here, that was why he came, because secretly he wanted it: like a dare to the universe to prove it. Prove the words right.

It was a cruel ridiculing snarl of a voice that sounded far too much like his uncle.

With a swallow tasting like come he pushed back out into the club and was blinded by the flashing. It was all right there. The lights, the noise, the music, the casual brush and touch and bump of a plethora of people. Yet Laurent felt like he was watching it on a screen. It all felt so far away even as it surrounded him.

He couldn’t feel a fucking thing.

Laurent picked up the first person that looked at him right and took them home, let them fuck him over the back of his sofa and the second he was alone again the numbness retreated. All that remained was the pulsing sickened ache of shame burning hot inside him, an inferno of regret he was all too familiar with.

~*~

Damen was swamped at work. It was the excuse he gave for not being able to come fuck Laurent all week, even when Laurent had said he didn’t mind if he came over stupidly late. He didn’t come. Laurent tried not to let it bother him.

It didn’t matter. He had Grindr, a parade of people over in the week to fill his time, had three different guys over in the space of two hours on Friday night alone.

He spent an equal amount of time in the shower on Saturday morning, high on codeine and numb enough not to feel the water getting cold or the needle-like sting on his skin.

Saturday evening found him in a pub in town, dodging questions from Ancel and Isander about Aimeric and why he wasn’t answering the phone. There were other people there, more of Ancel’s friends, most of whom Laurent didn’t know or care to. He was only two drinks deep, sitting in a booth and staring through the crowd when he saw him.

Erasmus had eyeliner on. It was the first thing he registered. He had dark blue eyeliner around his pretty blue eyes, wearing a sparkly little t-shirt that was far too tight and too short and even Laurent could admit his ass looked amazing in the jeans he was wearing. They were low on his hips, showing off two delightfully prominent hipbones and the hint of a tattoo Laurent didn’t know he had.

But then, why would he?

Erasmus was, much to his chagrin, really fucking pretty. It wasn’t difficult to see what Damen saw in him. Especially now that Laurent knew his sex drive was as high as Damen’s and he had very few limits. Probably did whatever Damen wanted.

Like letting Damen rail him on camera. Or make love to him.

Laurent slammed his glass down on the table a little harder than necessary, pulse skittering when he realised Damen was with Erasmus, arm casually draping over the back of Erasmus’ chair the moment Erasmus dropped into it. They were with a few other couples and Damen was smiling, talking, the whole table riveted with Erasmus leaning into his side. Laurent felt sick.

He watched them, drinking and taking the shot Ancel put in front of him, letting the conversation at his own table pass over him. Too focused on the way Damen played with the ends of Erasmus’ hair idly, arm still on the back of his chair. Watched the way Erasmus smiled at him, the soft flutter of his fingers at Damen’s thigh every so often. Touching him because he could.

Damen probably hadn’t been too tired to fuck Erasmus all week. Asshole.

Downing the new drink Ancel had given him Laurent rose to his feet, waving away Isander’s question as he weaved his way through the crowd until he was at Erasmus’ elbow. Damen noticed him first, eyes flaring, sitting up a little straighter as Erasmus turned, beaming up at him.

Erasmus got to his feet immediately, pulling Laurent in for a hug and touching his hair the way he wouldn’t if they were at work. A few drinks in, clearly.

“Damen,” Laurent said

He really didn’t mean his tone to be so accusatory but it was. He was. Accusing and annoyed. Damen hadn’t seen him all fucking week after putting bruises on his ass in the shape of his palm and fucking him like-

Well, like that. He was pissed.

“Laurent,” Damen said, nodding at him, voice painfully indifferent.

It set his teeth on edge. Erasmus introduced him to the rest of their boring coupled up friends and turned to Laurent, all enthusiasm and tipsy intent.

“We should do shots,” Erasmus said, taking hold of Laurent’s hand to draw him toward the bar.

Laurent let his gaze linger on Damen “you know what? Let’s do that,” he said gaze not wavering until there were too many people in the way.

If Damen looked nervous it absolutely was not Laurent’s problem. They fucking worked together for fucks sake, what was Laurent supposed to do?

Erasmus ordered them two shots each, something bright that tasted more like sugar than anything else but they went down easy and Laurent smiled along as Erasmus talked about his best friend who was on his way and Laurent would just love Kallias, he was the best. Apparently. And joy of joys, Nikandros was also on his way. Even fucking better.

Damen appeared much sooner than Laurent had thought he would, arm going around Erasmus as he noticed the empty shot glasses.

“Wow, babe I thought you loved me?” Damen grinned

Erasmus smiled right back, already waving down the barman “I do, just not enough to carry shots through a crowd for you,”

Laurent winced, grinding his teeth together and pretending not to notice the way they fit together. Easy and familiar. Right in ways Laurent supposed he never would be with Damen.

Laurent watched Damen knock his shot back, eyes latched to his throat as he swallowed and noticing the way Erasmus was looking at him like he wanted to eat him. Did Laurent look at Damen like that?

Fucking probably.

Before Laurent could say anything, Erasmus was scrambling to get his phone out of his pocket, brandishing it at Damen excitedly.

“Babe, Kall is nearly here,” he said, going up on his tip toes “I’m going to meet him outside,” he said pressing a kiss to Damen’s waiting mouth before he went.

The second he was out of ear shot Damen span toward him, smile dropping.

“What are you doing?” he asked

Laurent’s eyebrows went up “me? Damen babe I work with him, you know that? I speak to him every day, what should I have said?”

Damen breathed out in a huff, shaking his head, apparently mollified enough to look Laurent up and down.

“You look good,” Damen said voice low like a secret

Laurent preened despite himself and threw a glance at Damen’s table. Erasmus wasn’t back yet. Good. He reached out, tugging on one of Damen’s belt loops and stepped backward, cocking his head to the door leading to the toilets and the smoking area.

Damen whipped his head around like a guilty little fuck wit, smacking at Laurent’s hand to get him to let go.

“Are you insane?” Damen hissed

Laurent laughed, stepping back, scrolling down Damen from top to toe with his eyes “suit yourself,” he said

Damen’s answering groan was irritated and Laurent was waiting for it, knew it meant he would follow even when he shouldn’t. And he did, right into the corridor where Laurent stood for a long moment waiting for it to be empty enough. Damen beside him was restless, throwing glances at the door every few seconds.

“Seriously, what the fuck are we doing?”

Laurent rolled his eyes and the second he had an opening he took it. He swung the disabled toilet door open, shoved Damen inside and locked it behind him, grinning victoriously at Damen’s wide-eyed horror.

“Laurent we can’t, not here,”

Laurent pouted, shifting toward him, hands on Damen’s hips “you like sex in bathrooms, you have a history,” he said, voice a tease

Damen huffed, half-heartedly pushing Laurent’s hands away.

“This is different, this is stupid, I can’t do this with you right now,”

Laurent pouted up at him, being a shit, mimicking Erasmus even if Damen wasn’t aware of it.

“But babe who will fuck me then?” he asked “should I wait for Nikandros to get here?”

Damen went still at the name, frowning down at him. Laurent went up onto his toes, tonguing at Damen’s neck, sucking a brief kiss there, careful not to leave a mark.

“Laurent-“

 “Do you think Nikandros would fuck me?”

Damen’s growl lit him up and Laurent let out a whoosh as he was slammed against the wall “even think about it and I’d kill you both, you and I would be done,”

Laurent shuddered, enjoying the splay of a proprietary hand at his throat.

“What about Kastor?” Laurent grinned

It was a low blow and Damen tightened his fingers. Laurent moaned into it, letting Damen see how much it was turning him on.

“Like I said if you want him have him, but you and I would be done,”

“I know,” he said, practically panted as he pressed his throat harder into Damen’s hand. Encouraging him.

Damen was still frowning, eyes roving Laurent’s face.

“You should be inside me already, we can’t take too long,”

The way Damen’s jaw ticked let him know he’d won before Damen even dropped his hands to his belt. Laurent scrambled, undoing his jeans and pushing them down just far enough beneath the curve of his ass. He braced himself against the sink, watching Damen in the mirror as Laurent spat on his fingers and reached behind himself to coat his hole.

“Go slow though, I fucked a bunch of guys last night, I’m a little sore,” Laurent said, holding out the condom for Damen.

Three and he really wasn’t sore but Damen didn’t need to know that.

Damen held his gaze in the mirror as he took it from him, ripping it open with his teeth. Laurent couldn’t read his expression, it was flat, shuttered, no give at all. When Damen had rolled the condom down he stepped into him, bending his knees to position his cock where they both wanted it.

“You should have thought about that before you dragged me in here, I don’t care how sore you are, bite your tongue and hold on,”

Laurent whimpered, the heat of his voice sending a shiver down his spine, his body begging as Damen pressed against him. Then he slammed home.

Laurent’s knuckles went white around the basin, crying out at the sudden sharp sensation. Damen muffled a groan into his hair, one hand bruising on Laurent’s hip, the other snaking around to cover Laurent’s mouth as he moaned.

It was hard and fast, brutal, intense, so good Laurent watched his own eyes flicker in the mirror as Damen fucked him, watching him intently, their skin meeting in loud slaps as the gazed back at one another.

“See,” Damen breathed against his ear “I don’t think you learned your lesson, maybe I should spank you again, remind you what filthy little whores deserve,”

Whore.

Laurent came. Sharp and sudden and unexpected, the sensation rolling up from nowhere, surprising him enough that he moaned loud against Damen’s hand, fucking himself erratically on Damen’s cock as Damen froze, eyes flitting between their mirrored reflection and down to watch Laurent’s body move on him.

Damen swore, saying his name in a breathy exhale as Laurent’s orgasm drained him and Damen took over, fucking into him hard and fast until he was coming with a bitten off moan.

Laurent was dazed, shocked, entirely surprised and yet still, comfortably victorious. He pulled his jeans back up the second Damen stepped away, watched him throw the condom in the bin and do his jeans up, turn to the mirror to fix his hair.

When Damen was done he sighed, turning a look on Laurent “I think it’s best you don’t come back over,” he said

Laurent squared his jaw, nodded tightly and accepted the kiss Damen pressed to his temple, struggling to get his breathing under control.

“I’ll call you tomorrow okay? I do miss you, it’s a been a shit week,”

Laurent nodded, folding his arms over his chest and watched him leave. He didn’t feel particularly victorious at all anymore.

Not even when he went back out into the bar and Damen glanced over at him, tracking his movement, eyes roving over him appreciatively as Laurent retreated back to his table. It was an effort not to look over at him again but he didn’t. He didn’t want to see him overcompensating by being all over Erasmus. He couldn’t stomach it.

~*~

True to his word Damen did call the next day and flaked out on Nikandros to come over and rail Laurent like he was being paid instead. Even better, Damen came over Wednesday morning armed with his laptop to work from Laurent’s flat.

It probably wasn’t the best idea. Laurent’s manager was off sick so there wasn’t anyone immediately present to harass him about his figures or lack thereof, but he was on a warning and he’d already spent an unusual amount of time absent because Damen fucked him in the hallway the second he arrived.

It was exactly why he should tear his gaze away from Damen on the opposite side of his kitchen table. Laurent should stop staring at him. He could wait for his lunch break. He could. It hadn’t even been two hours yet.

“Stop it, you’re being very distracting,” Damen said without looking up from his screen, one corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile.

Laurent pouted, nudging his laptop aside and slouched in his seat enough to press his foot between Damen’s legs. His thighs closed instantly, trapping his foot and Laurent pouted harder.

“I’m distracted, it’s your fault, there’s really only one option, I won’t get any work done otherwise,” Laurent said

Damen glanced up at him, head still bowed toward his screen, just two dark eyes peering back at Laurent from beneath the fan of annoyingly long eyelashes.

“Oh yeah? What’s that then?”

Damen’s smirk was all kinds of filthy and the answering heat it let loose in Laurent was entirely expected. Though no less potent for it.

Laurent shoved away from the table, rising to his feet, gratified when Damen sat back immediately in his seat, pushing his chair to an angle as Laurent rounded the table and straddled his lap. His hands went up into Damen’s hair as he met his mouth, clenching hard and tugging him in as Damen’s tongue pillaged his mouth, as eager for it as Laurent was.

Again.

Damen had fucked him the moment he walked through the door, lifting him up and taking him against the hallway wall not even two hours ago. Laurent was, somehow, as needy as if he’d been deprived of him for days.

The way he kissed was all consuming, his hands like brands, pinching and pulling at him, one curling at the back of his neck as if he had any thoughts of pulling away. When Damen gripped his thighs hard Laurent knew what was coming and curled his arms around his neck, grinning into the kiss as Damen stood them up.

Laurent slid down back to his feet, Damen’s hands already on the waistband of his joggers, sliding them over Laurent’s hips. He wriggled to shove them all the way down, letting them pool at his ankles.

He was turned abruptly and bent forcibly over the counter, Damen’s hands rough as they pushed him down, demanding as they yanked his hips backward. When Damen sank to his knees behind him Laurent’s hand dropped to his cock, stroking himself as the anticipation sent tendrils of desperate heat through him.

“Please Damen,”

Laurent craned to see as Damen spread him open, his gaze hungry, staring at Laurent’s hole, still prepped enough for him to feel the echo of space Damen had left behind. He could imagine how fucking obscene it looked.

With a groan Damen was diving forward, licking a hot stripe up from his balls, all the way to his hole, where he plunged inside, eager and wanting, and wanton. Laurent moaned, spreading his legs, reaching back to tangle desperate fingers in Damen’s hair to encourage him, keeping him there, clenching hard and flexing his hips back against Damen’s mouth.

“So good, so fucking good,” Laurent moaned, arcing into the sensation

When Damen rose up his mouth and chin were slick with spit and Laurent’s hole was practically begging for more, throbbing with the aching empty need to be full. Of him. As Damen tore a condom open with his teeth Laurent kicked out of his joggers and turned to hoist himself up onto the counter.

He spread his legs, shifting to the very edge and drew his feet up, planting them as he stroked his cock and watched Damen roll the condom down.

He hadn’t wiped his mouth.

The second he was close enough between the spread of his thighs, Laurent yanked him down, flattening his tongue against the mess of his mouth and chin, making it worse and tasting him, them, and loving every second. When their mouths met the kiss was all tongue, hot and heady and distracting as Damen lined himself up and sank home in one quick thrust.

Laurent gasped into the kiss, grinning against Damen’s mouth as his body shuddered. For a brief moment Laurent lamented not feeling all of him. Skin on skin. It was a thought he batted away, shaking his head to dislodge it as Damen fucked him in long deep strokes, the slap of their skin meeting an almost sticky symphony in the quiet of the room. A rhythmic pornographic soundtrack, accompanied by the loose fucked out slick sound of Damen’s cock inside him and the panting euphoric groans Laurent couldn’t keep locked away.

With one hand planted behind him and the other anchored at the nape of Damen’s neck he fucked back as much as he could, encouraging Damen to go harder, faster, to slam into him as deep as he could. When Damen’s hand dropped to his cock and stroked him rough and hard and quick, it was all over.

Laurent came with a strangled shout, clenching rhythmically around Damen’s cock until he was holding himself deep and coming just as hard as he had done the first time.

“Have I told you lately how much I love your cock?” Laurent panted into Damen’s hair

Pulling out and snapping off the condom Damen was grinning bemusedly, watching Laurent slide down to shaky legs and haul his joggers back on.

“You might have mentioned it once or twice,” Damen said, refastening his trousers.

Damen was still catching his breath when his phone rang, silent and flashing on the table top with Erasmus’ name emblazoned on the screen. Laurent was still breathing unevenly, sated, and smug as he threw himself back in his chair. Damen sat opposite him, holding his phone, and chewing on his bottom lip. He didn’t answer it. Neither did he answer the second.

“I’ll call him back later,” Damen said, as though Laurent needed an explanation.

“Do you ever think about what he’d do if he found out?”

Damen stiffened, flicked his gaze toward him, hiking up one shoulder. When no answer was forth coming, he tried again.

“Do you think he’d leave you?”

Damen scrubbed a hand down his face, running it back up to push his hair back before letting it spring back into place. His chaotic tumbled curls mussed from Laurent’s fingers.

“No,” Damen said the tension in his shoulders getting tighter.

Laurent blinked, opening and closing his mouth a few times before he realised he had no idea what to say to that.

Damen sighed, expression sheepish “I know he wouldn’t leave me, he’s not that kind of person, he’d want to fight for it or give me a chance to make things right,”

Make things right sounded an awful lot like Damen would stop fucking Laurent if Erasmus did ever find out. He pursed his lips and Damen hurried to continue.

“I just meant-“

“You just meant you know he loves you so much you could get away with convincing him to stay with you,”

Damen snapped his mouth shut, expression flat. No denial was forth coming. It made a horrifying kind of sense. Auguste had left him, after a horrendous argument. Jokaste had cheated on him with Kastor. But Erasmus? No, that wasn’t Erasmus at all. Damen was right about that at least.

Was that why Damen was with him? It must be nice being so sure about someone. Erasmus was very different to Laurent in that respect, wasn’t he? Erasmus could be counted on; he was reliable and steadfast and good. Laurent…

Slept around, had never had a relationship, and bit back when he was cornered.

“What do you like about him?”

Probably that Erasmus wasn’t dirty and tainted.

Damen’s eyebrows jumped up as he fidgeted in his seat, half shaking his head “we’re not talking about this,”

“No, tell me, I want to know,”

“Are you sure?” Damen frowned

He rolled his eyes, forced his posture loose “why not? I’m just curious, it’s not like we’re serious, I really don’t give a shit either way,”

Damen sank his teeth into his bottom lip, staring back down at his screen for a long enough moment Laurent thought he was going to answer.

“I like that he gets me, you know? It’s just easy,” Damen shrugged, beginning to type again as if that were the end of the conversation.

Laurent leant across, tipped Damen’s screen down enough to make him withdraw his fingers and look back at him. Laurent was waiting for him with an expectantly raised eyebrow.

Damen heaved a martyred sigh and shrugged “mostly in the beginning I liked that he was nothing like Auguste and Jokaste, there were no games, no bullshit, he was earnest and if he said it he meant it and I really liked that, I wasn’t used to it,”

Laurent heard what he wasn’t saying. Who he hadn’t included. He forced himself not to react, nodded to encourage Damen to continue.

“He’s the only person I’ve ever dated that asks me what I need, you know? Jokaste was confusing, everything was a game, your brother wasn’t much better, he just always assumed I’d be there and I was always guessing, with both of them, and it made me into someone I didn’t want to be, insecure and frustrated and just- but not with him,”  

Laurent’s ears were ringing, a whining whistle interrupted by the static of his own pulse as he absorbed Damen’s words. Part of his brain was screaming to let loose the words on his tongue, the weighted so why are you here? If he’s so perfect why do you risk it by fucking me? The other part of his brain was too busy slotting himself into Damen’s sentences. He knew which side of the coin he was on, who he could be likened to. It wasn’t Erasmus.

“What do you need?”

Had he ever asked? The sex they had always following a rhythm Laurent set. Damen read him so well and gave him whatever it was he needed, even if he didn’t know what it was. If neither of them did.

Damen rolled his eyes “ha, ha, funny,” he said pushing his laptop back open.

Laurent reached back across, snapped it nearly closed and ignored the huff of impatience Damen gave him.

“If there’s something you want to try I’ll do it, I thought I’d made myself clear,” he said

Damen blinked at him, the minute shake of his head all Laurent needed for the heat to start warming his cheeks.

“It’s not about sex, that isn’t what I meant,”

Laurent sat back and the flush bloomed full in his face, heating his skin. Oh. Was it telling that he’d assumed? Was it stupid to wonder what else he could mean? Was he so fucked up he couldn’t even comprehend the very basics of human interaction?

Of course it wasn’t about sex. Real relationships were about more than just sex. Laurent unruffled himself, pushing a hand through his hair as he fiddled with the cursor on his laptop enough to awaken his icon on teams.

“Do you think about my brother a lot, then?”

Damen rolled his eyes, turned his face away “sometimes, I think about how young I was and how fucking dumb I was for him, sure,”

“When you split up, what happened?”

Damen’s response was immediate.

“No, we’re absolutely not talking about him, that’s too weird,”

Usually that was fine by him, neither of them liked to bring up Auguste. Laurent certainly didn’t like to hear it. But there was something in Laurent’s head, circling but not quite grasping whatever was flitting by far too quickly to grab hold of.

He changed direction.

“Do you bottom for Erasmus?”

Damen blinked, taken aback “what? Where did that come from?”

“Auguste said you bottomed for him,”

Damen palmed the back of his neck and Laurent watched him avidly, looking for any give or tell or anything as he waited impatiently for Damen to respond.

“I don’t like talking about your brother with you,”

Laurent rolled his eyes, batting his hand out dismissively

“So don’t talk about him, tell me about you, do you like bottoming?”

Damen sighed, a half-smile on his face as he shook his head, tossing Laurent an amused if slightly annoyed look.

“It’s okay,” he shrugged

Which was a whole lot of nothing and Laurent heaved an impatient sigh.

Damen rolled his eyes “I don’t hate it or anything, it can be good, but it’s not my preference,”

“Auguste said you switched,”

“Auguste has a big fucking mouth,” Damen mumbled pushing his hair back and rubbing at his temple briefly “look, I was barely 19 when I got with Auguste, he was the first guy I was ever with, it’s fine, I can enjoy it, but I was still figuring things out back then, so no I don’t bottom for Erasmus, it’s not my thing,”

Laurent nodded, appeased. More than appeased actually. Like maybe he knew Damen better than Auguste did after all. Or maybe Damen just knew himself better. It had been nearly ten years since he was first with Auguste. It was a long time, Damen would know himself a lot better at 28 than he would have at 19 after all. It still felt like a little victory.

“Do-“

“Do you fuck anyone else regularly?”

Laurent was taken so off guard he laughed, grinning wide at Damen who wasn’t even looking at him, busying himself with his laptop. Or pretending to at least.

“No, it’s just you,”

Damen whipped his head up, his face doing something that had Laurent’s stomach dancing and his eyes flaring.

“I mean just you regularly, obviously it’s not just you, I fuck a lot of other people you know? Just randoms, one and done, I have a guy coming over tonight actually, his picture on Grindr is just his dick and it’s fucking huge, not as long as yours but it’s got an insane, you know… girth,”

He cringed the minute it was out of his mouth. He hadn’t meant to say it. He hadn’t meant to wipe Damen’s face clean of any conceivable emotion and he definitely hadn’t meant to make himself feel like he was standing on the edge of a cliff.

“Yeah,” Damen said “I know what you meant, you didn’t need to… I get it, you’re good don’t worry,”

Laurent swallowed, grappling with every single thought flitting through his head, desperate for any words to alleviate the thick blanket of silence as it settled around them, like ash after a volcano erupted: thick, cloying, burning, so harsh it could choke and kill.

But he had nothing. It did not surprise him after twenty painful minutes filled with only the barest of small talk, that Damen decided it was time to leave. Some excuse about having to pop back to the office after all.

When he left he only kissed Laurent’s cheek and he tried not to read anything into it. 

It took Laurent all night to realise he actually did know what Damen needed. He knew and maybe he’d always known. He just didn’t know how to give it to him. Erasmus did.

Did it mean something that Laurent didn’t have to ask to know?

Did it mean something that he knew and wouldn’t do it?

He didn’t like either of the answers.

~*~

His grandparent’s anniversary party was being held at a social club, some old persons bar where they had function rooms for hire and the whole place smelt perpetually of stale beer. It came complete with a terrible loud DJ playing shitty pop music from the last 5 decades, tacky metallic streamers on the walls, and a room full of people Laurent shared blood with and detested with every particle of his being. It was a total waste of a Saturday night.

The moment Laurent had arrived he’d been hauled aside by his father and warned to be on his best behaviour. His grandparents had fussed and told him they missed him, his mother had pinched his fucking cheek and proceeded to ignore him without asking a single question.

Not even something as mundane as how are you.

Auguste had been the worst, sitting with Laurent at a table in the corner and chatting like they had anything to talk about. Right up until Auguste noticed Damen arrive. With Erasmus. And his father and step mother, and both grandparents. No Kastor though.

Laurent slumped in his seat, watched through narrowed eyes as Auguste made his way over to say hello, fumed silently into his drink when Damen let him give him a hug. Was even more annoyed when Auguste hugged Erasmus.

Deciding to get it out of the way Laurent followed, waiting purposefully for Auguste to leave before going up to them. Erasmus greeted him with a customary hug and told him he looked nice and Damen echoed the sentiment, flashing him a smile even as his arm went around Erasmus.

“I best go say hi to people,” Laurent said, throwing a thumb vaguely in any old direction

He had no intention of hanging around Erasmus and Damen all night, he had no intention of saying hello to anyone else either. He was here solely so his parents couldn’t throw it in his face for the next twelve years.

And also because his grandparents really were old and they weren’t bad people, Laurent would feel bad if they died and he hadn’t seen them in years.

He went to the bar, watching as his nan hugged Damen’s grandmother, the two of them linking arms and immediately moving to a seat she’d saved for her.

He forgot sometimes that his grandparents were friends with Damen’s grandparents. Once upon a time Aleron and Theomedes had been friends too. Until Auguste went and trampled all over Damen’s heart and things had been non-existent since. Theomedes looked down on them; on Auguste for being sleazy and a fuck boy who broke his son’s heart. On Laurent for being worse than Auguste. On Aleron for having raised them.

He didn’t know the fucking half of it.

Damen had told him he didn’t intend to stay long, just long enough to show his face and appease his grandparents and then he’d leave. Probably to avoid Auguste. Or maybe it was so Laurent didn’t have to watch him with Erasmus.

Or not. Did Damen know? How it rankled? How it made acid bubble in his stomach and something icy and sharp twist in his chest?

He doubted it. At least, he hoped he fucking didn’t.

He couldn’t keep his eyes off them either way. He watched them, practically glued together, the easy way Erasmus leant into him, the way Damen’s arm slid so familiarly around Erasmus, pulling him tight on instinct, the way he leant down toward him, the way his fucking hands couldn’t keep from him for five fucking minutes.

He looked happy. So did Erasmus. They were the perfect couple, young and beautiful and enamoured. Laurent wanted to set the whole place on fucking fire.

Or maybe not. Maybe he just wanted to drag Damen away again, the same way he had last week. Would Damen let him? Probably not here. There were far too many eyes. Erasmus, Auguste, their parents. It wouldn’t go unnoticed; Damen would never risk it.

“Your brothers Ex, nephew?” His uncle said, appearing beside him. A buzzing fucking fly.

Or wasp.

Laurent snapped his gaze away from Damen, aiming for nonchalant as he surveyed the rest of the room. Tried his best to not notice how fucking close the prick was standing to him. He failed, he was painfully aware of the few scant inches between them.

“Who?”

His uncle chuckled “you think I can’t tell?” he asked “you’re like a bitch in heat every time you look at him,”

“I don’t know what you mean,”

“No?” he said stepping closer “you’re practically drooling, you forget I know what you look like when you’re gagging for it,”

Laurent didn’t take the bait. Didn’t even clench his fists, let the comment wash over him and through him. Tried not to let the jagged edges get caught on any of his tender parts.

“Was it just the once? Or are you regularly spreading your legs for him?” he continued, needling “does he give you things in exchange as well, Laurent?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell him he didn’t do that. But it would be an outright lie. He fucked people for things all the time. Christ, the only thing he hadn’t accepted outright was cash.

At least none he saw personally.

When he got no response his uncle only chuckled again “do you think when he turns you over and fucks you from behind it’s because he’s thinking about your brother? I bet he is, why wouldn’t he? Auguste would definitely be tighter I’d imagine,”

Laurent’s body betrayed him. Not for the first time. He snapped his head toward him, expression going flinty despite himself. Giving himself away.

His uncle blinked, a wide smile carving on his face “oh, you like him,” he said, a chuckle like the notion was amusing to him. Surprising to him.

Laurent had fucked up. The smirk let him know it.

“How interesting,”

“Not really,” Laurent said turning his face away again “two drunk fucks hardly make-“

“You can’t lie to me nephew,” he replied, much too close, breathing down Laurent’s neck like death himself “you wouldn’t stop there, not when you’re looking at him like-“

Laurent clenched his jaw and he knew. He fucking knew he was being baited but with a martyred sigh he gave in. It was always easier in the end. Putting up a fight only delayed the inevitable. He was too tired for the runaround.

“Like?” he prompted, dreading the answer

His uncle leant closer still, mouth almost at his ear, breath making the hair on Laurent’s arms and neck stand on end in a warning he’d never once in his life heeded.

“Like you used to look at me,”

It was worse than he’d expected. A stinging slap that had his eyes prickling and his nose tingling and all he could do was bite the inside of his cheek, clench his hands and let his nails dig into his palm to stop himself from letting it get the better of him. It hurt more than it had a right to. He wanted to scream at him, tell him it wasn’t true but it didn’t matter what he said. It never mattered, not really.

“Maybe,” he said, clearing his throat “his cocks bigger and he uses it better though, if you wanted to know,”

When Laurent turned a glance over his shoulder his uncle’s expression had gone hard. Unimpressed. Good.

“Does Auguste know?” he asked, icy words to rain on Laurent’s momentary victory.

He didn’t respond, let the silence speak for itself.

“Oh of course he doesn’t, so in that case, I need a favour,” he said

His hand came down on Laurent’s shoulder. It was just a hand, but he doubted Atlas had born any greater a weight.

“Go to hell,”

He squeezed his shoulder, tight enough to hurt.

“Do you think Auguste’s man would want you if he knew what you really are?”

Laurent frowned, the threat making him stiffen and his heart jump up into his throat.

“You wouldn’t tell him,” Laurent said ignoring his comment “you’d never fucking implicate yourself like that,”

“Oh but I would, to see you squirm? I would do it in a heartbeat,”

“You’re lying,”

“Do this one little thing for me and you won’t have to find out,”

“Get fucked,”

“Fine, have it your way, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,”

The panic was instant, a riot of it as he watched his uncle move toward where Damen was stood, joining the conversation. Laurent went cold, breathing too hard as he watched his uncle’s shoulder buff up against Damen’s and it was like watching a car wreck.

Or watching someone he cared about standing far too close to a dangerous wild animal and they had no idea the thing was about to bite.

Laurent was frozen, watching as his uncle drew Damen into conversation, pointing first at the door and then back at Laurent and Damen’s expression, when he turned his way, was confused at best.

No. This couldn’t be happening. He wouldn’t. Would he? Or maybe he would, but would he do it here? Was he that fucking confident? Was he so arrogant he thought he’d get away with it here of all places?

But then, why wouldn’t he?

The man had been a monster for longer than Laurent had even been alive and no one had done a single thing about it. No one knew or cared to look. Who was there here for him to fear?

Not like Laurent. He knew first-hand how it could be twisted back on him. He need only look at the way his own father treated him to know the whole fucking room would swarm to his uncle’s side if a single word of it exploded here.

He watched them leave, moving toward the exit and Laurent was shaking, his stomach dropping through the floor. Fuck, this couldn’t be happening.

Springing forward he followed, even if it felt like wading through mud, or moving through clay. Until he was outside, outside and approaching the smoking area where his uncle was casually smoking, Damen leaning beside him looking loose and easy.

Laurent marched up to them, ignoring Damen completely.

“We need to talk,” he said

His uncle smiled, turned to Damen “you’ll forgive my nephew, he always was a demanding little thing, you should have seen him as a boy, there was never any saying no to him, he always had to have his own way and he always got exactly what he wanted… always knew his own mind enough to know exactly what he wanted,”

Damen, oblivious, nodded, chuckling “yeah that sounds like Laurent,”

Laurent barely held onto his flinch and gestured pointedly away. His uncle made a show of putting out his cigarette and Laurent avidly avoided Damen’s gaze. Until they were both moving, Laurent being directed by an innocuous hand on his shoulder back into the building and into the empty bathroom.

“So that’s your angle,” Laurent said the second he could see it really was empty “that I what? Wanted it?”

His uncle didn’t blink, a smile gracing his features, far too fucking amused “didn’t you? You told me enough that you did,”

Laurent couldn’t even deny it. But to make it sound like it was him? He had been a fucking kid. That should be the bottom line. Why wasn’t it?

“Oh so I magically invited you to my bedroom that first time? You didn’t wake me up for it?”

“I don’t recall you saying no,”

Laurent snapped his mouth shut, snapped his head to the side as if the words had been a physical blow. He hadn’t. He hadn’t said anything at all the first time. Nothing but a startled what’s happening when he woke up to-

“You want a favour then fine, leave Damen out of it,”

His uncle nodded, advancing toward him. Laurent backed up despite himself, until he was against the stall wall and glaring as much as he could. Trying not to let his breath rattle free even when it wanted to.

“Okay, he stays out of it, Auguste never knows a thing, and you agree to do me a favour, whatever it is that I might want, if you say no when I ask I won’t ask a second time, I’ll tell them both, Damen will learn what you really are, and Auguste will learn you’re taking his ex for a ride frequently enough for his feelings to be a concern to you,”

Laurent grit his teeth, swallowing thickly. He couldn’t say no. He dreaded to fucking think what it would entail. What it would look like. He knew it would be bad. He knew it the way he knew his own name. It was like signing his own death warrant. Even as he nodded tightly.

“One favour, I don’t get to say no, you don’t get to use this again,”

His uncle laughed “I won’t have to, they’ll always be something else with you, you’re lovely and predictable like that nephew,”

Laurent lifted his chin, staring him down.

“One favour and that’s all you’re fucking getting,” he reiterated, vowing silently to get off the drugs. To never go to him for a single fucking thing ever again. He couldn’t. Not after this, he was right, there was always something he could hold over him.

His uncle’s hand shot out, lightning quick and before Laurent could take a preparatory breath he felt colossal fingers around his trembling throat and his head slammed back against the cubicle.

“One, like I said, but really? What does it matter when I have you the way I’ve always had you nephew,” he said reaching down between them to grip Laurent between his legs “by the balls,”

Laurent stiffened, holding his breath, glaring for all he was worth as fingers tightened around his throat. The defiance a goad to him.

“You will do what I say, do you understand?”

When Laurent didn’t immediately respond he slammed his hand down on the wall at Laurent’s head and tightened his fingers past the point of pain on his throat. Past the point of being able to draw even a wheezing breath.

He nodded, frantic until his uncle let go. He didn’t move away, watched Laurent suck in breaths and lean back against the wall like it could offer any kind of strength, or comfort, or escape from his presence.

“See, why do you always have to be difficult?” He said, voice deceptively soft as he reached up to tuck some hair behind Laurent’s ear “when you were always such a good boy,”

“Laurent,”

The name was a cold snap of venom and Laurent hated that the both of them turned at the sound.

“Brother,” his uncle said and Laurent dropped his eyes, turning them back on his uncle rather than his father

“Mother wants you,” Aleron said, voice hard as ice.

He stepped away, passing Aleron with a nod until it was just the two of them. Laurent alone with his father. Perhaps he should feel shame. Or anger. Or fear. There was nothing, not numb, just nothing at all. No real emotion conjured by the fact his father had seen any of it.

Aleron stared at him for a long moment, expression hard, and tight, and blank. He turned to leave and his thoughts were on his tongue before he could stop them.

“He told you I seduced him, didn’t he?” he asked the seven-year-old question, left pending in his head for too long.

Aleron froze “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, stiff with incredulity and his eyes blazing a warning.

Laurent snorted, posture finally loosening “he said I seduced him like a vile, wicked little Lolita, and who was he to resist, right? He’s a red-blooded male and he tried so hard but he failed, I was just so pushy and I knew exactly what I was doing, right?”

“Laurent, I have no idea what-“

“No, you don’t, not a single clue,” he said pushing off the wall and stepping in close.

He saw the disgust flash on father’s face, the distaste. The want to step away.

“Either you’re a pathetic blind fool who can’t see what’s right in front of him, or you’re a liar protecting a monster, and quite frankly daddy dearest, I don’t know which is worse,” he said

His father made a strangled aggressive noise and grabbed at Laurent’s arm.

“Don’t you speak to me like that you-“

“I was thirteen, did he tell you that part?” Laurent asked, yanking his arm from his father’s half-hearted grasp.

He didn’t bother to gauge his expression. He didn’t fucking care for it. He left him alone in the bathroom and he hoped the tiles were echoing those words back on him.

Mind spinning, body vibrating, and bile threatening, shaking with adrenaline and pain he couldn’t really feel, he went to Damen. He was with Erasmus, talking, part of some circle of faces Laurent couldn’t really see. Laurent appeared at his elbow, touching his side to get his attention. When he backed away Damen’s eyes followed him, a brief nod before Laurent retreated. Out the front door. To the edge of the car park.

He sparked up a cigarette, pacing, ignoring the few people smoking or shouting, distant relatives and a collection of old people. When Damen appeared in the doorway he started walking again; straight through the darkened car park. There were no lights, only rows of cars, overgrown trees and shrubbery and a generator building. He slipped behind it.

When Damen appeared he was concerned and Laurent had a horrifying moment where he thought he might be crying. Reaching up, his fingers came away dry but it was a telling movement and Damen encased him in his embrace before Laurent could say anything.

He tried to fight it, struggling against his hold without any real effort. Damen held him tight and close until the fight went out of him and he melted against him.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you, whatever it is baby, I’ve got you,”

Laurent curled into him, dropping his cigarette so he could clutch at his shirt.

“I hate them so fucking much,”

“I know, I know but it’s okay it’s-“

“It’s not, nothing is ever okay, I’m never going to be okay Damen,”

He was aware he was making no sense. Damen didn’t know any of it, had no clue what kind of poison he was holding in his arms, looking at with such a soft expression Laurent could cry. It wasn’t fair.

Damen shook his head, cupping his jaw and breathing him in, pressing their foreheads together.

“Tell me how to make it better,”

Laurent choked, pressing his lips together desperately as a tidal wave rose up in him. There were words building on his tongue and baying for release. Until his head was buzzing with them and the clawing aching need to let them loose. He choked, shaking his head against the way his heart screeched at him and his stomach rolled like he might either throw up or pass out.

Damen stared back at him, watching his eyes carefully as Laurent shook his head, a desperate little shake as if he could dislodge everything on his tongue and in his head to stop it from happening.

“I won’t,” Damen said and Laurent had no fucking idea what he meant.

It didn’t matter, in the next instant Damen’s thumb was at his chin, tipping his head up and their mouths were meeting. He expected hungry. Desperate. To match the emotion scratching at his insides. What he got was soft. Tender.

It tasted like a promise. Though neither of them had anything to offer up in such an ill-fated bargain.

“Tell me what you need,” Damen said against his mouth, still holding him close.

“Don’t let go,” Laurent breathed moving to bury his face against Damen’s chest.

Damen soothed a hand down his back, hugging him tighter “never,”

It was a pretty comforting lie. But they both knew it for what it was.

“I want to go home,” he said, and then, because he could never leave well enough alone “come with me?”

A stupid question. An impossible one. He saw the reflection flash in Damen’s face when Laurent looked up at him.

Of course he couldn’t. Erasmus was right inside, probably searching for Damen right at that moment. There was no way Damen could say yes. This was already stupid and risky.

And yet he asked, unsure why when he already knew the answer.

“Laurent-“

That tone. It said it all.

Laurent pushed away from him, stomach sinking, rejection bubbling up like he hadn’t planted it there himself. Set himself up for it.

“No, of course not, go back inside Damen,” he said already turning to walk away.

“Laurent,”

“Just fuck off,”

“Be reasonable Laurent, what am I supposed to-“

“Just go Damen, I don’t even know why I asked,” he snapped “what could you even do? Fucking nothing, it was fucking ridiculous,”

“Laurent you’re not being fair, I want to but I can’t just-“

“Oh well as long as you want to,” Laurent sneered “I don’t, it was reflexive, you’d just piss me off anyway,” he said before storming away.

Damen wouldn’t follow him. He wouldn’t risk making a scene.

Laurent didn’t even know where the fuck he was going. He couldn’t fucking stay there one more second. He didn’t go back inside to say goodbye to anyone. There was no one in there he wanted to say goodbye to.

It was a depressing thought. His entire family was in there and not a single one of them would care he’d disappeared. Fuck even outside of that room there was no one in his life that would care if he disappeared. He had maybe two constants in his life. Damen and Aimeric. And probably neither of those would care too much if he did drop off the fucking face of the earth. Aimeric certainly wouldn’t anymore.

When he was done angrily storming away, he stopped to order a taxi. He was back home in half an hour, stripped down and pulling on his biggest hoody and comfiest joggers. He got straight into bed, wrapped up tight and staring at his wall as his mind churned.

He’d been home for just over two hours when he heard the knocking on his door.

It made him go cold and he sat up, heart pounding. Laurent wasn’t fucking naïve enough to think his uncle didn’t know where he lived. Would he just send someone? Was that the favour? Had he meant tonight?

He stumbled out of bed and down the hall, staring at his front door like he was somehow going to develop the ability to see through it. In his hand his phone vibrated and he flinched, eyes flying to the screen.

And it didn’t make sense. For a long moment it didn’t make sense.

Let me in x

No. That wasn’t-

He yanked the door open, heart pounding for an entirely different reason when he met Damen’s eyes. He had to bite his lip, suck in a sharp inhale to keep the pesky annoying flood of emotion at bay.

Damen didn’t say anything, he stepped forward, forcing Laurent back. When the door was closed he opened his arms and Laurent fell into him, arms winding around his neck as Damen’s hands went to his thighs, hoisting him up.

Laurent wrapped his limbs around him, clinging to him, like he wasn’t sure he was real. Like he could disappear. With one hand at the back of his head and one arm supporting him Damen held him for a long moment. Wordless. Quiet. Peaceful.

He carried him to his bedroom and then he was lying down, drawing Laurent back into the circle of his arms and holding him there, stroking his hair and soothing a hand down his back.

Laurent choked on the violent swell of emotion, breathing evenly through his nose as he buried his face in Damen’s neck and hooked a leg over him in an effort to get as close as possible.

For the first time, possibly ever, there was no sexual motivation behind it. No intention. Just a drive to be close. And Damen let him, holding him like this was perfectly normal. Like he was supposed to be here.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there. Long enough to match his heartbeat to Damen’s, for the emotion to subside, for the questions in his brain to get louder than his want for the quiet.

“Where does he think you are?” he asked

“With my Dad,” he said “I told him he argued with Nestra, but don’t worry about that now, it doesn’t matter, I’m right where I need to be,”

Laurent pressed his eyes closed, tried to find the guilt he should probably feel and came up blank. He was just too grateful.

“Thank you for coming,”

Damen made a shushing noise and kissed the top of his head “you needed me, of course I’m here,”

He said it like it was fact. Like it was obvious if Laurent needed him he’d be there. Whatever it took. Even if it meant lying and wriggling out of awkward situations to make it happen.

The doubt ate at him. His brain throwing out a thousand reasons why it couldn’t be true. Or why it was true; with caveats.

He braced himself for what he was about to say, getting ready to shift away or roll over.

“I don’t want sex,” Laurent warned “I’ll- I mean you can obviously, if you want to you can fuck me, I’ll- I can just roll over but don’t expect me to do any of the work, and I won’t suck your cock,”

Damen against him didn’t miss a beat “no, I’m not here for that,”

Laurent frowned, peeling back to stare at him, looking into his soulful fucking doe eyes and his perfectly calm expression. Frowning harder he reached down between them, pressing his hand to Damen’s cock, gripping the shape of him and rubbing.

Damen stopped him with a hand at Laurent’s wrist and drew it up until he was pressing a kiss to Laurent’s palm.

“You said no already,” Damen frowned “and I meant it too, I’m not here for that,”

Laurent stared, opening and closing his mouth. Had he ever met up with Damen and not had sex with him? He hadn’t. There hadn’t been a single time. And why would there be? It’s what they were. Sex. Just sex.

“What do you get out of this if it’s not an orgasm?”

Something flashed in Damen’s face, too quick to hold onto, there and gone again. Laurent couldn’t decipher it. His swallow was audible and Laurent’s eyes were drawn to the bob of his throat.

“You might hate me for saying this,” Damen warned which only made Laurent stiffen.

Damen grinned, like Laurent had done exactly what he’d expected and he scowled back at him, forcing himself to relax. Damen only reached up, carding his fingers through Laurent’s hair.

“I get to be the person you lean on,”

Laurent’s heart didn’t skip a beat. It didn’t react at all. His eyes weren’t stinging and his mouth hadn’t gone dry.

“And that’s enough?”

Damen hummed “you never let me in,” he said, giving him a soft smile “so yes, it’s enough, just let me be here,”

His instinct was to search for the lie. For a real reason. But he made himself stop, let himself be held and curled into him again, ignoring it for now. If it was a lie, it was a perfect one and he didn’t want to ruin it.

It was quiet for a long moment. So long Laurent was on the verge of sleep when Damen spoke again.

“Tell me what happened,”

Laurent thought about lying. He did. Maybe it was the quiet or the warmth or the way Damen was lulling him into a fantasy he had no right to with his presence and his body alone.

“When I was sixteen my dad found out I’d been having sex,” he said “anal, to be exact,”

Damen didn’t comment, his fingers didn’t pause as they played with his hair.

“He knew it was anal because I’d been bleeding,”

Damen froze, entire body stiffening. He tried to turn Laurent’s face up, tried to meet his gaze but he fought it, clinging to him tighter and pressing his face to Damen’s chest. Damen let him.

“He had to take me to the hospital and even though I asked them not to they told him everything,”

He’d been bleeding for a week. Getting more painful. Caused by fissures and untreated STI’s that had him swell internally. The doctors had examined him thoroughly, run a series of blood tests that confirmed his results and pumped him full of treatments and HIV prevention medication.

They’d told Aleron all of it. Even the answers to some of the questions he’d given when he’d been pushed and pushed for an answer. That yes he was having sex regularly. No he didn’t think he always used condoms. Yes, he was consenting. No, he wasn’t sure who’d given him the STI’s. Yes, there was more than one person.

If he’d been younger they would have called a social worker but he was sixteen and he denied needing help and they either didn’t care to call anyone or their hands were tied because legally he could consent to sex.

Aleron had asked, who, he’d asked and Laurent, in a moment of desperation or stupidity had started to tell him. Everything. Aleron had shut him up, told him he didn’t want to hear any of his disgusting lies. That he couldn’t change how much trouble he was in by shunting the blame. It had taken Laurent years to realise his father knew. That it was never that he didn’t believe him, it was that he did believe him but didn’t want to. Would rather pretend Laurent didn’t exist if it meant not facing the reality of it. How much he knew was the question, about just Laurent or all the others? In general or just a suspicion Laurent had confirmed? Had he always known it about his brother?

Laurent had spent a long time thinking about it and he figured Aleron knew of his brother’s proclivities in a general sort of sense. Maybe he’d had suspicions before the hospital about Laurent, but Laurent had been the one to confirm the truth to him. 

And Aleron had done nothing. Aleron hadn’t looked at him the same way since and Laurent had insisted on condoms thereafter. He would never be in that position again. Not if he could help it.

“The doctors told him everything, about the co-infection and-“

“Infection?”

Laurent squeezed his eyes closed, bracing to be shoved away “Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea,”

It hung in the air for a while before Damen sucked in a breath “were you okay?” he asked tentatively and when Laurent nodded he added “Laurent how did you-“

“I don’t want to talk about that bit,” he said and didn’t lift his head to gauge Damen’s expression.

Damen nodded against him, pulling him closer and hitching Laurent’s leg higher over his hip “you can though,” he said into his hair “when you want to, I’m here, I’m so sorry that happened baby,”

Laurent’s eyes started to sting and he forced it down, curled his fingers into Damen’s skin until he was sure it was pinching.

“My dad hasn’t looked at me properly since,”

Damen made a soft sound in his throat and coaxed Laurent’s face up, refusing his struggle against it.

“Fuck him, he’s a prick anyway,” Damen said seriously and Laurent’s lips twitched despite himself “you did nothing wrong sweetheart,”

“I just- my dad is the worst shit in the world,”

Damen hummed, fingers gentle through Laurent’s hair “mine is pretty shit too, it’s no wonder they used to be friends,”

Laurent made a noise he hoped was prompting, turning his face up against Damen’s chest, fingers spidering at his neck to make him continue. Damen rarely spoke about his parents. Not with any real meaning.

Damen didn’t continue and Laurent settled his hand over Damen’s heart, comforted by the steady thrum of it. In response Damen’s gripped it, wrapping his fingers around Laurent’s, settling their clasped hands there.

“The only time I’m ever of any interest to him is when he thinks I’ve done something that will give him bragging rights but Kastor took that as an affront, naturally,” Damen snorted

He could well imagine. Theomedes was a mess. He’d been with Kastor’s mother for years by the time Kastor was born but she wasn’t good enough, not educated, too working class. He’d left her, Laurent didn’t know the ins and outs but he did know he married Damen’s mother and had eventually left her to go back to Kastor’s mother.

Damen’s mother had died when he was a child, was he just seven? Or eight? Laurent couldn’t remember but he did know Damen had gone to live with his father after that, forced to live with Kastor and the family his father had abandoned him for.

“You never did though,” Laurent said

Damen huffed, squeezed Laurent’s fingers “no, I just tried my best to be good at everything I guess, if it was the only time he paid me attention I was going to make sure he was looking,”

The silence lingered, thoughtful if not peaceful and Laurent turned his face against Damen’s chest, pressing a kiss there.

“He was always leaving, over and over, it’s all I really remember of my childhood, when my mother was alive, just dad leaving and coming back like he could drop us whenever he wanted and without a care in the world,”

Fuck, what would that have been like? Being abandoned over and over. It must have stopped hurting after a few times, right?

“I resented Kastor,” Damen admitted “I knew he felt the same I just didn’t realise how much until-“

Jokaste. Damen didn’t need to say her name for Laurent to hear it loud and clear. He hadn’t loved her, not really, not according to Damen, it was Kastor’s betrayal that had hurt him. It was his father’s acceptance of it, still welcoming Jokaste into the house as Kastor’s girlfriend instead, inviting her to family events as though his son’s drama was entirely beneath him.

The riot in Laurent’s stomach was hotter and much firmer than it ever got on his own behalf. Half the time he couldn’t muster any strong emotion about his own family, but he was angry for Damen.

“Sometimes I think I’m turning into my dad,”

Laurent blinked, propped himself up on his elbow to stare incredulously at Damen’s face. He was serious. He was actually fucking serious.

“Damen you’re so much better than him, don’t think that,”

Damen flashed him a grim smile, tipping one eyebrow up “am I? He did to my mom what I’m doing to Erasmus, no?”

The ice in Laurent’s veins was instant and feral. A panicked scramble as though he were being held at gunpoint.

He shoved away “well stop coming over then, if that’s how you feel,” he snapped

Damen rolled his eyes, breathing out heavily as he dragged Laurent bodily back down “that isn’t what I meant, it was just an observation, I’m where I want to be, okay?”

Laurent settled, chewing on his bottom lip as fought the urge to fight back, to snap harder, to push more. Instead he turned Damen’s words over in his head. Theomedes had been with Kastor’s mother first. Then Damen’s mother. Swinging back and forth between them behind her back for years like relationship monkey bars.

He’d married Damen’s mother, but it was Kastor’s mother he’d ended up with. Was still with.

Laurent got caught on that thought, let it wash through him and over him. Held it a little closer than he should. 

Laurent’s breath hitched and he swallowed, shaking his head as his hand went up into Damen’s hair “kiss me?” he asked

Damen obliged, tugging him closer and holding him, blocking out the rest of the world.

Chapter Text

Nicaise was chewing obnoxiously loud on the sofa opposite Laurent, a distraction he focused on whether he wanted to or not. He was too on edge, everything seeming too close and Nicaise’s knowing stare made it all the worse. His uncle had waited just one week to cash in his favour. Dropping a time and a date to him via text with no further instructions.

So here he fucking was.

“You chew any fucking louder and I’m going to punch you in the face,” he grit out

Nicaise, unfazed, blew a bubble with his gum and grinned at him, raising one pointed eyebrow.

“Then I’ll scream and he’ll come in here, do you think he’d hit you for me?”

Laurent pulled a face, slumping in his seat “your mistake is thinking he cares about you,”

“He does,”

Laurent snorted, flashing him a patronising smile “sure, has he shared you yet?”

Nicaise still looked young, he might not have suffered it yet but with his uncle who knew? Laurent had been kept close until he outgrew his uncle’s tastes. From what he gathered, it was not what he preferred to do.

Maybe it had something to do with who Laurent was to him? An added fucked up taboo to keep him satisfied without the rest of it.

Nicaise rolled his eyes “not yet, why? What will happen?”

Laurent shrugged, refusing his own memories “if you’re lucky he’ll get you drunk first, it won’t hurt as much then, or he’ll shoot you up with some drug he’ll never tell you the name of, if you’re unlucky you’ll be sober and he’ll sit right next to you and watch,”

His eyes were always the fucking worst. And his mouth. Like a running commentary of degradation that couldn’t be tuned out and played on repeat for years no matter how he tried to drown it out.

Nicaise wasn’t smiling anymore and he flinched when the door swung open.

“What have I told you about your posture?” his uncle said, flashing Laurent a scowl at his sprawl “get up, come with me,”

Laurent rolled his eyes, giving Nicaise a faux-salute that earned him a middle finger as he followed his uncle out of the room. He tried not to think about where he was going. What it would be. Who it would be. He’d learned a long time ago questions made the nerves worse, made him want to run. It was a useless want: to want something so entirely out of reach.

Like this. He didn’t have a choice, he wanted to throw up and cry and run away but those weren’t options, so he forced it down and did what he always did. Pretended. Forced himself back, to not feel it, to make it all a little further away.

Instead of leaving, as Laurent had assumed, his uncle started up the stairs. Laurent balked, hesitating on the bottom step.

“Come along,”

He didn’t even stop walking or pause to make sure Laurent followed him. Not for the first time Laurent fucking hated the ingrained compulsion he had to comply and hated even more that his uncle was very well aware of it. He hadn’t been upstairs in years. Not since-

Not since those two years when this had been his normal. When he had outgrown his uncle but not his uses. Before he ran clean across town when he hit eighteen.

The walls were red instead of dark green. It was the most noticeable difference and an apt change too, considering everything that went on there. Laurent followed him into one of the bedrooms, glancing around at the entirely normal room. A double bed, a dresser, a mirror, a bedside table. A totally normal guest room in a totally normal house.

“What do your neighbours think of all the people coming and going from here all the time?”

His uncle moved to the window, drawing the curtains on the setting sun and flicking on the bedside lamp.

“They think I run an out of hours practice, a very expensive private out of hours practice,”

Figures.

“If they ask you’re 17,” his uncle said fussing with a set of fucking fairy lights “I’d tell you to say you’re a virgin but we both know that won’t be feasible,”

It wasn’t the insult he thought it was. At least, it didn’t land. He was twenty-three, it was an entirely normal thing not to be at his age. He did get caught on one word though.

They. Perfect. More than one, exactly what he wanted to hear.

“What do they want and how many are they?”

“Nothing crazy, no necrophiles this time, and just two,” his uncle turned, eyeing him critically “no real challenge for you,”

No necrophiles, just two guys who wanted barely legal virgins and were willing to pay for it. There had to be more. There was always more.

“And the catch?”

Laurent sat down on the bed, already exhausted as his uncle turned and opened a box on top of the dresser. The syringe he held up was full of a familiar liquid and Laurent sighed. Right. They wanted barely legal virgins who were pliant and docile and out of it.

Lovely.

He hadn’t been lying to Nicaise. It was better to be drugged, he’d learned how to retreat, yes, but the drugs made it easier to do so. It was better. He might be lucky enough not to remember a damn thing.

He shrugged himself out of his shirt, kicked his shoes off and when directed he lay back on the bed, unfolding his arm.

“This is just to make sure you’re nice to them nephew,” his uncle said flicking the bubbles from the syringe like the professional he was “they paid a little extra for special privileges,”

Laurent looked away. Didn’t say a word in response, didn’t grimace when the needle went in or when the drug was plunged into his system. He welcomed it.

Everything after his uncle left the room was a blur, swimming faces and hands stripping him, touching him, moving him. Happening to him in an abstract kind of way. There was sex, there was more than one person, but Laurent couldn’t really comprehend any of it. Couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything beyond the swimming, drowning, floundering rush of the drugs in his system and hands trying to wring sensation from him.

It felt good, everything heightened and loose. But he couldn’t come like this, he was too sleepy, lethargic even as his body reacted to every single touch and noises spilled from a tongue too heavy to make sense.

When he roused, finally, it was like coming up for air, swimming toward a surface he didn’t want to break. There was never anything good waiting for him. The bed was cold, his body was cold, the sun had long since descended and night had fallen. His body was still heavy, used, exhausted, lethargy hanging heavy over him as his brain swam in and out of focus.

The drugs still had him groggy and reeling when the door opened again. Laurent was aware it was his uncle before he even saw him, couldn’t muster any kind of emotion about being naked and used, couldn’t do much other than blink as he hovered over him.

“I hate your fucking smile,” he said

The words fell unbidden from his tongue and the hard slap to his face it earned him made stars burst in his vision, a pretty kaleidoscope of colour forcing a chuckle from his throat even as he was dragged to his unsteady feet.

“You’re not done yet,”

He was hauled by his elbow down the hall, naked and stumbling, uncomprehending until he was taken into a different bedroom. Laurent froze, eyes going wide as he shook his head, silent and horrified.

His uncle moved away from him, taking a seat in his fancy fucking leather chair, steepling his fingers together and grinning so fucking wide it was terrifying. Through the haze the horror persisted.

“You know Aimeric, no need to look so afraid,”

Aimeric. He did know Aimeric. Maybe he didn’t know him well enough, or maybe he knew him too well. Aimeric was on his knees in the middle of the bed, pale and wide eyed and as naked as Laurent was. Aimeric was shaking, his chest moving erratically as he stared back at Laurent like a baby deer trapped in headlights. Knowing it was going to get hit. And still wouldn’t get out of the fucking way. That was a thing wasn’t it? Freezing when you should be fucking running. This was not happening.

“No,” he said backing up until his back hit the closed door “I did your favour,“

The words were heavy, coming slowly, mind foggy, but not enough to not feel the fear. His uncle’s chuckle had Laurent snapping his mouth shut, turning wide eyes on him. The prick didn’t even get up. He didn’t have to.

“No, that was just to loosen you up, this is the main course,”

“And what is this?”

“I just want my boys to get along,”

Sick. Sick, sick, fuck. Laurent shook his head, tried to coordinate his body to put his hands up “I won’t do this,”

“You will, or I’ll call Auguste right now, does he have Damen’s number do you think?”

His uncle picked his phone up, swiped a few times and held it up to show Laurent the contact page for his brother.

“I told you I wouldn’t ask twice, so get on the bed,”

Laurent tried to move. He did, he took a step forward and he breathed out in a whoosh, shaking so bad he might fall. He didn’t know whether it was fear or the drugs still ravaging his system making it difficult to move. He wasn’t sure it mattered. With a tsk his uncle got up, coming toward him and shoving something at him impatiently.

“Take these and get on the bed before I make you,”

Laurent didn’t even think, he swallowed the pills, didn’t bother to ask what they were. He didn’t care. He swallowed them dry and stumbled toward the bed, bouncing down onto it and lying back on the pillows, staring at the ceiling. The room was spinning.

Aimeric beside him was stiff, unmoving, his trembling even more obvious up close.

“Laurent-“ he tried

Laurent hissed, didn’t bother glancing at him “don’t,”

He didn’t want to hear a single word Aimeric had to say. He didn’t want to remember anything.

Aimeric made a small sound and Laurent squeezed his eyes closed, willing himself back into the drugged-up haze he’d been in before, with the two men. He needed that. There was no getting through it without it.

“So,” he tried, his speech slurring “am I fucking him or is he fucking me?”

Aimeric made the same noise again from beside him and Laurent didn’t open his eyes didn’t let himself feel the words he’d spoken. Aimeric. His friend, once. It felt like betrayal. But then, Aimeric was never loyal to Laurent, was he? He couldn’t be, his loyalty was already planted like a flag in his Uncle and this, all of this, was because he’d opened his fucking mouth and told the prick what Laurent had said.

“We’ll see,” his uncle said and the bright flash told him his uncle was testing the lighting. It meant he was going to film this. It was too dark outside for it to have been anything else and the white hot flash was painfully familiar.

“We haven’t decided yet have we my dear boy?”

Laurent frowned, peeled his eyes open and stared at his uncle. His uncle wasn’t looking at them, he had his gaze fixed beyond them. Laurent’s heart kicked up and when he turned his sluggish head he already knew what he’d find.

Who he’d find.

“No,” he said but his voice was weak, shaky.

He was going to be sick.

Nicaise was on the other side of the room, standing with his back to the wall in the corner, chewing on his bottom lip and watching them with a heaving chest and an entirely blank expression.

No, no, no, no, no this wasn’t happening. He wouldn’t do this. He couldn’t.

But he’d already taken the drugs.

Sitting up was difficult and two firm hands pushed him straight back down, hovering over him, talking to him, there were words but he couldn’t comprehend them, couldn’t let himself. There was nothing for him to do except retreat.

Lock it up and pretend it wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening. There had been worse things. Maybe. Probably not. He wouldn’t survive this.

He couldn’t get up. He could only hope the drugs numbed the memory, cauterised the wound enough to stop it from ruining what was left of him.

~*~

Waking happened in fits and starts. It was the dryness of his throat that roused him. A thick cloggy kind of dryness whilst his tongue was too big for his mouth. His head pounded like he had the worst hangover in the world well before he cracked open his eyes and squinted against the sun pouring in through the wide-open curtains.

Everything ached. Everywhere ached as if he’d been hit by a truck. A very large truck that had his insides squirming restlessly even as exhaustion tugged at him. A terrible fucking come down.

Laurent knew where he was. The bedroom wasn’t familiar but he knew the smell, the feel of the place. His uncle’s house. The clock on the bedside table told him it was 11:15. What had happened?

His mind slithered around the cavity of his skull, synapses fried and slow as he tried to catalogue what state his body was in. His mind was blank, a cavernous void where his memories should be. There was nothing beyond the notion of bad and wrong and those first two guys and-

Turning made the world tilt and he gagged, squeezing his eyes closed around the pressure building in his skull. When he settled, it was enough to make out Aimeric beside him.

He sat cross-legged on the bed beside him, dressed and pale and staring at him with a painfully blank expression on his face.

“Are you- are you alright?” Aimeric asked, his voice rough

“What happened?” Laurent asked, voice cracking as he pushed himself up.

He wasn’t naked anymore. Someone had put joggers on him. They weren’t his, too short, a little too tight, they probably belonged to-

Nicaise.

Laurent inhaled and brought his knees up, pressing his forehead to his legs and breathing through his mouth.

“You were pretty out of it,” Aimeric said “I wasn’t sure- he said you might not remember it; he said you’ve done that before, I- Laurent I’m-“

“Stop,” Laurent gasped “I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to know any of it,”

“You didn’t touch the kid,”

Laurent blinked the tears away, staring at Aimeric to gauge his seriousness.

“Didn’t I?”

He wanted to believe Aimeric so badly, so very badly. Aimeric had no reason to lie. If it was a lie his uncle would take great pleasure in dispelling it sooner than later, so why would he bother? Laurent clung to the idea. He wanted to believe him. He needed to believe him.

“You didn’t, but I- I-“ Aimeric’s bottom lip trembled

“Don’t, I don’t want to know so shut up,” he got unsteadily to his feet, surprised his clothes were already in a heap in the corner.

Aimeric had probably fetched them from the other room. Or Nicaise. Jesus fucking Christ.

He stumbled toward them, finding his shirt and shoes, not caring about changing out of the borrowed joggers, he just needed to get out.

“Laurent I’m so-“

“Shut the fuck up, what don’t you understand? I don’t care, I don’t care and I don’t want to know so just stop,” he snapped, yanking his shirt on haphazardly

Aimeric sniffed, nodding as he wiped at the errant tears. Laurent shoved his feet into his shoes, grabbed the rest of his things into a ball and yanked open the door.

“You were right,” Aimeric whispered when Laurent was on the threshold.

Despite himself he turned back to him and his body twinged with vicarious pain. Aimeric was crying, silent tears falling down his cheeks and Laurent was so fucking glad the memories were lost to him. He never wanted to know. He hoped to any god that would listen he’d never have to remember it. Hoped it wasn’t there lurking in the back of his head to haunt him in his dreams.

Aimeric was distraught, tears tracking down his cheeks, impossibly pale, eyes dead and dull and agonised.

Laurent cleared his scratchy throat.

“We’re leaving,” he said as firmly as he could “get your shoes on Aimeric, we’re leaving, right now,”

Aimeric scrambled to do as he said, tripping over his own feet in his haste. Laurent held the door open, throwing glances down the hall like any second a horror movie villain would appear with a chainsaw to tear him to pieces.

Or just his uncle, with only a smile and a few well-placed words to do the exact same thing.

Aimeric followed him down the stairs and Laurent didn’t pause or stop, he made for the door and let himself out, urging Aimeric to keep up as he all but ran down the path onto the street. They walked in silence, too quick, a few degrees short of running because Laurent’s legs were too shaky and Aimeric was still crying anyway.

He had Aimeric get them a taxi when they were far away enough and they smoked in silence whilst they waited. They didn’t speak again, Laurent didn’t even say goodbye when he got out of the car at his place. He raced inside instead, locked the door, moved the fucking side board in front of it like it made any sense to do so. Then he cried.

He dropped to the floor in the middle of his flat with his head in his hands and sobbed. Until he couldn’t breathe. Until he couldn’t cry anymore. Until there was a great writhing nothing.

Afterwards he got in the shower, sobbing all over again when he found the distinct evidence between his legs and realisation slammed into him. Robbing him of his breath as the world tilted beneath his feet. He didn’t need to remember what had happened with Aimeric to know the two guys before him had-

Bare.

They paid a little extra

He wasn’t talking about making him docile, he was talking about putting him out of it enough so he wouldn’t fucking notice when they didn’t use a condom. Couldn’t complain or catch it or kick up a fuss.

And he hadn’t. It had to have been them. But he’d never know would he? Not really.

He was used and filthy and fucking disgusting. He scrubbed himself clean over and over and over, as though he ever had any hope of getting the taint of it out.

~*~

Three days.

Laurent didn’t leave his flat, barely left his bed, for three days. He called in sick to work, not even caring if they believed him and he drank himself stupid and took too many pills. Until he felt okay. Or until he felt nothing at all.

Aimeric had called and text a few times but they went unanswered. Damen’s calls went unanswered too, just one text to tell him he wasn’t well and to leave him alone. He didn’t have room to care about that either.

Laurent didn’t want to care about anything anymore. What was the point?

Caring made things harder.

By day four things were dire. He was itching for it, the familiar compulsive restlessness setting him on an already precarious edge and he needed. Viscerally. Painfully. A taunt whispering to him, telling him of course you do because he always did, didn’t he?

It’s what he was. What he was made for. Good for.

The universe had never proven different so the words must be true. And if they were true then he might as well lean in completely. What did it matter?

It fucking didn’t.

Laurent found himself at The Hive a sleazy gay bar downtown with the kind of rooms he was looking for. The journey was a blind stumble he was unable to recall, as was putting on clothes or getting himself out of the flat. He was faltering, alcohol wafting from in heady fumes and he was surprised he was even let in.

They could probably tell. They probably took one look at him and knew what he was and where he was going so they let him through. And he went, staggering, into the back rooms. It was dark, full of body heat and the smell of sex and sweat and Laurent didn’t know how he got there, how he made it to the centre of a room to bend over the bench with his jeans shoved down around his ankles.

It took either minutes or hours, Laurent couldn’t be sure, but there was someone behind him, their hands on him, and he had no idea who they were or what they looked like as they pushed into him. Too fast. Too hard.

It hurt but that was good. He wanted it to hurt. He needed it to hurt.

It could have been relief, the exhale he let loose, but it sounded too wet, too much like it had been punched out of him and he buried his face in his arms and let it happen. There was a second as soon as the first was done, a third soon after, and Laurent was fairly certain he heard someone say they came in him.

They might have. It didn’t matter anymore. None of it mattered and he didn’t care. He needed it, like a fucked-up reinforcement of everything he already knew to be true. To justify the horrendous flood of words that lived on a loop in his head.

Whore.

Worthless.

Deserved.

Punishment.

This is all you’re good for.

It’s all you’ll ever be.

Some thing’s once learned…

Checked out, drifting, he didn’t know how many there were but before long there were claws in his chest, scrambling for a way out and when the last one stepped away Laurent reared back, batting away hands and yanking his jeans up as he stumbled on unsteady legs away and out.

All the way to the street where the cool night air slammed at him, made him realise his face was hot and wet with tears and the horrible noise slamming against his eardrums was him. Sobbing. Heaving with them, so hard and so uncontrollable it forced everything he’d drank, everything he’d taken, the meagre amount he’d eaten, to come rumbling back up his throat.

Straight into the gutter where he collapsed right next to it on the curb with his head in his hands.

What the fuck had he done?

He couldn’t take it back. The slither and crawl of the hot tendrils of lashing shame was pervasive, an aching regret he was aware of every second. From the moment he got home from the club until the moment he finally managed to force himself to sleep for a few hours. Until he was awake to feel it all over again.

He spent a ridiculous amount of time in the shower, scrubbing himself almost to the point of bleeding three times. He even took a bath, submerging himself to drown out the beat of it, hoping for it to steal the sound from his scream.

It didn’t.

When he got into bed he couldn’t sleep, sick with the shame and remorse as the tender aching parts of his chest begged for rest.

The following day he lasted until two in the afternoon before picking up the phone.

Can you come over?

Clutching his phone tightly he waited with baited breath, staring at the screen as he watched for Damen’s reply. He needed him. So fucking badly. He needed him to make it stop make it go away, make it better.

Laurent wasn’t sure what he’d do if he said no.

Sure, I’m at the office so won’t take me long to be there after work.

After work. It was barely mid-afternoon and it was hours away. He needed him now.

The office wasn’t even far. He could go there. They could hook up. Laurent did at his own job enough and he’d never been caught. It would be more convenient for Damen too, save him lying to Erasmus later.

It made sense to go to him.

Grabbing only his phone and his shoes Laurent only realised when he was half way there he should probably have changed out of the admittedly ratty grey joggers, and should probably have put on a better t-shirt. It was too late to be self-conscious about it.

Damen never seemed to mind what he wore anyway.

He text Damen to come down and get him the second he was outside his office. It was a modern building in the middle of the city centre, the place packed with high rises and people thinking they were important. Laurent garnered more than a fair bit of attention. He probably looked as good as he fucking felt.

The first thing he noticed was Damen did not seem pleased to see him. He was in a suit, looking ridiculously hot, so hot that for a second Laurent forgot how to breathe as Damen strode toward him, his brow drawn down into a frown.

“What are you doing here?” Damen asked, his gaze flashing back to the door of his office building

“I just needed you,” Laurent said “to see you,” he amended

Damen’s expression softened, gaze scrolling over Laurent “are you alright? Erasmus said you’ve not been in work all week,”

Laurent shook his head “I’m not sure, can I come up? Or is there somewhere we can go? I don’t know any places round here and there’s probably a lot of CCTV and-“

“Laurent,”

Damen’s hand on his shoulder made him realise he had been staring across the road and he forced his eyes up, made himself meet Damen’s gaze and resisted the urge to flinch.

“I said I’d be over later,” Damen said his voice measured

“And I said I need you now,”

“Are you alright?”

Laurent huffed, tipping his head back “fucks sake Damen are we going to your office or not?” he said meeting his gaze again “I want you so bad, you have no idea, literally none,”

Damen swallowed, tongue an unconscious flicker at his bottom lip as he seemed to weigh the space between them and the door. Laurent held his breath, willing him silently to give in. To give him this.

Nodding, Damen led him inside, swiped them into the elevator and hurried them down the bright and shiny corridor to his office at the end. It was a private office, big. It had a full desk, a lot of shelves, a leather couch against the window which offered a stunning view of the city.

Laurent was aware Damen had a good job but maybe he hadn’t realised how good. Big offices meant big money, right?

He waited only as long as it took for Damen to turn the blinds and lock the door before Laurent was on him, kissing him hard and shoving him backwards toward the couch. Damen didn’t hesitate, he kissed him back, let himself be led and sat heavily when Laurent shoved him down.

He wasted no time, kicking his shoes off, shucking his joggers, and climbing into Damen’s lap, naked from the waist down. Damen reacted without missing a beat, winding his arms around him and drawing him closer as he captured Laurent’s mouth.

Laurent made swift work of Damen’s belt and trousers, tugging them open and pulling his cock out, spitting directly over it to coat him as he coaxed it into hardness. Damen wrestled himself out of his jacket and undid the buttons of his shirt with quick precision, until Laurent could feast his eyes on Damen’s solid abdomen and get lost in the sight of his skin. The arousal was heady, his cock hardening just from the sight of him and the way Damen was looking at him.

It was a hot aching kind of need, the vicious desperation merging with it and mingling until it was a different beast entirely. A demanding amalgamation of two twin desires that screamed please and now.

“Can’t wait,” Laurent said against his mouth

He turned to reach for his jeans and realised belatedly he hadn’t been wearing them. No pocket, no wallet either because he’d left it at home. Groaning he reached back down for Damen’s cock, playing with the tip as he dived in for another kiss.

Damen’s hand wrapped around Laurent’s cock, stroking him hard and slow, just the way he liked it and Laurent groaned into Damen’s mouth, his entire body pulsing with arousal and Damen.

“Condom?” Laurent asked, breathless as Damen’s other hand cupped his ass, spreading one cheek and digging his fingers into the meat of him as he worked Laurent’s cock with unforgiving precision.

Damen shook his head against Laurent’s mouth “I don’t have any, I don’t- don’t you?”

Laurent froze, tipping his head up to meet Damen’s eyes, blinking through the thrum of his arousal to try to make his brain catch up.

“None?” he asked

Stupid. So fucking stupid. He was cockblocking himself because he was too fucking lazy to put his jeans on. And still he didn’t stop moving, thrusting into Damen’s fist, his body striving for it, yearning.

“Like, none in the drawers or… I don’t know, the bathroom in a little machine or some shit?”

“This is an office not a club,” Damen frowned hand stilling “and no, I don’t have any here, why would I?”

Right. Because Damen didn’t screw people at work.

Fuck. This wasn’t happening.

“Can’t you ask a friend?” Laurent whimpered, thrusting into Damen’s lax fingers to encourage the friction to come back.

Damen looked at him like he’d grown a second head and realisation dawned on him swiftly. It was a fucking joke. Laurent laughed as he stilled, hid his face in his hands, aware he was slightly hysterical. What a cruel twisted fucking pointed jab from the universe.

“Laurent,” Damen said “it’s okay, if we don’t have one I’ll just blow you, we can-“

“No,” Laurent said, the laughter fading as he stared back down between them at Damen’s cock where it was hard and wanting in Laurent’s hand.

He loved Damen’s cock. How long it was, the slight curve, the flare of the head where the blood ran darkest, he was so hard, stiff and unyielding, wide and perfect and the throb low down in Laurent’s stomach was a heady vicious stab of longing.

It didn’t really matter anymore. Did it?

And it was Damen. It was always better with Damen. It might even be a good thing. Maybe. As if Damen could overwrite it somehow. Wipe him clean. Mark him as his instead of as-

Just mark him. Fill him up. Chase away the bad with something good.

He swallowed “you can- fuck me anyway,” he said, his voice much shakier and much quieter than he had intended.

The moment it was out of his mouth he wanted it. Viscerally. Trembling with the idea, overcome by the thought of it, of Damen changing it. Changing him. Owning him. Inside him with nothing between them.

He needed it.

Damen’s eyes were wide, his mouth opening, shaking his head minutely.

“Laurent, I can’t,“

“Yes, you can,” Laurent said defiantly, desperately, stroking Damen harder and twisting his hand around the head, earning him a low groan “fuck me raw,”

Damen’s hands clenched down, hard, both settling on Laurent’s hips and pinching into his skin. Laurent tracked the flicker of Damen’s tongue at his lips even as he was shaking his head, the spark of want outshining the refusal.

“Laurent,” he said, an attempt at a sharp admonishment but Laurent knew him. He knew exactly what Damen sounded like when he was turned on.

Buoyed by the revelation that Damen wanted it too Laurent leant into him, kissed him slow and deep, breathed his words against Damen’s parted panting mouth.

“Don’t you want to come inside me? I want you to, I want it so fucking badly Damen, I want you to come so deep in me that I won’t even start leaking you until tomorrow,”

“I can’t do that,” Damen said his voice strangled, expression dark as he took Laurent in.

“You can,” he insisted hating the needy note of something begging in his tone as he loosened his grip on Damen’s cock, his fingers teasing “make me yours, please Damen, I’d never ask anyone else for this, I never have asked anyone else for this, only you,”

When Damen groaned and pulled Laurent in by the nape of his neck he knew he’d won and he wasted no time. Turning from Damen’s determined kiss he spat into his hand, reached down between them to soak Damen’s cock with it again and sat up higher on his knees.

Damen held still as Laurent positioned him at his entrance. Entirely bare. He shouldn’t. He knew it. They both did. Their gazes met and Laurent pressed back on him.

He sank down, Damen spreading his ass for him with wide warm palms as Laurent lowered himself slowly onto Damen’s cock, inch by throbbing inch, his gaze unflinching from Damen’s, his own mouth hanging open until he was flush, seated in Damen’s lap and on his cock with nothing at all between them.

He whimpered, clenching experimentally and Damen hissed, cursing as he gripped hard at Laurent’s hips.

“Fuck you feel good,” Damen breathed, staring at him in quiet disbelief.

Damen was inside him. There was no condom. Laurent had done this before. He had only a few nights ago but he hadn’t felt it like this. He hadn’t been aware of it. He doubted he ever had. He was, as always, impossibly aware of Damen.

Just Damen. Because he chose Damen. He’d always choose Damen.

“Oh my god,” Laurent breathed out, shifting back and forth.

Damen’s fingers were in his hair, tucking it back behind his ear and the gesture felt too soft, too much, too fucking raw when they were so close and so entwined.

“You’ll be the death of me,” Damen whispered, low like a secret “you have no idea sweetheart, none-“

Laurent’s swallowed, heart clenching in his chest as he was compelled forward, kissing him slow and deep as he dug his fingers into Damen’s shoulders.

“I do… I- I’ve never needed anyone like this,” he admitted against Damen’s mouth

Damen nodded, biting his bottom lip as Laurent lifted himself up, dropping back down, slow at first, as though he didn’t know this rhythm, gripping Damen’s shoulders and grinding his hips in slow, deep undulations. He whimpered, planting one behind him on Damen’s thigh, the other curling tight in Damen’s hair as he rode him, panting back at him, keeping his eyes locked with Damen’s to watch the play of pleasure dance in his expression. Focusing on Damen’s gaze and the truth settled there: the dark riveted look, the way his teeth sank into his bottom lip, the way his fingers flexed. He liked this as much as Laurent did.

A conscious choice. His conscious choice.

It did things to him, made him pick up the pace, lean forward for Damen’s mouth and encouraged Damen’s hands on him, until Damen was fucking up to meet him, gripping him with bruising hands and slamming up, kissing him hotly and fucking him deep.

“Touch yourself for me baby, I’m not gonna last, you feel too fucking good,”

Laurent did as he was told, snaking a hand down between them and working his hand around himself, his teeth sinking into Damen’s bottom lip. With his entire being focused on the thick line of Damen inside him, he came, trying his best to catch it even as his hips moved of their own accord and his thighs shook as he rode it out, choking on strangled noises he tried desperately to keep down.

Damen fucked him through it holding Laurent’s stare, panting harshly.

“I’m gonna come,”

“Inside me, do it, come inside me,”

“Fuck,”

Damen thrust up, yanked Laurent’s body down and held himself deep as he came. Laurent felt him throbbing, or maybe it was his own muscles. Damen’s grinding thrusts were blissful and Laurent imagined he could feel the wet warmth of his come.

Damen had come inside him.

Laurent sagged tiredly against him, fighting to catch his breath with his face pressed into the familiar scented skin at Damen’s neck.

“Thank you,”

He wasn’t sure at first if Damen had heard his whispered words, but Damen coaxed him up, cupping his jaw, kissing him so sweetly Laurent was powerless not to capitulate, to melt, to fall against him and curl in close. To beg for words he shouldn’t want or worse. To say words that might ruin him.

“We can’t do that again,” Damen breathed against his mouth

Laurent pulled back, gauging his expression. The guilt was loud.

He snorted as he climbed off Damen’s lap, wiping his hand on the leather sofa to watch Damen grit his teeth. Pulling his joggers and shoes back on he turned away immediately, stiff with his hands clenching rhythmically at his sides.

“Do you use condoms with Erasmus?”

When Laurent turned back to him Damen was tucking himself away and redoing his buttons. He let out an incredulous gurgle of laughter at the question.

“No,” he said “we’re-“

“What? Monogamous?”

Damen’s glare was like cinders, all spark no flame.

He didn’t use condoms with Erasmus. And of course they didn’t. They’d been together for a year; it’s not like they could get pregnant. Condoms were probably an unnecessary waste of time when you were only fucking one person. Or supposed to be fucking only one person.

“Do you wrap up?” Damen asked

Laurent bristled, folding his arms across his chest.

“I don’t engage in the type of sex where it’s necessary for me to wear a condom,”

Damen squared his jaw “Laurent,”

Laurent huffed, pulling a face “yes Damen I use condoms I’m not-“

Not what?

Because he hadn’t a few nights ago. And he wasn’t always sober when he fucked. He didn’t always know for sure, did he? There might have been times when he wasn’t paying attention. If he blanked out or got lost in his own head. It could have happened before. He wasn’t sure now and it terrified him.

He turned his face away. Damen didn’t say anything for a long moment though Laurent was aware of his attention on him, even with his back turned.

“Just tell me you’re safe, that you’re at least on PrEP or something,” Damen mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

He’d thought he was safe. He had thought he always was but now he wasn’t even sure. Now he was aware he could get fucked up enough not to even notice. To feel the difference. He wasn’t on PrEP, it would involve his medical record and he wouldn’t give his uncle the satisfaction of letting him see it on there. He hadn’t been tested either.

It was stupid but he hadn’t been tested since- Since.

Laurent swallowed, wrenched his mind away and slammed the door to the little haunted basement in the back of his skull.

He’d gone bare before. But he’d never chosen it. It might not be a big deal to Damen, Damen might not even care for the difference if he knew the whole truth, but Laurent did. It mattered to him and he wanted it to matter to Damen too. For him to at least understand.

For him this was the first time he’d ever asked for it. And it felt a little bit like Damen could somehow scrub out the imprint of what had been, brand him with something new.

“Laurent?” Damen prompted and his voice was almost soft, concerned.

“I’m fine,” he said on reflex, forcing himself to blink Damen into focus, snap himself out of the churning in the back of his head.

Damen stared at him and Laurent refused to meet his gaze.

“We can’t do that again,” Damen said and despite himself Laurent looked at him.

His expression was tense, concerned. Thoughtful almost. There was something there, stirring. Like he knew well enough his words were a red flag to Laurent’s raging bull. And they were.

“Not even if I said you were the only person I’d let come inside me like that?”

Damen pressed his eyes closed, fighting it, or trying to “Laurent,” he said and his voice was a plea.

Laurent smirked, pushed into his space, going up on his tip toes to snatch a biting kiss “you’re the only one I’ve ever asked for, the only one I’ve ever wanted like that,”

He must have said something wrong because Damen blinked, face closing off as he stared back at him. He opened his mouth and Laurent went rigid, bracing for whatever Damen was going to say. Damen saw that too, scanning Laurent from his expression to his posture to his clenched hands.

“Is that something to do with what you told me? About the hospital trip?”

Fuck. He’d forgotten he’d told him. Why the fuck had he told him?

“Don’t,”

Damen’s shoulders hitched, the barest movement as his mouth compressed into a thin line.

“You know you can talk to me, right? I’d never judge you,”

Laurent let out a burst of breathy laughter, pressing his hand to his stomach as if the motion could stop it from rolling. Damen would judge him. He didn’t know. He had no idea. Normal people, people like Damen, wouldn’t jump to his insidious reality as their conclusion, it wouldn’t even cross their minds. He meant he wouldn’t judge him for normal things. Not the things Laurent had done. Laurent had no idea what Damen was thinking but he knew for a fact he wasn’t even in the vicinity of close.

At his laughter Damen frowned, his concern loud on his face and Laurent shook his head, nauseous with the prospect of telling him anything.

“I don’t need to,”

“I wish you would,” Damen admitted, quiet, barely there, so soft Laurent might have imagined it.

Helplessly he stared back at him, shaking his head, mouth opening and closing “please don’t ask me,”

“Not now then,” Damen swallowed.

Damen opened his arms, hesitant as though expecting to be rejected but Laurent went to him instantly, pressing himself hard against Damen’s solid chest to soak in the borrowed warmth.

“I loved being with you like that but we can’t do it all the time Laurent, you see that, right? It’s irresponsible,”

He did. He did see it. Of course Damen couldn’t, not with Laurent.

“I know, we won’t, we won’t do it again,”

And whether or not Damen believed him he still kissed him, thoroughly, before sneaking Laurent back out of his office with a promise to call him later.

Laurent went home and fucked himself with a dildo just to see it covered in Damen’s come, to see it come back out of him, paint the silicone, like proof that it had happened. It took a surprisingly long time for him to find it. Damen had come inside him as deep as Laurent had wanted him to and he had a visceral reaction to seeing it when it did eventually coat the sleek black silicone of his toy.

Even if it reminded him of everything else that had happened too.

~*~

It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since Damen came inside him and Laurent had a one-track mind: craving him again. It was bad, robbing him of his ability to think, to breathe right. It was a primal kind of ache, a yearning he didn’t recognise. It wasn’t unusual for him to want Damen, or to waste too much time thinking about him or sex in general. It was, however, a markedly different kind of wanting. It was desperate, a fizzing nervous kind of energy lingering in every space between his breaths and driving him to madness. All he could think about was Damen filling him up, to bursting, coming in him over and over and rewriting everything that had ever been. Owning him. Claiming him.

It was madness.

For surely it could only be madness to be stalking Erasmus’ social media, it was surely insane to be leaving his flat, practically certifiable to show up at Damen’s house unannounced.

Laurent was well aware he wasn’t thinking clearly, that he wasn’t being entirely rational. He understood, on a basic survival instinct level, he was not in a good place right now. Laurent was painfully aware of it, made more aware by his total lack of remedy for it. Knowing it and doing anything about it were two very different things and the latter required confronting the things lurking in the back of his head he didn’t want to deal with.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t face it; he didn’t want to face. Facing it made it real and if it was real he’d have to live with it and he didn’t want to live with it.

He needed-

The door swung open and if Laurent had not already been aware he should not be knocking on Damen’s door in the middle of a Saturday Damen certainly let him know it.

Damen’s body said it all: chestnut eyes flaring wide, a half-aborted step toward him, a hand reaching for him that was promptly dropped and a mouth edging down at the corners. It was the rest of him making Laurent swallow. Maybe he wasn’t used to such a casually dressed version of Damen and his brain got stuck on the bared expanse of his abdomen in the cut off shirt he wore and the flash of his thick thighs in the shorts he was wearing. The shorts that were, at that moment, showing Laurent the exact shape of Damen’s cock through the material. Holy fuck. He had his hair pushed back with a head band and there was a vague aura of heat about him.

Had he been working out?

Laurent’s mouth went dry and he was instantly and blindingly turned the fuck on.

“What are you doing here?” Damen asked, before his expression shifted, head tilting as his eyes roved over him “what happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m okay and I know he’s not here, he’s shopping with Katie,” Laurent said “you should probably let me in before the neighbours talk,”

Damen sighed, even as he pushed the door open and let Laurent pass him. Laurent did not wait to be led into the front room, he went instead to the stairs, taking them two at a time as Damen behind him said his name like a warning and followed him up.

Laurent was already in the bedroom when Damen caught up to him, and he was right about his previous assessment of the room. There were photos on the bedside table, some things that hadn’t been on display last time that clearly didn’t belong to Damen.

“What the hell are you doing? Have you gone mad? He could be back literally any time,” Damen said

His voice was strained but Laurent didn’t heed him, he stepped in, wrapping his arms around Damen’s waist and went up on his tip toes to latch his mouth to his jaw. Damen protested, trying half-heartedly to coax Laurent’s hands away. They both knew if Damen really wanted him to move then Laurent would be moved. He was much stronger, could hold him off without even trying.

Laurent’s hands swept down, mapping Damen’s spine and sliding over his ass until he could grope him properly. So firm, ridiculous really. Laurent groaned, nipping at his neck.

“But he’s not here right now, I am, and I need you,”

Damen huffed, trying to unwind Laurent from him even as he tipped his head to allow Laurent’s mouth better access to the sweat-salt skin of his neck.

“Fuck, Laurent, we can’t, seriously not now I-ah,”

Laurent bit down, not hard enough to leave a mark, enough to satisfy the urge before pulling back.

“We can,”

Laurent dropped to his knees and despite Damen’s protests he didn’t pull him up, he didn’t stop Laurent when he tugged down his shorts and he only put up a half-hearted hand when Laurent leaned forward.

“I love the way you smell; do you know that?” Laurent asked pushing his face into Damen’s groin, enjoying the way it earned him a groan from above.

And it was true, he used a nice body wash and even if he didn’t Damen’s skin when it was just him smelt good to him anyway. Laurent curled his fingers around Damen’s awakening cock, sucking the tip into his mouth and flicking wide eyes up to him without wasting any time.

“God- fuck, we shouldn’t be doing this here, I’m serious this time he- fuck, just like that,” Damen said tangling a hand in the back of his hair as Laurent took him deeper “he could be back any second,”

Laurent didn’t acknowledge his words. He knew all that. He didn’t care, not when he had Damen in his mouth and the taste of him flooding his throat. Laurent groaned, his hands wandering back to Damen’s ass, gripping tight to encourage him.

Damen’s body was so fucking hot. He was firm all over, hard, defined, the type of body Laurent imagined an artist would salivate over. Laurent was no artist, but he was certainly salivating.

He took him deeper, opening wide when Damen started to pump his hips, thrusting into Laurent’s mouth, hitting the back of his throat heedless of the stabbing choking noises spilling from Laurent as he did so.

“Fuck, Laurent, so good,”

Laurent hummed, pulled off his cock with a wet slurp and rose to his feet, already kicking his shoes off and undoing his jeans. Stepping into Damen he leaned up for a kiss, gratified when Damen met him, kissing him hungrily, all tongue and breath as Laurent worked his jeans down his thighs. Satisfied it was enough he span around, plastering his back to Damen’s front and reached for him, positioning him where he wanted him.

Damen groaned a protest with a halting hand at his hip.

“We shouldn’t,” Damen said even as he pumped his cock against Laurent’s hole, through the grip Laurent still had on him, mouthing at his neck.

“I know,” Laurent said and held Damen’s cock still, notching it at his rim as he bore down and pressed back.

Damen fucked inside with a rumble Laurent felt, hard hands framing his hips as Laurent pushed back until he’d taken all of Damen.

He leant back against Damen, shifting his hips, sliding himself back and forth on Damen’s cock, heedless of the sting. He didn’t care, his body was used to it, it would subside quickly. The pleasure was sparking behind his eyes, had him shuddering and moaning out loud, letting him get lost in the thrust and sway of his undulating body and how fucking good it felt, how Damen’s cock hit everything just fucking right. Damen held him tight, wide hands spanning his waist, sliding around and down his stomach to grip his cock.

“You’re already so wet for me,” Damen breathed against his neck, both of them watching Laurent’s cock dribble into Damen’s fist.

“God Damen, fuck me, please, take it, own me,”

Damen cursed, shoving them both forward until Laurent was falling onto the bed. Damen flipped him easily, dragging Laurent’s jeans off one leg and tearing his own shirt off before he heaved both of Laurent’s legs over his shoulders and thrust his cock back inside him.

Laurent moaned, voice catching as his head slammed back and his hands clawed around Damen’s biceps. Folded almost in half Damen took him hard, and deep, fucking into him with the kind of wild abandon Laurent had been begging for. This. Just this. He could exist there, in that space, happily, where there was nothing but Damen inside him, nothing but the way he was regarding him. All sensation. No pain. No memories pressing at his skull, too overwhelmed by Damen to be anywhere else. He was in his own body, in it and unwilling to leave it, happy to be in it. Because Damen was.

He needed it. He needed it all the time, he wanted-

Everything. He fucking wanted him. Beyond the sex. He wanted it all.

“Fuck Laurent,” Damen groaned, shifting Laurent’s legs until they were wrapping around his waist, trapping Laurent’s cock between their stomachs as he leant down for a kiss.

Laurent gave it to him, wrapping his arms around Damen’s neck and kissing him with everything he had, meeting him thrust for thrust, riding Damen’s rhythm to slide his cock against Damen’s stomach, clenching down on the hard hot line of Damen inside him and revelling in it.

“I’m so close, I’m gonna come,” Damen said against his mouth

“Inside me, please, let me have it, I want to be full of you for days,”

Damen’s breath hitched, fucking into him hard and fast as Laurent thrust up to meet him, so fucking close to his own release he could taste it. When it barrelled through him it forced Damen’s name from his mouth, a strangled choke drenched in pleasure as he spilled messily in spurts between them. Damen cursed, holding himself deep and pumping, coming inside him.

Laurent grinned, panting up at him.

“One day I’ll learn how to say no to you,” Damen said but he was smiling as he said it, eyes alight as he held Laurent’s gaze, pushing his hair back for him, hands as soft as Laurent felt.

“I hope not,”

Damen snorted, shaking his head as he leant down to kiss him. It was a shaky kiss, a panting messy kiss more breath and fatigue than anything else. Laurent thrilled to it.

Damen was still inside him, languid, half thrusting as though he wanted to go again but when he leant back his expression had changed.

“There’s something I wanted to ask,” Damen said

It was his voice that made Laurent stiffen. It was tentative, nervous, and it was instinct for Laurent to go rigid. Damen clearly felt it, pulled back enough to pull out, leaning over Laurent on extended arms.

“Can we talk? Because I was wondering if-“

The front door slamming rattled all of the tension, shook it up and spat it out, something worse, something stifling. Laurent didn’t know whether to be grateful for the interruption or not, even as dread made a home in his chest.

Their eyes met, a static beat of frozen panic before Erasmus called Damen’s name and they scrambled apart. Laurent shoved his way back into his jeans as Damen called out to tell him where he was and pulled his shorts on. He pointed beyond Laurent.

Laurent turned and in the next moment Damen shoved Laurent’s shoes into his arms and hurried him to the wardrobe as Erasmus’s steps sounded on the stairs.

“You’ve got to be joking,” he hissed

“Please Laurent,” Damen whispered, urging him inside

Laurent grumbled, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot as he climbed inside and let Damen shut the door. It was dark, tight, the slated panel doors offering him an obstructed view of the bed, and enough light not to freak out at the confined space. The view was not obstructed nearly enough for his liking.

Damen sat on the edge of the bed just as the door swung open. Laurent held his breath, tipping his face down as though breathing against his shoulder was going to help.

“Oh, I see, playing without me?” Erasmus asked, bemused

Damen’s swallow was thick even to Laurent “yeah, got distracted,”

Erasmus chuckled and stepped between the spread of Damen’s bare thighs, leaning down for a kiss Damen readily gave him. When Erasmus shoved him back bodily onto the bed Damen went only so far as his elbows, a hand pressing to Erasmus’s shoulder to halt him.

“Babe-“

Erasmus was already leaning down and Laurent realised about two seconds before his tongue made contact with Damen’s stomach just what he was doing. And what it meant. Damen, it seemed, had the realisation at the same time and he shoved on Erasmus’ shoulder.

Erasmus paused, contemplating Damen “what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Damen hurried to say

“So stop and let me clean you up,” Erasmus said leaning back down quick as a flash and tonguing at the come on Damen’s stomach.

Laurent’s come.

A wicked, twisted, perverted part of him thrilled to it. To the knowledge Erasmus had no idea he was licking someone else’s come off Damen’s abs. Damen let out a strangled noise, hauled Erasmus up and into his lap. The kiss he gave him made Laurent close his eyes, but the noise was no better, the choppy damp sound of mouths moving accompanied by Erasmus humming and breathing far too heavily.

“I’m lucky you’ve always got another one in you,” Erasmus said, voice low, a seductive little purr that made Laurent’s insides revolt.

“No- I-“

“You gonna get hard again for me?” Erasmus asked

Laurent blinked and Erasmus was still in Damen’s lap, his hand dipping between them. It didn’t take a genius to realise he was gripping Damen’s cock. Laurent’s insides went cold.

No. He wouldn’t. Would he? Not with Laurent right fucking there. Surely he wouldn’t? Laurent couldn’t see this; he absolutely couldn’t see this. It would kill him, he was sure.

“Stop,” Damen said, hand shooting out to still Erasmus.

“Why are you being weird?” Erasmus asked, sitting back on Damen’s thighs, appraising him.

Fuck. Oh god that was nearly worse.

Damen shook his head “I’m not,”

It sounded weak even to Laurent. Strained.

Erasmus scrutinised him for a long moment before sighing, arms snaking around Damen’s neck.

“You are being weird again,” Erasmus said and Laurent sensed the frown in his voice

“I know, I’m so sorry it’s-“

“Still the work stuff? Like yesterday? You work too much Damen, you shouldn’t be thinking about it on the weekends too, and if it’s not that and it’s Nikandros again-”

Yesterday. Damen had been weird when he got home? Laurent wasn’t sure if he should be glad about that but he was. It meant he’d been preoccupied. With him? What they’d done in his office?

“No, it’s not, it’s work,” Damen hurried to say “I know, I know I just-“ Damen made a vague gesture before settling his hands on Erasmus’ hips “I can’t help it I guess,”

“I know, I’m sorry work is stressful right now, is there anything I can do?”

Damen was making unconscious soothing strokes up and down Erasmus’ sides, their voices low and intimate and familiar. Laurent’s chest hurt. His stomach had swooped and dropped through the floor. Hearing this was worse than seeing them fuck.

“I don’t know,” Damen said and he sounded sincere at least. Tired.

Erasmus touched his face, a soft reverent gesture that echoed in Laurent’s chest like a stab wound.

“How about I run us a bath? We can relax, I’ll give you a massage and then, if you want, we can talk about it? Or… not talk about it?”

Damen nodded, leaning in to kiss him briefly “that sounds amazing, why don’t you start the bath and I’ll go grab my phone, I’ve still got that playlist,”

Erasmus cupped both hands at Damen’s jaw, kissing him soundly “I love you,” he said

Laurent squeezed his eyes closed, the answering words sprinting toward him in an inevitable crash that could not be stopped.

“I love you too,”

It was worse than he thought it would be. Not just a knife wound but an ugly gaping tear from his clavicle to his navel. It had heat starting in his cheeks, his eyes stinging so much he had to blink it away, tip his head up and breathe deep to stop it.

Erasmus got up, left the room, and the rush and gush of the bath running was Laurent’s cue. He shoved out of the wardrobe, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste. Damen was wide eyed, holding a finger to his lips telling him to be quiet as they crept out of the room and down the stairs.

Damen hurried him as he shoved his shoes on and ushered him out the door. Laurent snorted, squaring his jaw and flashing him a narrowed sneer as he turned wordlessly away.

Before he could go Damen grabbed at his elbow, halting him.

“Wait, are you mad at me?”

Laurent yanked his arm out of Damen’s grasp, staring back at him, incredulity running riot in his veins if not his features.

“No,”

Damen squared his jaw “it’s not my fault, what the fuck was I supposed to do?”

“Oh I don’t know, maybe not let him lick my come off you? Do you think he could taste the difference?”

Damen hissed, glancing over his shoulder at the ajar front door.

“Why are you being like this? You came here, what did you expect?”

Laurent stepped back, already shaking his head.

“Just go back inside and fuck him like you want to,” Laurent said, already half way down the path.

“Do you think I wanted this?” Damen asked his voice taking on a different tone entirely.

It struck a chord, a displaced chord, tuned all wrong, stark in a symphony, a bad note. A herald of broken things.

Laurent span around despite himself, glaring hard “no this was all me, I know I was the one to come here, I should have called I-“

“That isn’t what I meant,”

He snapped his mouth shut, pulling up short, floundering as the words flooded through him. He could ask. He should ask what he meant. But really, he didn’t need to. It was all over Damen’s face. Instead he turned on his heel and left, walking quickly down the road. Once he was home, he drowned the sickly crumble in his chest with wine and pills that he’d promised himself, not long ago, he wouldn’t use again and told himself over and over it didn’t matter.

Damen loved Erasmus. The rest didn’t matter. Except, a small voice in his head said, what had Damen wanted to ask him?

The question weighed heavy on him but anything that made Damen nervous was surely no good thing for Laurent.

I was wondering if-

What? What was Damen wondering?

~*~

Laurent had spent the rest of the weekend quietening his mind and the memories tugging at him with several bottles of wine. Unsurprisingly he had found nothing but headaches and a rebellious stomach at the bottom of each one.

On Monday he went into work still high as a fucking kite, his entire face numb and the words on his screen not making much sense. Nothing made fucking sense to him anymore. Even when he was sober. He’d had a routine not too long ago. It had been shitty and thoughtless and stupid but it had been fine.

What the fuck had happened? How had it happened? How did he even get to this point? He’d been better, for over two years he’d been so good at not taking the drugs unless he was desperate and somehow in barely two fucked up months, he was using every day and drinking so much it was a surprise he wasn’t fucking black out.

It didn’t stop him from going to the pub at lunch. It didn’t stop him from drinking two vodkas before going back to work to pretend he was fine. It certainly didn’t stop him from going straight back to the bar after his shift.

His incredibly long shift. Because fucking Maureen had kept him there until six, insisting on a wellness meeting he bullshitted his way through and was told he was moving to a second formal warning.

Basically, one more strike and he would be fired.

Just what he fucking needed.

The bar was busy when he got there. Of course it was. It was a warm balmy evening in early August and people were out to enjoy it.

He was there for an hour, drowning his sorrows before he spotted Nikandros. He had made his way toward him before he could really even think about making the decision to do so.

Nikandros, unsurprisingly, was not pleased to see him.

“Nikki, looking lovely as always,” Laurent said propping himself beside him at the bar, more than a little unsteady.

The guys Nikandros were with assessed him, tossing Nikandros meaningful glances before half turning away. Like the fucking illusion of privacy.

Like this was something.

“Go away I’m not in the mood,”

“When are you ever?”

Laurent gestured to him, his drink sloshing over his hand and over Nikandros’ shirt. Laurent pouted at it, snorting. The wet mark kind of resembled a skull. So fitting. Funny really. He reached out with his unfortunately occupied hand, jabbed Nikandros in the stomach where his shirt was wet and chuckled when Nikandros slapped his hand away.

He was numb to the sting.

“Are you drunk?”

Nikandros’ voice was always loud but he had apparently gone up an octave. Laurent winced, nodding up at him.

“Very drunk, but I’m also happy to see you,”

Nikandros took a step back as Laurent swayed forward, his patented unimpressed expression on his face. Which was only a marginal improvement on his please die in a hole face.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Nikandros stared back at him, eyeing him and gripping Laurent’s elbow tight when he tilted sideways. Or maybe the bar did. Or maybe it was the whole fucking world tilting, it certainly fucking felt like Laurent’s world had taken a tumble.

When Laurent righted himself against the bar Nikandros dropped his elbow. Laurent did not miss the way he wiped his hand on his sleeve.

“You’re not unattractive you know,” Laurent squinted up at him

Nikandros stared at him blankly for a long moment before slowly, one eyebrow went up.

“Was that your idea of a compliment?”

“Yes, I have high standards, you’ve seen Damen,”

Laurent’s drink went splashing around on his hand again and he let Nikandros take it from him, contemplating it as it was slid out of his reach.

“You don’t have standards, Damen is the outlier that proves your general rule,”

Distracted, Laurent tipped into Nikandros, head tilting back to see him properly.

“I didn’t know you paid me that much attention Nikki, I’m flattered,”

“Don’t be,” Nikandros planted a hand at his sternum, gave him a tiny push back, encouraging him to step away.

Laurent persisted, batting Nikandros’ hand away and sliding closer, snorting when Nikandros stiffened at the proximity.

“What’s your type Nik? Apart from Damen I mean.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just interested,”

“Why?”

“We should fuck,”

Nikandros rolled his eyes “yeah, sure,” he said like he was waiting for the punch line.

Did he not get it? Laurent was the punchline. He had always been the punchline. Nikandros just needed to get in on the joke.

“No,” Laurent said dropping his voice low “I mean it, don’t you want to?”

Nikandros frowned, scrutinising him, and Laurent had visions of big brass magnifying glasses and microscopes and Nikandros in a biohazard suit.

“Don’t you want to be where he’s been?” Laurent purred, blinking up at him “see what all the fuss is about? I’ll even call you by his name if you like,”

Nikandros’ jaw ticked as he continued to stare at him, his usual expression giving way to something like surprise. His eyes were wide, staring at Laurent like he’d never seen him before.

“What is wrong with you right now?” Nikandros asked “you’re being even weirder than normal and it’s not just the drink, you seem- are you on something?“

He must look very fucked up if Nikandros had sliced right to the heart of it.

“I’m just horny, I want to fuck you,”

The words tasted like a lie.

Nikandros actually laughed, though the sound was vicious somehow, coupled with a sneer.

“No you don’t, we both know you don’t and I’ve got no interest in fucking you either, so what the fuck are you doing really?”

Nikandros stared back at him for a long moment, lip curling as he looked him over. Laurent lifted his chin, unsure if he had a real answer to that. What was he doing?

“Scared I’ll compare you and you’ll be found wanting?”

Nikandros gave an incredulous unamused laugh, eyebrow raised pointedly “right,” Nikandros said with a roll of his eyes “and Damen? Do you even give a fuck about how he’d feel about it?”

Fuck Damen. Damen was probably telling his boyfriend how much he loved him right at that moment. Damen was never going to want him so it was just one more thing Laurent should lean in to all the way.

“He doesn’t matter, we’re not anything,” he said “maybe you can compare notes after, see who made me come quickest,”

“Ah, I get it, I see how it is,” Nikandros snorted, shaking his head, his disgust more than obvious.

Laurent stiffened, letting his gaze go unfocused to save himself from seeing whatever Nikandros thought he knew splashed all over his face. He didn’t know anything.

“Are you going to fuck me or not?”

Laurent held his breath; unsure if he was praying for Nikandros to tell him to go fuck himself or whether he was praying for him to agree. Nikandros looked him over, face entirely unreadable for several long tense moments. When he turned his face away he downed his drink and slammed it back down on the bar with too much force.

“Fine, outside. Now.”

Laurent blinked, stomach dropping to the region of his knees and heart rate picking up as Nikandros shoved away from the bar. Laurent watched him go before forcing his body to move, to follow him out the front doors and around the side of the building and each step had the glass veil descending a little more, had him retreating one step further into the back of his mind.

But that was good. It was good. He didn’t want to feel this.

It was an alleyway, a loading bay, littered with rubbish, two huge metal industrial bins and Nikandros didn’t stop until he was behind one. Shielded from view from the street. Laurent was aware of the strange parallel of the moment. The first time Damen had fucked him they’d been in an alley way behind a club and now here he was. A different bar, a different alley way, and it wasn’t Damen.

What the fuck was he doing?

Nikandros leaned against the wall, impervious, practically vibrating. Laurent stepped in, hands going to Nikandros’ belt. Nikandros’ hand was a vice at his chin before Laurent took another step, shoving his head back roughly until Laurent stumbled, hit the opposite wall.

“No touching,” Nikandros said

His gaze was callous, scrutinising, and Laurent leant against the wall, where he’d tripped.

“Oh, you want it rough? Damen likes it rough too, if you want to hurt me you’ll have to do better than that,”

Nikandros nodded, once, sharp and sure.

“Turn around, take your jeans down,”

Laurent swallowed. He didn’t want this. He didn’t. What the fuck was he doing?

He faced the wall, heart beating a thunderous rhythm in his chest as the anxious squirming in his stomach made him sick. What was he doing? He undid his jeans, shoved them down, not nearly far enough and braced himself against the wall, squeezing his eyes closed against the rush of shame simmering in his stomach and the voice in his head screaming at him to stop.

 He shouldn’t do this. This would hurt. He couldn’t make himself stop.

Nikandros stepped closer and Laurent stiffened despite himself in a half-aborted flinch, inhaling through his mouth as if it would help him get enough air.

“You fucking disgust me,” Nikandros said close enough to feel the heat of him

“I know,”

“You’d let me too, wouldn’t you?” he laughed “you’d actually fucking let me,”

Laurent went cold, glancing over his shoulder as Nikandros stepped back. The disgust was plain on his face as Laurent dropped his hands, unwilling to turn all the way around yet.

Nikandros assessed him once more, amused sneer tugging the corner of his mouth up “I can’t wait to tell Damen about this, this was your final strike with him and I can see on your face that you know it, you’re so done Laurent,”

Laurent’s stomach filled with lead; body unable to move.

“Just so you know, there isn’t a world where I’d want you and there isn’t a world where I’d do that to Damen you fucking piece of shit,” Nikandros said as he backed away.

Laurent blinked, scrambling to right his jeans as Nikandros disappeared. It took a precious few moments to make his shocked body move and once he made it to the end of the alley Nikandros had already disappeared.

With desperation a searing thrum in his veins he barrelled back into the bar, frantically scanning for Nikandros. He couldn’t find him, not in the first room or the second, on two searches. When he was absolutely sure Nikandros wasn’t there anymore Laurent went back outside, staring down the street like he could make him reappear, manifest him out of thin air to beg him not to say anything.

It was pointless. He was already gone.

Probably straight to Damen.

It was going to ruin everything.

Why? Why had he done that? What had he even been thinking?

He would beg him as well, on his knees if he had to because he fucking knew. He already fucking knew Nikandros was right: Damen would not ignore it or take it lightly.

Laurent was going to lose him. Is that what he’d wanted?

Why the fuck had he done that?

He hadn’t even had sex but the familiar shame accompanied him home anyway.

They weren’t together. Damen wasn’t his boyfriend. He repeated it all the way home, yelling over the voice in his head telling him it didn’t matter, Damen didn’t care who he slept with but he’d care about him hitting on Nikandros.

When he let himself into his silent apartment he was shaking and his stomach felt like it was dropping over and over again whenever he let himself think about. He threw up a few times and he didn’t know whether it was from the alcohol or everything else. Couldn’t sleep for thinking about it, waiting for the phone to ring. A message. A text. Anything to let him know it was done. That Nikandros had told him.

Would he lie? Tell Damen they’d fucked? Would Damen believe him? Why wouldn’t he believe him?

There would be just enough truth he supposed the rest didn’t matter. He might as well have.

Laurent was glad that he hadn’t, that Nikandros had said no, and it unnerved him how close he’d come to actually going through with it. It unnerved him equally to be grateful to Nikandros for anything, let alone grateful that he loved Damen as much as he did. Laurent would want to throw himself down the stairs if he had done it. He’d feel so much worse and this was already more than he could bear.

Laurent didn’t understand why he had even attempted it when he didn’t want it. What was wrong with him to make him say those things and do the things he did? He feared what he'd uncover as he inspected it.

It unnerved him more than the rest of it put together, shook his habits to the fore in his mind and made him ashamed in a way that felt fresh. A new shame to rival the familiarity of the long running disgrace he’d lived with for nearly a decade.

But the not knowing was the worst, the anxiety of waiting was a heavy burden and when his alarm went off the next morning telling him to get up for work, there still wasn’t anything. No text. No call. Nothing. Laurent went into work in a daze, feeling sick. With himself. With the thought of what came next.

Maybe Damen wouldn’t call at all. Maybe he would never call again. Maybe that’s how it ended. In perfect silence.

No, Laurent wouldn’t let it. He couldn’t, he couldn’t.

It would hurt and he only had himself to blame.

By mid-afternoon he was beside himself. Shaky with it. The sense of impending doom thrumming through his body coiling tighter and tighter as the hours ticked on.

When Erasmus suggested an afternoon caffeine pick-me-up Laurent followed him into the kitchen-area of the office on auto pilot, found himself at the counter as Erasmus made himself a tea. Laurent didn’t move, eyes glued to Erasmus as he poured water from the kettle into his mug, not even really hearing Erasmus as he prattled on and on and Laurent opened his mouth before he could stop himself, words dripping from his tongue like a slow toxin.

“I slept with Damen,”

For a long silent moment Laurent wasn’t sure if he’d actually said the words out loud. He couldn’t have. Why would be? Except he did because Erasmus beside him went still, blinking slowly and swallowing as he resumed making his tea.

“When?” Erasmus asked, voice quivering, focusing on the way he was stirring.

“The first time or last?”

The sound of the teaspoon against the mug was loud, ringing. Erasmus turned wide eyes up to him “both,”

“Two years ago was the first time,” he said “Saturday was the last,”

Erasmus sucked in a sharp inhale, nodding as he turned back to his tea, carried on stirring, and Laurent didn’t know what he expected. Tears. Anger. Something.

There was nothing, just Erasmus’ careful breathing as he stared determinedly at his mug. His hands were unsteady but there was nothing else. No reaction.

Laurent frowned “we didn’t use a condom,” he said, salting an open wound.

Erasmus dropped the tea spoon then, the clatter loud as he whirled around, facing Laurent completely. His eyebrows were drawn, his mouth turned down and opened, no words coming out, his response robbed by his apparent shock. His eyes were huge. Glassy. Devastated.

Laurent felt it viscerally when Erasmus drew in a shuddering breath. He felt it when Erasmus took a stumbling two steps away from him, bottom lip quivering as his brimming eyes overflowed with tears and Laurent hated himself for the way Erasmus’ entire frame trembled.

Erasmus didn’t say anything, he didn’t say a single one of the words clearly spinning through his mind. He didn’t spit. He didn’t slap him. He didn’t curse him or insult him or say anything at all. He turned, bolting away from him and disappearing around the corner and Laurent pressed his eyes closed as the reality of it slammed into him.

What the fuck had he done?

Dropped a bomb, one he couldn’t take back and all he could do now was wait for the explosion.

Explosions were never silent, at least.

Chapter Text

He went home in a haze. Unfocused, unsettled, and anxious. The entire evening he was thrumming with expectation, his ability to function robbed by the squirming in his stomach. There was nothing for him to do except sit and wait.

He didn’t have to wait long. A few hours later and the loud pounding slam of a fist on his door had him flinching into the silence. He had known Damen wouldn’t call or text for this. He’d known he would come. Was that what he’d wanted?

He swallowed, drawing in a ragged breath and yanked the door open.

Damen barely looked at him as he stormed past, going down the hall into the living room. Laurent followed, leaning against the doorframe as Damen paced. His eyes were flinty, his hands balled into fists as he seethed, treading a line between the wall and the end of the sofa, his movements jerky and his breathing audible.

When finally Damen paused, Laurent tensed, crossing his arms over his chest and trying not to fidget beneath his penetrating stare.

“Why?”

One word. Simple enough and yet so complicated Laurent didn’t know how to answer, he shrugged for lack of anything better to do and pulled himself in tight

“I told him about two nights, the first and last, you can play it off as a one night stand I’m sure,” he said, lifting his chin

“That isn’t what I fucking asked,” Damen snapped “I asked why not what, or are you going to be evasive as usual?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means getting a real fucking answer from you about anything is like winning the fucking lottery but I’m not in the mood right now, so for once just be fucking straight with me,”

“I’ve never been straight,”

It was a reflex, he didn’t even mean to do it, the words fell from his tongue without his conscious say so.

Damen hissed, scrubbing a rough hand down his face as he turned away from him, shoulders tense, before spinning back around beyond agitated.

“Why?” Damen hissed “I fucking deserve an explanation at the very least,”

“We don’t always get what we deserve,”

If they did, Laurent would probably be rotting in an illegal brothel somewhere already.

“No, no we don’t, because Erasmus? He didn’t fucking deserve that, he didn’t deserve any of this and he should have heard it from me, not in the middle of the fucking office, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“How long do you have?”

“Jesus fucking Christ Laurent,” Damen roared his frustration boiling over

Laurent blinked, watching him, gaze flicking to Damen’s arms and his expression and his fucking height and taking it in in a way he never had before. There was no way Damen would hit him and yet Laurent’s entire body had stiffened, screaming like there was a threat. He blinked, blinked again, chasing away the fog that swarmed his brain, willing Laurent away to the back of his head. To a safe space.

He pressed his hands against his sockets, digging in as he breathed out a long exhale. A tired exhale. Not now, he had to remember this, he had to be present for this. Damen would never hurt him. He wouldn’t. Laurent repeated it in his head until his shoulder’s loosened.

“I don’t fucking know why, okay?” he said, dropping his hands

Damen shook his head “bullshit, we both know why,”

Laurent’s thoughts refused to be ordered, they slithered through his skull, dissipating like smoke before he could reach toward them. Had he had a reason? Damen wasn’t going to let him off without a real answer. An answer he feared he didn’t have. Not without cracking open the vault rattling ominously in his chest.

Wiping his clammy palms on his thighs he was aware of the muscles in his legs constricting, bracing as though to run, his heart rabbiting in his chest as though he already was. He was careening toward the edge of a cliff and there wasn’t a single thing he could do to stop it, was there?

“Why then?” Laurent ventured

“The same reason you tried to sleep with Nikandros,”

Laurent sucked in a breath, arms falling to his sides, the restlessness squirming in his stomach making his hands jittery and he tugged at the hem of his shirt for something to occupy them. When he swallowed it lodged in his throat, the words stuck and unwilling to come out.

There was no reprieve from Damen, he didn’t continue, he didn’t add anything, he crossed his arms over his chest, unreadable and immoveable as Laurent floundered.

“He told you then,”

“He told me you begged him to fuck you, that I didn’t matter, that you bent over for him in an alleyway, sound about right?”

Laurent lifted his chin, grit his teeth “he missed out the part where I told him you could compare notes,”

Damen’s nose wrinkled, grimacing as he recoiled away from him. Laurent’s insides cringed, fighting the urge to turn away for fear Damen’s expression would burrow right into him and take up residence in the dark space in Laurent’s head where other looks like that lived. His father’s. Aimeric’s. His uncle’s.

“Would you have done it?”

“I don’t know, it’s not like I wanted to, I didn’t- I just… I didn’t want to fuck him,”

Damen absorbed his response and Laurent couldn’t take it back. Even when he wanted to. Because it was far too honest.

Some things once learned cannot be forgotten.

Damen blinked, expression changing, confusion clouding his features. Laurent fretted, fidgeting under his scrutiny.

“Laurent,“ Damen hesitated “what does that mean? Is it like when…”

Damen snapped his mouth shut, cutting himself off, staring at him hard and the inspection was too much, too telling, he felt cracked open and raw. Is it like when…

What was the end to that sentence? What had Damen seen? Deduced?

Laurent felt sick.

“What do you think it means?”

Damen stared at him, steady, gaze unwavering as he shook his head, a helpless kind of gesture.

“You did it to hurt me,” Damen said like it was the most obvious thing in the world “Nikandros said you all but agreed as much,”

To hurt them both perhaps. All three of them even.

“And so?”

Damen’s face contorted, lips pinching and posture stiffening as an unamused laugh left him on a breath.

“Is that all you’ve got to say about it?”

“What else is there to say? We didn’t, nothing happened, end of story,”

An incredulous smile pulled at Damen’s lips, his breath leaving him in a whoosh. The disgust was pouring from Damen and Laurent absorbed it, soaked it in, let it drip through him. He deserved it.

“Except it’s not, is it?” Damen said

It was an accusation, sharp and immoveable. A shard lodged in Laurent’s chest.

“Because it shows me you don’t give a shit, not about this, not about me, you’ve made it more than fucking clear and I don’t understand why you… fuck,” Damen shook his head “what the fuck do you want from me Laurent?”

Damen’s tone had Laurent whipping his head back toward him, hugging himself closer as Damen stared at him, pushing one agitated hand through his hair.

Laurent tried not to flinch.

“That isn’t true, I do care,”

He couldn’t answer the real question, not right now, not when the answer was everything.

“Oh so you were caring about me when you tried to fuck my best friend behind my back? Knowing it would hurt me? After what Jo did with Kastor? I told you if you want him have him, but you and I would be done, so is that what you wanted?”

The clench at Laurent’s jaw had his teeth grinding, refusing to meet Damen’s gaze as he blinked at nothing, shaking his head and biting his tongue in the hope it stopped anything stupid from falling out of his mouth.

It didn’t.

“And you? Were you caring about me when you went home to Erasmus every fucking night? When you tell him you love him do you care about me then?”

“Don’t pretend those two things are the same, I told you if you slept with Nik or Kastor we’d be done and you tried to do it anyway, Erasmus is only even in my life because of you and when I asked if it was okay, you said you didn’t give a fuck because you and I are nothing,”

Yes he had, because he was a fucking idiot. He was a fucking idiot and he did give a fuck. Laurent doubted he had ever cared more about anything and he could never take those past words back or reverse time or set it right.

“I didn’t mean it,”

“What?” Damen frowned

“About Erasmus, I didn’t mean it, I did mind, I do care, I fucking hate it,”

The words stopped Damen short, had him taking a half step back, blinking at him with wide eyes. Whatever he saw on Laurent’s made him swallow, posture loosening, the grim tinge fading from his expression.

“Since when?” Damen said, the words punched out of him.

“Since when,” Laurent’s breath ghosted around the word, a smile pulling hips lips up as he tipped his head back “always Damen, since fucking always,”

Damen pressed his eyes closed, shaking his head again, lips flattening into a tight line. When they opened his expression was strained, chin jutting up.

“I don’t believe you, you’ve done everything in your power to show me you don’t give a shit, that this really is nothing, you’ve said so over and over, but now you want me to believe that you’re what? Jealous?”

“I haven’t-“

Damen barked out a sharp approximation of a laugh and Laurent stiffened, snapping his mouth shut as Damen spoke over him.

“No? Every passive aggressive comment about how much sex you have? Every Grindr mention? All the bruises? How sometimes you come to me still prepped and still so loose it’s no effort at all to stick my dick in you? I’m supposed to believe you weren’t doing it to make sure I fucking knew anyone could have you? So I knew not to get attached because the sex is all you care about? This hasn’t been you proving a point this whole fucking time?”

Laurent sucked in a breath, stomach clenching as pain lanced through his chest, his breath coming shorter and harsher as he pressed a hand to his sternum as though it would help.

“What point was I proving? I never did it on purpose, I didn’t- I didn’t even think about it,”

“Yeah that’s just as bad,” Damen laughed “did you not think it might be a little bit hurtful? Laurent I told you I was falling for you and you… you laughed at me and we didn’t talk for over a month, or are we pretending you conveniently forgot about that?”

“I didn’t forget,”

Of course he didn’t, how could he? It lived on repeat in his head even when he told himself he could barely remember that day. A year ago, when Damen had said those words that had terrified him. The admission of his feelings. Everything Damen had wanted. Words like together and official and falling. Words that Laurent never really deserved anyway.

Laurent had convinced himself it wasn’t true anymore. A year was a long time. He’d missed his chance, he fucking knew that, he only had himself to blame for where they were. He’d said no and Damen had-

Fallen in love with Erasmus instead.

The slam of the memory was too much, stealing the air from his lungs as he was bombarded by visions of Damen in his bed, on his stomach, bare back begging to be touched and kissed and scratched. His face serene in the dappled sunlight, his smile blinding when he’d woken. His words so sweet and so sure and all-consuming Laurent had reacted the way any frightened cornered animal reacted.

He lashed out.

Vitriol, jibes, laughs. Don’t be ridiculous Damen, it’s just sex, did you think this mattered? Please, one cock is much the same as any other you’re not special.

Laurent’s chin hit his chest, crumpling under Damen’s scrutiny and the memory of what he’d said. Heat rushed his cheeks, body prickling with awareness as lead pooled in his stomach. Shame.

Pain.

“Do you see how I might think you’re fucking bullshitting me right now? I’d told you how I felt, Erasmus was weeks after that, if you were always jealous, why didn’t you fucking say anything? I’ll tell you why, because you’re fucking lying to me and for what? So I’ll let you off the hook? No fucking chance,“

“I’m not lying, I just didn’t know how to tell you, not when you had him, when you were happy… I thought you’d changed your mind because you loved him so fucking much,”

Laurent had crawled back to Damen with his tail between his legs after that month apart, chest aching from a self-inflicted wound, missing him and wishing he didn’t, afraid of the unfamiliar ache and the joy Damen somehow managed to ignite in him. When he’d gone back to him, asked if they could fuck again, Damen had been different. Happier. Calmer. With someone else.

“Yes, he was there and he was honest and sweet, he didn’t play any fucking games and I was trying to get over you,” Damen said

Laurent’s inhale was unsteady, throat constricting, the very idea of Damen getting over him making him queasy.

“If you were trying to get over me why did you jump back into bed with me?”

“Because I couldn’t stop because you’re… because I wanted you so fucking badly I tricked myself into believing this wasn’t that bad, that I’d get used to it or maybe it was enough and eventually I’d just… stop feeling that way, I don’t fucking know okay, I just can’t say no to you,”

“So why stay with him? You can’t tell me you don’t love him, I heard you,” he said, frowning at Damen.

“Laurent this was killing me and I needed him, I was hurt, I am hurt and he made it better, I wanted to love him, I tried so fucking hard to- fuck, it was never meant to go this far,”

Laurent’s heart was vibrating in his chest, chasing a pulse through his neck strumming with restless clawing need. Damen had been hurting. Laurent had hurt him. Damen had felt like he needed to protect himself from him.

This whole time?

Damen turned away from him, a hand at the back of his neck, giving Laurent ample time to scan the lines of his back, appreciate the width of his shoulders, the taper of his waist, the way his trousers hugged his ass. Everything in him wanted to go to him, find the right words.

“I couldn’t let you go either, I couldn’t stop, I didn’t- Damen I’ve hated every single day that you were with him,”

But he’d been afraid. So fucking afraid of what it meant. He’d been lying to himself too. All this time. Probably from the first moment he had Damen’s hands on him nearly two and a half years ago.

Certainly since that month apart.

He had rationalised, in the year since that morning, that Damen had changed his mind. Found something better. Because in the end Laurent was broken and Damen deserved more than him and if he ever found out about the things Laurent had done, what he was, he would leave anyway.

Facing him once more Damen was rigid, stern, eyebrows raised and lip curling.

“And I wished I believed you but I don’t, you just like my dick and how fucking easy I am for you,”

It was incomprehensible to him that Damen could think -even for a second- that Laurent didn’t care about him, but then, had Laurent ever shown him otherwise?

He flinched “that’s not true,”

“We both know it is,” he said “you knew this would hurt me, that’s a pretty big neon fucking sign, your actions are always louder than your words Laurent, always,”

Yes, words were easy. Say one thing, think another, they didn’t matter. But his actions? Laurent could only imagine what Damen saw in them. What kind of horrible chaotic trainwreck of a picture they created. The same scene from the wrong angle.

“I do care about you, of course I do, please don’t think that,” Laurent said, words weak at best “I’m sorry,”

“Are you?”

He nodded, searching Damen’s features desperately but he could see only the fumes of frustration rolling off him in waves. He let the silence settle. Not sure how to navigate the unexpected path, the twist in his stomach, the way his heart was trying to beat out of his fucking chest.

Laurent sucked in a fortifying breath “I want this Damen,”

The silence this time was wrought, writhing beneath Laurent’s skin in frantic pulses, his whole body bracing, waiting for pain, or shame, or a slap he probably deserved.

Saying it wasn’t easy. Admitting it even to himself felt like too little too late but Damen was slipping away and there wasn’t anything else left to say to stop it from happening.

“God Laurent I just wish you’d said something back then, I wish none of this-” Damen cut himself off, seeming as lost as Laurent was.

“Would you have picked me?”

Damen’s expression was raw, pained.

“Laurent… it’s you, it’s always been you,” he said, the helpless feeling in Laurent’s chest was echoed in Damen’s features “I was with him because you didn’t want me,”

But he did. He had. He just hadn’t wanted to want him because he’d been scared. But now? Now he wanted Damen so viscerally, so fucking badly, beyond sex, beyond anything Laurent could even comprehend, that it overpowered the fear.

“So can-“

“Did you decide you wanted to be with me before or after Nikandros rejected you?”

Laurent flinched and any small slither of a plan he had been forming in his head, any hope he had been nurturing dissipated like smoke. He knew Damen. He knew Damen very well and he already knew where this was going. What cards he had and exactly how he was about to play them.

He knew what cards Damen had to play because Laurent had been the one to make sure they were in his hand.

“A long fucking time before last night, Nikandros had nothing to do with it,”

The breathy laugh Damen let out was grim, tinged by pain

“Right, how convenient, so if he hadn’t said no you would have told me that after fucking him? You would have looked me in the eye and asked to be together knowing you’d fucked my best friend behind my back explicitly to hurt me?”

Laurent groaned, shaking his head “why does it matter even if I had fucked him? Don’t want him knowing what face I make when I come?”

He wanted to fucking scream. Everything he wanted was right fucking there and it could have been his if he had been able to control himself, control the torrent of poison that had him making stupid desperate decisions.

He had done this to himself. He could blame his past, his uncle, the things he had on repeat in his head, but in the end, the only person responsible for his actions was him. And he’d fucked up. And for what?

He still couldn’t stop himself, not when Damen was looking at him like he didn’t even know him. Like he wanted to run far away in the opposite direction like he’d only just noticed the radioactive sign hanging around Laurent’s neck.

“It’s not that bad, I mean Auguste knows what you look like when you come. He knows the noises you make when you’re getting fucked,” Laurent shrugged “in fact he knows exactly what face you make when your heart is breaking,”

It was a low blow and Damen recoiled, eyes flashing, mouth tightening.

“So do you,”

Damen’s words were quiet, barely more than a whisper. But they ricocheted, a violent awful tear that had Laurent gasping, blinking furiously. He squared his jaw, shields up, some icy instinct bubbling up from his chest as he shook his head at Damen.

“It’s very Jokaste of you, isn’t it? From one brother to the other,”

Damen flinched, expression flaring, head jolting back as though Laurent had physically slapped him. He might as well have.

“Don’t do that,” Damen said, voice shaky “this is nothing like that, Auguste and I were over for a long time before I ever even noticed you, I never went behind Auguste’s back and I have never lied to you,”

“No you just went behind Erasmus’ back and lied to him instead,”

The slap didn’t quite land, instead of pain there was just fury, indecision swimming in the depths of Damen’s eyes when he glared back at him.

“Say what you really mean, cut the shit,”

Laurent bit down on his tongue, jutting his chin higher and forcing his posture straighter.

“You think it doesn’t kill me? That my brother had you first? That you belong to Erasmus?”

Damen glared as he squared his jaw, the muscles in his arms bulging as he tensed.

“I’m not fucking property,” Damen hissed

“Well neither am I so what the fuck does it matter about Nikandros?” he asked even when he already fucking knew “we didn’t by the way, as he said, he told me no,”

“I’m not sure that matters to me, you might as fucking well have for how much it hurts, it’s the fucking principle because not five minutes ago you literally agreed it was only to hurt me so what am I supposed to do with that? What did you think would happen now?”

Sucking in a breath, he was helpless as he stared back at Damen, aware he had nothing to offer, nothing to make it better, no way of changing this. He wished he could go back to stop himself before it all went wrong. He wished he hadn’t done any of it. Maybe then Laurent wouldn’t be watching everything he wanted go up in smoke only to find his own hands holding the gasoline, realising he’d been the one to light the fire.

“He’s my best friend-“

He cut him off, twisting it up and spitting it out.

“Oh so it’s some alpha male bullshit? Can’t date the slut, not when your friend knows he’s fucked around, think what they’d all say behind your back, certainly can’t trust me not to-“

“I can’t trust you,” Damen said and somehow it sliced into him hard, flew past all of the other shitty things people had said to him over the years and somehow, fucking somehow landed in the top three worst things he’d ever had thrown at him.

I can’t trust you

Some things once learned cannot be forgotten.

You asked for it, begged for it, I just gave it to you, now you’re damaged goods and this is all you’ll ever be: a whore, who could ever love someone like that?

“Damen,”

The word was punched out of him on a breath, his stomach dropping to the region of his knees as his nose began to tingle and he pressed his lips together to stop them from trembling .

“So is this what it would be like? You don’t want to share me but I’m expected to share you whenever you fucking feel like it?” Damen asked

“No, I can be loyal,” he said, hands clenching, voice smaller, strained “I wouldn’t -anyone- if we were-“ he cut himself off, refused to even say it.

It didn’t bear saying. Hearing it would hurt worse when it was dashed. Damen wasn’t going to do this now. Laurent had ruined it before it had even had a chance.

“Can you? Do you even know how? You’ve never had a single relationship, all you do is sleep around,” Damen said calm and cool. A simple fact. Not a slap. It still felt like one.

“You aren’t complaining when it’s you I’m fucking around with,” Laurent said

“And how many others have there been?”

Lots, it was true. But those men? Stop gaps at best. Any of the other meaningless cocks he’d had? All exactly that; fucking meaningless. As good as fucking walking dildos to him. They meant absolutely fucking nothing to him. He didn’t even get most of their names, couldn’t point them out in a line up. Laurent didn’t even get off half the time. They didn’t matter.

How did Damen not know? How the fuck could he not see?

What -a traitorous voice whispered- had Laurent let him see?

“Would you even believe me if I told you it was you I wanted, every time, even when I was with someone else?”

“Probably not now, no,” Damen said and he could see well enough Damen took no satisfaction from saying it. It still hurt to hear.

“Because I’m a lying whore,”

“Your words not mine,” Damen said and Laurent cringed despite himself.

Stupidly, irrationally, he’d been hoping for- what exactly? Damen to disagree? He couldn’t. it was the truth. He was what he’d been made.

“Ah,” Laurent said, swallowing thickly, hating the stinging betrayal in his chest “so this is about body counts and not some sense of misplaced hurt about Nikandros?”

Damen’s eye roll came with a huff “it’s not about that,”

“Yes it is, you must be curious, if you’ve been jealous all this time, just admit it, it’s not about any of that, it’s about how many people I’ve bent over for, just-“

“Fine,” Damen snapped, throwing his hands up “do you even know how many people you’ve had sex with? Is that what I should be asking?”

He didn’t even need to consider it. No. No he didn’t. There were gaping holes in the memories of his teenage years, like he’d drawn a curtain around the main event and the rest was remembered in swatches and flickers.

There were other gaps too, more recent, closer, entirely his own doing. They blurred together to create one big messy tapestry of sex he couldn’t unravel or discern. Even without the gaps in his memories- he had no idea.

He didn’t respond but the shame made his cheeks hot all the same as Damen eyed him, nodding slowly.

“I’m not sure of mine either, like I said, it’s not about the number,”

Laurent let out a derisive laugh, striding closer in the hope of working some of the writhing restlessness out of him.

“So what then? That I wasn’t shy about it? Didn’t play pretend for you?” He snapped

Damen snorted, scrubbing a hand down his face “Jesus Christ,” he said “you have no fucking idea what it’s been like for me, do you? And you never fucking cared, it never crossed your mind even once, I never crossed your mind, that is my problem, why can’t you see that?”

He wanted to deny it, tell him Damen crossed his mind all the fucking time, too much, so much he couldn’t breathe or eat for thinking about him. 

“I didn’t know you cared who I slept with,”

Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to think about it too hard.

“Of course I fucking care, I always fucking hate it, did you think my feelings just went away? Did you not think that maybe if someone says they have feelings for you it might hurt seeing you play w-“

Laurent squared his jaw, tilted his head up “say it,”

“Laurent-“

“Say it, you can, I’m a whore, say it Damen,”

“Laurent,” it was a warning this time as Laurent shoved against his chest hard, again and again, forcing Damen to back up, the slam of his hands getting harder as his frustration seeped out of him.

“Say it Damen, say it, tell me what I am, show me what you think, show me-“

Damen gripped him hard, shoving him back and following him, the momentum had them staggering into the shelves, things toppling off, at least one thing smashing but Laurent didn’t care, barely noticed as Damen crowded him.

“You want me to treat you that way? Is that it? You want me to treat you like a whore then fine, I can, you’re used to it at least I gather,”

Laurent sucked in a breath, eyes wide as he stared up at him, already nodding before he really registered what Damen was saying.

“I hope you fucked someone else today,” Damen said as he leaned toward him, his mouth a shiver at Laurent’s ear, hands hard against Laurent’s body “if not this might hurt,”

Laurent’s breath hitched and it shouldn’t have made him hard, it shouldn’t have made his knees weak or his body too hot and restless with want. It was a threat even if it was sexy. Damen might not even have said it as anything but a warning but Laurent would split himself open again and again to take Damen any way he would let himself be had.

Damen out of control? Damen wanting him so badly he didn’t even care if it hurt him?

Laurent was salivating for it, for the physical proof of it, the physical feel of it, the things he could cling to after like reminder it had all been real. That Damen had been feral for him.

The anticipation was a heavy roiling beast between them, alive and entirely its own as Damen forced him around, one heavy palm in the centre of his back to keep him against the shelves. As if Laurent had thoughts to be anywhere other than exactly where Damen wanted him.

With his hands braced on a shelf Laurent’s joggers and underwear were yanked down, pushed down to pool at his ankles and when he tried to widen his stance Damen stopped him, kicking his legs back together with a gruff I don’t think so breathed against his neck.

Oh. Fuck.

Laurent wanted it so badly he was shaking.

“I haven’t been with anyone else since your office,” Laurent said “and… and even when I have, before, I always wished it was you, every time Damen, every fucking time,”

He doubted he’d ever been more honest with Damen and Damen behind him froze, hands still on his hips for a long beat before he stepped closer.

“And who’s fucking fault is it that it wasn’t?”

Laurent hung his head, shoulders hitching as a shuddering breath escaped him.

“Tell me,”

Damen spanked him, hard, one harsh slap to his ass forcing a cry from Laurent, skin stinging and an answer springing from his mouth.

“Mine, it’s my fault,”

Damen hummed his assent and Laurent listened to the sound of his jeans splaying, the buttons being torn open before Damen was spitting. The slick sound of his hand around his cock made Laurent swallow, tempted to shuffle his feet apart. But he held still.

“You’re gonna take what I give you, aren’t you?” Damen said fisting a hand in his hair and tugging his head up sharply

“And beg for more,”

The press of Damen’s’ cock against his hole was blunt, hot, a tease as Damen thrust forward, not enough to breach him, but enough to make him want, for his instincts to have him bearing down, encouraging the pressure.

“Good,”

Damen slammed home in one harsh thrust and Laurent cried out, knees nearly giving out as Damen pushed inside him. His arm went around Laurent’s waist, fingers splaying over his stomach, keeping him upright, holding him still as Laurent absorbed the burn of it.

Laurent panted, breaths shuddering out of him as Damen stroked his stomach, not moving until Laurent nodded, pushed back on him, tested the sensation. It was with a surprised start he realised he hadn’t even thought about having sex in days. There hadn’t been anyone but Damen since he’d let him come inside him at his office.

His thoughts were robbed by the way Damen pulled back, a long slow retreat, forcing Laurent to feel all of him, aware of every last impressive inch of him. He clenched around him, savouring the sensation and the burn as the breath sluiced out of him.

The pace was a tease because the second Damen had pulled out completely he fucked straight back in, hard, jolting, the denim of his jeans rough against Laurent’s skin as he slammed into him hard and fast and so fucking deep he could choke on it.

Damen was big, and whenever it was dry, with nothing but spit he felt huge. Like he had split Laurent’s body open and was nudging at his stomach, forcing his insides to rearrange around him; for him. And Laurent would do it gladly, thrilled to it, to the idea Damen could make a home inside him and stay there.

Tangling a hand in Laurent’s hair and bruising his other around his hip, Damen fucked him relentlessly, the shelves shaking as much as Laurent’s knees were, fucking him so hard there would be bruises everywhere. Laurent was losing himself to it, eyes closed and mouth hanging open around a litany of obscene noises.

All too abruptly Damen pulled out, stepped back, and the empty ache he left behind was unbearable. Laurent let out a whine, all distress as he threw a glance over his shoulder. If Damen left him and walked away he’d wouldn’t be able to come alone. He already knew. Too frustrated. Too keyed up. Too desperate for him.

“Bedroom,” he said and Laurent’s knees buckled at the command and the relief.

He had to clench his hands on the edges of the shelf as Damen announced his retreat with nothing but cooling air over Laurent’s burning skin.

He turned, wobbly and unmoored but Damen’s sharp no stopped him immediately, making him freeze.

“Drop your clothes and then crawl,”

Stripping was the easy part but he was surprised by how quickly he dropped to his knees, folding himself down, shaking even as he pressed sweating palms to the cool cheap linoleum. Damen grunted his approval and Laurent couldn’t drop his gaze as Damen backed away and he followed the silent command.

The scorch of something like shame burnt in his cheeks and in his stomach even as his cock throbbed painfully and he followed Damen into the bedroom. On all fours like a dog. It was fitting somehow, churning in his stomach and in his chest with a wash of humiliation and relief that unsettled him.

Damen directed him to the bed and Laurent climbed up willingly, pressing his face into the pillows, ass up in the air. He waited, breathing deep with his eyes closed as he listened to Damen uncap the lube, and climb up behind him on the bed.

For a long moment there was nothing, one palm holding him open, a single finger tracing his rim; accusatory or probing or maybe concerned. He didn’t know or care. All he cared about was getting Damen back inside him.

He wriggled, shifting his hips and clenching down, offering Damen an obscene view. With the cool dribble of lube over his hole he braced, impatience overtaken by surprise when it wasn’t Damen’s cock pressing back into him but three thick fingers.

Once Damen’s fingers were buried he held them there, flexing them, spreading them, before moving over Laurent’s prostate relentlessly. Laurent cried out, fingers tangling in the sheets, hips moving with Damen’s brutal fucking fingers, garbled noises spilling from him with the same embarrassing frequency with which his cock was leaking.

“You’re making such a mess for me,” Damen said touching one fingertip to Laurent’s cock, swiping over the slit where he was fucking dripping all over the bedding.

Damen pressed down on his prostate harder, faster, a flickering maddening rhythm Laurent’s entire body reacted to, vibrating, shaking for it, the pleasure intense as it surged through him, had him right on the edge as his cock pulsed with it.

When Damen pulled his fingers out it was only to push them back in, four this time, a wide stretch that had Laurent gasping, clenching his fists in to the bedding and widening his knees apart.

“Hold yourself open,”

Laurent had to work to make his fingers let go of the duvet but he managed it, turning to lay his cheek against the pillow as he reached around, spread his cheeks apart to give Damen better access and a better view.

Damen twisted his hand, his fingers stretching him open, obscene and good, even when it burned, when it made him choke on noises that sounded like whines he couldn’t ever recall making before. Until.

Until Damen drew back just enough to fold his thumb, press it inside with the rest of his fingers. He only added more lube once his thumb was inside, once Laurent was burning with it, heated and surprised, and stretched around Damen’s hand.

Damen didn’t stop. He didn’t stop pushing and pressing and Laurent shifted, the noise coming out of him indecisive between yes and no even as he was bearing down, pushing back, struggling to make his body do as Damen commanded.

The stretch was a burn, an ache, a terrible splitting pain and a sharp obscene pleasure as his hole expanded around the widest part of Damen’s palm. He waited for the relief, for the sucking, greedy feel of his body closing over the smaller width of Damen’s wrist but it didn’t come. Damen held himself there. Held Laurent there. Held him open with his hand buried in his ass and flexed his fingers.

Damen twisted his hand, not pushing, not pulling, not moving to fuck him at all except to test the stretch of his straining rim around the wide, wide palm holding his ass open, rotating enough to push and nudge at his insides.

“Now you look like a whore,”

Laurent whimpered, turning his forehead into the bed and clenching his fingers, digging them in, nails biting into his own skin, still holding himself open as he bit down on the bedding. He was still hard. His cock throbbed, a needy wanton pulse heavy between his legs: a condemning and mortifying truth.

He heard the click of the cap, felt more liquid and braced to take his whole hand. Laurent expected the coil of fingers inside him and the wide bulb Damen would make with his fist. It didn’t come. Instead.

Instead.

There was something else pressing at his already over-stuffed hole. Hot. Hard. Unmistakable.

Laurent’s breath left him in whoosh, his answering hiss all alarm. Tempered only by the suddenly burning notion of the reality settling into his stomach in a twisted desperate and vicious want.

Damen’s cock. Pressing, Testing. Pushing. A brutal stab against strained skin, forcing him open further. When Damen pulled back and his thumb popped free it was a brief relief. But in the next instant Damen was using the motion and the slither of space was gone too soon; swallowed by his cock as he fucked into him. Hard. Brutal. Too much.

Still not enough.

Laurent choked, a yell climbing out of his throat as he clenched down despite himself and felt it all; every last wicked inch of him as Damen fucked in and in and in. Fucking his cock into Laurent alongside four of his long, thick fingers. When he stilled Laurent went boneless, his grip on himself lost as he slapped his hands down on the mattress, muscles contracting. Laurent’s brain was too foggy to think past it. He was so fucking full of Damen. Had he ever been this full? Stretched like this? There was only Damen, in him, filling him, stretching him, reshaping Laurent’s insides the way he’d already reshaped his head and his heart and everything else like he had a right.

 Maybe he did. Maybe Laurent had already given it to him. Probably from the first night.

“Fucking hell Laurent, taking me so well, you’re doing so good baby,” Damen said behind him, voice a dark rumble that made Laurent’s eyes roll as he felt Damen testing his fingers against his own cock. Buried in him.

The praise lit him up, had him squirming, moaning restlessly as he bit down, eyes squeezed closed, struggling to take it. He was shaking, his body torn between fighting to get away and fighting to push back, the lines between what felt good and what didn’t blurring and merging and the confusion made him shake. Tremble. Tears leaking from the corners of his closed eyes as his cock wept between his legs.

“You’d let me do anything wouldn’t you?” Damen asked, the kind of tone that said he was only now getting it.

Damen groaned, thrusting lightly, the fingers of his other hand running around the rim, the place where Laurent was straining around him, where they were joined, the skin there no doubt shiny and red. It felt like he was going to split apart, like his skin was going to tear and Damen would slice him in half from there to his balls.

“Yes,” he managed, a croak, a confirmation Damen hadn’t needed. But Laurent wanted to give him.

“Fuck Laurent, so fucking hot baby, so fucking good for me,”

The words had him clenching down hard around Damen, moaning at the too-much-too-sharp feel of him and pushing back, testing the stretch. Damen groaned, pushed in further with his cock and the nudge and grind made Laurent’s entire stomach feel full. Heavy. Weighted.

“Damen I’m so fucking full of you,” he panted

“Do you like it?”

Laurent’s cheeks burned and he nodded into the mattress, clenching as much as he could around Damen’s cock. And his fucking hand. Holy fuck he’d never been stretched open like this. It was fucking obscene. He felt owned.

It was a dizzying feeling, freeing, and safe, and perfect. It felt total. Damen’s ownership of him a real weighted and measured thing in his body. His want more than just sensation, something Laurent could cling to.

Damen groaned, and thrust forward, pushing his thumb inside too, pushing deeper in patient thrusts until Laurent had taken his whole hand alongside his cock, in him to the wrist. Damen moved in earnest then, fucking into him with his cock as his hand stayed buried, teasing his insides. The dual sensation of his fingers shifting and his cock moving inside him in relentless hard strokes had Laurent crying out, whining, moaning, begging for something he couldn’t name.

He was coming apart, entirely undone, leaking steadily as his cock twitched and his balls pulled up tight every time Damen stabbed at his prostate or his knuckles stroked him. There was so much sensation. He felt weirdly, staggeringly, alive. So very far from numb. It was brutal and he revelled in it.

Damen fucked him and as he did Laurent could feel his fingers curling, could feel his wrist moving, knew Damen was stroking his own cock with the hand he had buried in Laurent. The thought did wicked things to him, Damen was inside him and wanking himself off. Hot. Filthy. Degrading. Using him.

So fucking good it lit him up.

Damen had been rough before. He had been hard and hot and relentless but it was the first time he’d ever fucked Laurent like this. Like he really was just a whore.

And Laurent felt it as he spread his legs wider, flexed his hips up, wriggling his ass and clenching his hole like a good slut. A desperate whore. Presenting like he was being paid. Begging like he needed the money.

And he did. But with them the currency was, and always had been, passion. In any of its iterations. And if tonight passion looked like pain and tasted like ecstasy then Laurent would pump his veins full of it and sate himself until he couldn’t see straight. Like all good addicts.

“Fuck, I’m going to come inside you,”

“Please,” Laurent begged, reaching back again, spreading himself as wide as he could “give it to me, let me have it, please,”

“Such a good little come slut,” Damen said thrusting harder

Laurent bit down on his lip, the brutal fuck of Damen’s cock and fist too much, a bruising kind of fuck that had him gasping until Damen was holding himself deep, pumping and pumping and pumping into him, coming hard.

Laurent couldn’t feel it, hole burning, unable to tell if Damen’s come leaked out when he pulled his cock out. He imagined it anyway: Damen’s hand still holding him open, his cock retreating, come spilling down over his balls. He wanted it.

Damen did curl his fingers once his cock had slipped free, using his fist in quick, teasing strokes, twisting so his knuckles brushed at his prostate on every pass. His other hand went to Laurent’s needy cock, jerking him off in time with the relentless twist of his fist until Laurent pulled taut, clenching down in rhythmic bursts as he came all over Damen’s hands, thighs shaking with the intensity, breath ribboning out of him, sense lost as he garbled words at Damen and squirmed around his fist until he was exhausted, boneless, docile, and panting.

An utter fucking wreck.

When Damen pulled out he did so slowly, carefully. Laurent’s body tried to suck him back in, keep him there and Laurent’s rim went with him, pulling uncomfortably until Damen pressed his thumb there, his fingers, holding Laurent’s body back as his hand came free.

He could feel Damen pushing something back in, knew it was part of him, skin, and the shiny red and pink viscera of his fucking insides, following Damen out, chasing him and being coaxed back inside, or as much as that could be accomplished, by Damen’s careful fingers.

Fuck.

It hurt even if it seemed far away. Laurent could only pant into the bedding, knees spread so wide his groin was burning. He didn’t think he could move. Maybe he’d never be able to move again and he’d stay there; a puddled mess Damen had made.

Damen shifted, moving to sit on the edge of the bed and Laurent observed him, the tension in his shoulders as he wiped his hands on the bedding before he stilled. Elbows on his knees and fingers clenched in his own hair.

With a hiss Laurent tentatively moved, turning onto his side to prop himself up. It hurt to do so, he was sore, his body screaming for sleep. Damen was still dressed, hadn’t even taken his top off. He got caught on that, waiting with baited breath.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,”

Damen sent him a pointed and disbelieving stare

Laurent sighed “it hurt but it’s not bad, it’s nothing I can’t handle and I- I wanted it,”

“Did you?”

It felt weighted, made Laurent flinch and he wasn’t sure why.

“I wanted it Damen, I came so hard,”

Damen turned away from him, massaging his forehead for a long moment, letting out a long-frustrated sigh.

When Damen got to his feet, he did his jeans back up, didn’t even glance back at him until he was in the bedroom doorway. Laurent had long ago thought he’d memorised all of Damen’s expressions but he didn’t recognise this one. He wouldn’t. Damen had never looked at him like this before. Not even before. When he was younger, when they barely knew each other, before the sex, even after Auguste he’d never looked at Laurent like this. Like he didn’t know him. He didn’t want to know him or care to or…

No. It was worse. It was much, much worse.

It was the unbearable weight of knowing. Of being known. It said I know you, I see you it said I’m not sure I like it.

It wasn’t a surprise. It was expected, wasn’t it?

This is who he was. Destructive and chaotic and impulsive. He didn’t feel the horror yet. Just an empty kind of ache to mirror Damen’s expression.

“Leaving so soon?” Laurent managed, derisive as he could muster

Damen’s expression didn’t change but the muscles at his jaw clenched and he blinked. Hiding from him.

“I was barely 19 when I got with Auguste,” Damen said “I was just a kid really and he was the first guy I’d ever been with, he was older, beautiful, confident, he knew what he wanted and he chased me relentlessly, made me feel special,”

Laurent nodded, tight, unsure why Damen was telling him this. He remembered. Vaguely. Auguste hadn’t lived with him then so Laurent hadn’t really had a lot to do with Damen except when Auguste brought him round. Laurent had had so much going on he hadn’t paid much attention. He wasn’t sure what this had to do with them but Damen was staring at him seriously, like this mattered here and now.

“Then when he had me, he was an asshole, he treated me like a fucking doormat, always making me feel like everything was my fault, gaslighting the shit out of me, insulting me and pretending it was a joke, taking me for granted, and I was young and stupid and in love and I let him,”

“Damen-“

“No, just listen,” Damen said “and after four years of his shit, after all the fights and the on again off again shit, I just- I don’t know, he just made me feel like I was disposable, like I should be grateful that he kept me around, like I could be replaced so fucking easily,”

Damen shook his head, eyes closing, remembered pain or pain for having to say it now, Laurent didn’t know.

“When we broke up we had a huge fight, he told me he treated me that way because I was replaceable, I was just a fucking convenience,” Damen let out an unamused huff “he told me if I walked out not to bother coming back, so I did, and he told everyone he dumped me and that was it,”

Laurent had a horrible, horrible feeling he knew where this was going.

“And I’ve been trying to tell myself this isn’t like that but really, it’s exactly what it is, what I’ve always been to you, a convenient fucking doormat for you to fuck when you want and ignore when you don’t, you’re just like him, you treat me the exact same way he did and you always have… like I’m fucking replaceable,”

“The last thing you are is replaceable,” he said, desperately, even though he knew Damen wouldn’t hear him.

“You’ve said enough times that I am, in words, in action- I just- I can’t do this again, I won’t do this again, this is just- your brother broke my heart and a month later I got with Jokaste because I was just so-“ he shook his head “and then she treated me like shit too… is there something about me that has all the people I care about just screw me over? Is there something so fucking fundamentally horrible about me that I deserve-“

Laurent pressed his eyes closed, shaking his head as that word sliced through him. The very last thing he could bear was Damen feeling like he deserved it. Laurent knew the feeling, he knew it viscerally, it haunted him, it had him making all kinds of bad decisions and if there was one thing he never wanted Damen to feel, it was this. Like there was something wrong with him. Like he’d ever done anything to make the people he loved hurt him.

“Damen, no, please never think that,“ he said pushing himself up to his knees

Damen scoffed a sad wet sounding noise.

“You, Auguste, Jokaste, Kastor, fuck even my dad, there’s literally only Nikandros who has never fucked me over and you tried to use him against me,”

“Please Damen, please don’t do this, I didn’t mean any of it, I don’t want Nikandros, I fucking hate myself for even thinking it, I didn’t- please Damen… don’t do this,“

He would beg him. Beg him not to do this. Not to walk away. Not to break him.

“I’m not sure I like-“

Laurent snorted “what? Me? Let me guess, you’re not sure you like me now you’ve seen who I really am? Am I right?”

Damen frowned, shook his head “I’ve always known who you are Laurent, I’m just not sure I like who I am when I’m around you,” he said and Laurent sucked in a breath “I don’t want to be like my dad and I- I can’t ever take back what I did to Erasmus and that’s- fucked up, I’m fucked up… you fuck me up Laurent,”

That was worse. It felt worse.

For once Laurent didn’t have anything to add. He didn’t know what to say or what he could do. What he should do. He opened his mouth but no words came out, crashed on his tongue like a pile up on a busy road.

Damen bowed his head and when he turned away it was slow like he was moving through honey. It was the resigned discomfort of inevitability. When he walked out Laurent listened to the pad of his footsteps as he moved down the corridor, waited for the slam of his front door. When it didn’t come he was oddly bereft because this felt huge, it felt too big to be contained by the simple quiet click of his lock. It should be a slam. A bang. A crash. Not a tiny indecipherable noise swallowed by silence.

He half convinced himself he wasn’t gone. That he’d changed his mind and he’d hear those footsteps in the corridor to prove it. Except they didn’t come.

It didn’t escape him, as he lay in the ruined bedding with his body throbbing not altogether pleasantly that whilst Damen didn’t like himself around Laurent, Laurent liked himself better when Damen was around. He could even admit, in the quiet tense cavity of his chest, he wanted even the version of Damen that Damen was ashamed of. Because even at his worst he was everything Laurent wanted.

That’s what it came down to.

Damen was the only thing in his life that felt like a choice. Like his. Something for him. Something good. And he’d pushed him away. Never really even given them a chance.

And now Damen didn’t want him and Laurent couldn’t even blame him because he’d done this to himself.

~*~

The moment Laurent stepped into the office the following day he knew he’d made a mistake. He was sore, his body protesting every movement, his eyes were dry and itchy, and he had two dark rings beneath them from lack of sleep.

Katie’s voice reached him before he even rounded the corner into the kitchen-area on his way through the office toward his desk and it made him freeze, stomach turning over with a horrified realisation.

“Why are you even here babe? You should have called in sick,”

“I need to keep busy, if I don’t I’ll- I have to,” Erasmus said and his voice was as shaky as Laurent felt.

“I can’t believe it, I mean I always knew he was a bitch but this? Do you think he’ll be in today?” Lily asked

Oh. They were talking about him. He should have foreseen it but for some reason he’d -wrongly- assumed Erasmus wouldn’t be in and would probably not say anything. Laurent wouldn’t have, he’d be too embarrassed.

Erasmus said something in response, too quiet for Laurent to hear.

“If you need somewhere to stay, you can stay with me, my sister wouldn’t mind,” Katie said

“No, Damen… he left, he’s gone to his friends and I- I didn’t even tell him to,”

“Wait so he just left?”

“Yeah, he stormed out after we argued and then he came back and he packed some things, told me he was staying at his mate’s, I have no idea where we stand or what happens now,”

“What do you want?”

Laurent held his breath; the words Damen had said once upon a time about Erasmus not being the kind of person to just leave repeating in his head like the pounding of an ominous war drum.

“I don’t know what I want, I just want him to- I don’t know, we need to talk more,”

If they stayed together Laurent would quit his job. He couldn’t deal with that. He couldn’t. He didn’t even want to think about it.

“I knew he was too good to be true,” Lily said “men are so shit,”

“Did he say anything else?”

Laurent didn’t want to hear any more so he took a deep breath lifted his chin and rounded the corner. The silence was deafening and he was fairly sure the three of them were glaring at him. Katie or Lily hissed like a cat.

“You’ve got a fucking nerve,” Lily snapped at him

Laurent didn’t stop.

“So they tell me,”

“Homewrecking slut,” Katie said under her breath

Laurent whirled around, glancing first at Lily and Katie’s disgusted faces to Erasmus who was staring at him like he was something he’d stepped in.

“It’s not my fault you didn’t keep him satisfied,”

“What? And you did? Is that it?” Katie sneered “if that were true he’d have been with you but he wasn’t, he didn’t want you, he knows what you are, a cheap easy fuck and nothing else,”

Cheap. Easy. He didn’t want you.

Except he had. Hadn’t he? Laurent had been the one to put the guards up, to keep Damen out. And it hadn’t worked. He couldn’t stay away from him and all he’d fucking done was hurt them both. Keep them both from what they wanted.

“He works from mine sometimes, did he tell you that?” Laurent asked staring at Erasmus “you’ve been on teams with me and he’s been right there and oh!” Laurent laughed “at the weekend? When you came home from shopping with Katie here, you were worried Damen was acting weird, right?”

Erasmus shook his head staring at him, wide eyed and Laurent couldn’t stop. He couldn’t find the brakes, it was like watching a fucking car crash and he was behind the wheel, knew he was about to collide but the wheel had locked and there was nothing he could do.

“He was weird because I was right there,” Laurent said

“No,” Erasmus said voice firm

Laurent snorted “yes, I snuck out when you went to run the bath, tell me,” Laurent said stepping closer “did I taste good?”

Erasmus stared back at him, head shaking like he had no control over it, body vibrating as Laurent just kept going. Why couldn’t he fucking stop?

“Couldn’t you tell the difference? I came all over him, he came inside me, you-“

Erasmus gasped, realisation sinking in and as his gaze went glassy. Katie and Lily jumped into action, calling Laurent every name under the sun but he soaked it in and up, like his reward for being so cruel.

They tugged Erasmus away and Laurent deflated the second they were out of sight. He knew, logically, it wasn’t Erasmus’ fault. No, the blame was his own. And yet.

It was easier, wasn’t it? To hate him for it. Laurent was quite used to hating himself and there was only so much lashing out he could do, but Erasmus? A much easier outlet.

It was a long day, by midmorning Laurent had had to excuse himself to the bathroom, to lock himself in a cubicle and breathe, fighting off the emotion lurking beneath the surface.

Erasmus had clearly told Maureen, because he’d moved desks and Laurent found himself sitting next to the office antique, who took an hour to type one email with one finger and asked him questions constantly about not being able to print, or save a PDF, or attach something to a case.

He checked his phone religiously and only had one text by lunch.

Can we talk please?

It was exactly the text he wanted, but it was from the wrong person. Aimeric had called a few times, but Laurent had absolutely no interest in talking to him. He didn’t have the room in his head for it.

After work he went straight home, got into bed and pulled the covers over his head like hiding could make it better, trap the shuddering half sobs in the safety of his blankets instead of letting them out into the air where they’d haunt him.

He did everyone a favour and called in sick for the rest of the week, spent his days drinking and taking too many pills, praying Damen would call. Half typing texts to him that went unsent and replaying every awful second of the past few weeks like his own little torture reel in his head.

Laurent didn’t know what was wrong with him. He hadn’t felt like this before, it was like everything was even more of a struggle than usual. Getting out of bed seemed impossible. He didn’t want to eat or shower and everything made him want to fucking cry.

It was a long awful way from the numb he was used to and he wanted it back. Desperately. Anything to stop the splitting, crumbling, ache in his chest.

The knock on his door on Saturday night was unwelcome but the lingering unrelenting hope hadn’t quite died in his chest yet, and he half convinced himself it would be Damen. Instead it was Ancel and Isander, slightly drunk and complaining about Laurent not answering his phone, trying to tempt him out to some club Laurent had never been to. It wasn’t a gay bar, which meant there wasn’t going to be the type of distraction he was itching for but couldn’t quite bring himself to actively seek.

It required getting out of bed. Or getting showered. Or actively moving.

And Laurent wasn’t much interested in doing any of those things.

“Don’t be a bore,” Ancel said barrelling past Laurent “it’s bad enough Aimeric is MIA, I’m not having you do it too,”

Isander was nicer, giving him a hug as he slid into the flat and perched himself on the sofa, offering the open bottle of wine to Laurent.

He took it, watching absently as Ancel swept into his bedroom, complaining about the mess. Ancel came back moments later with one of Laurent’s tops he usually reserved solely for the photos he put on Grindr or sent to Damen, and his tightest jeans.

The thought of Damen made him frown, take a generous swig of Isander’s wine.

“Get dressed, I’m not leaving this flat without you,”

It was easier to just do it rather than argue. It required much less thought.

Laurent regretted it as soon as they were at the club. It was as generic a club as it was possible to be. Full of men and women dancing and grinding, a few bars at different points around the generous space, flashing lights and the occasional spray of smoke or dry ice from a machine near the DJ booth. And loud. So fucking loud.

Laurent was five drinks deep and wanted to go home. His head was pounding with the rhythm of the music and his skin was skittering with the closeness of so many people and wandering hands. He couldn’t deal with it tonight.

Pushing through the crowd and away from his hiding place against the wall he made his way toward Ancel, intending to tell him he was going home. Before he could get there he was jostled and sent stumbling into someone.

He turned, intending to apologise or snap depending on what they said and froze.

Nikandros.

Laurent felt his face pale, shrinking beneath the stare settling on him. Reminding him of the last time he’d seen him. And what Laurent had done. How he’d ruined fucking everything.

The gaze scrolling down him was not interested, but they catalogued every single thing about him and it made him cross his arms over his chest, hug himself, abruptly and violently ashamed. Of himself. Of what he was wearing. Of what he was.

He expected vitriol. Some scathing words that would slither around the cavity of his chest and linger in the spaces where his hurt was busy carving out parts of him. Instead there was dismissal. Nikandros snorted and turned away, back to him, like Laurent was nothing and not worth his time.

He’d taken exactly three more steps before he realised Nikandros being at the club meant it was possible Damen was too. Telling himself he wasn’t searching for him, he started to wander, craning his head, weaving through the people on the dancefloor until, finally, he found him.

And immediately wished he had not.

The ache intensified, like a cavern widening behind his ribs, his stomach heaving like he was on a ship, was ready to go to his knees with the off-kilter hideous pang making him freeze, even when he wanted to run in the complete opposite direction.

It was, impossibly, worse than witnessing Damen with Erasmus. Laurent at least knew to expect it but this? This was a stranger, a girl with long black hair cascading to her waist, in a tiny skirt and massive heels, kissing him and touching him and Laurent’s reaction was a visceral screaming no.

Laurent stood there, like a fool, glued to the way Damen’s hands were wandering, to the way her tits were pressing against his chest until they finally came up for air. He was still standing there like a fucking idiot when Damen caught sight of him.

The emotions flickering across his face were much too quick for Laurent to latch on to, but the one he settled on was easy enough to identify.

His brow snapped down, tight and unforgiving even as he scanned him as Nikandros had, appraising him. Usually Damen’s eyes made him hot, heated him from the inside, this was not that kind of look. It still affected him more than he wanted it to.

Damen didn’t say anything, he swallowed, mouth opening as though he were going to before he clenched his hands into fists and span on his heel, walking away. Laurent followed helplessly.

At least he left the girl behind, she didn’t seem bothered, turned to start dancing with someone else instead, not even losing her rhythm. Laurent caught up to him as Damen passed through the doors toward the toilets. It was a dingy corridor, with people stumbling in and out and two wide double doors open right beside them, the smoke from outside drifting in.

“Stop following me,” Damen hissed at him on the threshold and the alcohol coming off of him was strong.

He didn’t think he was much better himself. Damen’s eyes were bloodshot, his posture a little loose, a few drinks into his night clearly.

“What are you doing here?” Laurent asked aware it was a stupid question.

Damen glared, sent him another pointed roving look “I’d ask you the same thing but we both know the answer to that,” he said already turning away

Laurent grit his teeth, absorbing the slap, and followed Damen into the smoking area. It was packed though Laurent didn’t have to push past anyone or weave through them, people seemed to move the fuck out of Damen’s way. He dreaded to think what his face was doing.

He wasn’t left wondering for long, Damen found a spot near the back and charmed a cigarette from a guy sitting at a nearby table, stooping down so the guy could even light it for him. He had looked furious, right up until the moment he was turning his dimples on the unsuspecting stranger to get what he wanted.

Laurent waited impatiently for Damen to shift back against the wall and the second he did he was at a loss for what to even say. He lost a few seconds to nostalgia instead, tracking the cigarette between Damen’s fingers as he inhaled, the slight purse of his lips as he exhaled; it reminded him of before.

Before Erasmus, when things were easier. For him, anyway. Not for Damen, if Laurent was to believe him. And he really had no reason not to. Damen was many things but a liar had never been one of them.

At least, he was beginning to understand, not with him.

It did not feel good to be on the outside of Damen’s guard. To not be allowed close or in. To have no idea what was going on his head. He hated it. He hated the questions that came with it, like had he slept with anyone else? How many could he have conceivably fucked in 5 days? Were they men or women? Did the gender matter to him? Was it different with one or the other? Had he missed women whilst he was fucking Erasmus and Laurent exclusively?

If he did it was certainly something Laurent would never be able to give him. Like kids. Did Damen want kids? He didn’t think so but he hadn’t ever asked.

“What do you want Laurent?” Damen said around an exhale of smoke

“Oh well I thought that was obvious, I’m dressed like a whore right? Obviously, I want to be fucked,”

Damen grit his teeth, nodding “I meant aside from the obvious, what the fuck are you following me for? I’ve got no interest in fucking you,”

“You weren’t saying that when you had your whole hand inside me,”

Damen smirked, infuriating and sexy and hateful all at the same fucking time.

“I was thinking it,”

Laurent seethed, taking a step closer so he could spit the words properly.

“Oh? Is that what we’re doing? Playing pretend?”

Damen laughed, closed some of the distance “thought I’d take a leaf out of your book,”

“I have never pretended with you,” A lie. He pretended all the fucking time.

“No just with a thousand other people, damn I’m so lucky,”

Laurent felt that one, had to clench his hands into fists to get a grip on it. Damen wasn’t done, his scathing tongue unfurling before them in a way Laurent had never had to experience. He’d seen it, sure, Damen could be mean, but he’d never let loose on him.

He didn’t know how to weather it.

“Nikandros is here you know, maybe you should go show him your ass again, see if he fancies it any better now that he’s drunk,”

Laurent’s face flamed and he sneered despite himself “maybe I will, maybe I’ll let him slip it in right on the dance floor, do you think anyone would notice?”

Damen’s jaw clicked and he dropped his half-smoked cigarette, glaring down at him “go right ahead and find out, why even bother stopping there? You could just bend over and let the whole club fuck you, it seems like your kind of thing,”

Unbidden in his mind Laurent saw flashes of a different club, the darkness, swatches of skin in the room as they fucked him one after the other and shame was a familiar regretful friend swamping him.

“Oh,” Damen laughed “I was joking but clearly, it really is your kind of thing,”

“You done slut shaming me yet?”

“I don’t know, you done being a slut who gets off on being shamed?”

Laurent reared back a step, surprised by his words and even more surprised by the kick in his chest reminding him he’d asked Damen to do it. More than once.

“You trying to get me off?” he fired back

Damen leant closer still, holding Laurent’s gaze.

“We both know I’ve never had to try,”

Damen didn’t break the stare, and the longer they stared, the harder Laurent breathed, the more he was aware of the moment changing, the tension shifting, jolting in an entirely different direction as Damen’s gaze flashed down to his mouth and Laurent’s hands itched to rise.

“I know,” Laurent breathed “you’ve always been more, it’s always been… different,”

His swallow was thick but the sway forward came from Damen, taking a step Laurent wasn’t sure he was aware of until their chests bumped together. Laurent stopped breathing, tipping his head back to look at him, taking him in, breathtaking and right there and everything he wanted.

“Different?” Damen asked, eyes dropping, pinging between his mouth and both of his eyes in turn.

Laurent was overwhelmed by the proximity, breathing deep, savouring Damen’s scent, tinged even as it was by alcohol.

“Different, better, intense,” Laurent said “no one’s had me the way you have,”

Damen licked his lips and Laurent’s gaze fell to it, his own mimicking the movement, his chest bumping against Damen’s with every choppy inhale. The outside world didn’t exist, there was nothing and no one but this, just Damen pressing against him, staring at him like-

Like Laurent was, somehow, everything he wanted.

Laurent nodded, a small stiff movement, telling him it was okay. He wanted this. He wanted it so fucking badly he could taste it.

“I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you,” Damen said

Admission for admission. Laurent’s eyes fluttered with want to close, savouring the words.

“Then take what you want Damen, please,” he said, leaning closer

He saw the exact second Damen realised what was happening. He saw it cascade through his features, starting in his eyes, an avalanche of awareness thundering through his body until he was tearing himself backward, shaking his head wordlessly.

It hurt. More than it had a right to when Laurent already knew Damen wasn’t ever going to kiss him again.

Laurent pressed his lips together, nodding tightly and turned on his heel, barging through the crowd and all the way back through the club until he was bursting out onto the street and shaking as he lit a cigarette.

He chain smoked three, back to back, the back of his throat scratchy with it as he pulled his phone out to get a taxi. It was eight fucking minutes away. Perfect, fucking perfect.

He leant back against the building, focusing on his breathing and trying to keep his shit together. He was doing an okay job of it until he saw Damen again.

Damen, hand in hand with a dark-skinned girl, her hair a halo of coils and the yellow of her dress a stark stunning contrast to her ebony skin. She was beautiful, like some kind of fucking model and Laurent could only watch, stomach sinking and something behind his ribs tearing straight down the middle as they climbed into one of the expensive waiting taxi’s and drove away.

Laurent cancelled his taxi, went back inside and ordered shots until he was drunk. Until he was so drunk he was barely seeing straight, wasted and stupid with it, some woman hanging off of him who kept paying for his drinks. When she took him by the hand Laurent didn’t much care that she was leading him to the toilets. He didn’t have it in him to care.

Laurent let her steer him into a stall in the men’s toilets and her mouth was at his neck the second the door was closed. Her hands wandered and Laurent tipped his head back against the wall, face turned away and locked on a crack in one of the wall tiles.

Was this what Damen was doing right now? Was a girl kissing down his neck whilst he thought about Laurent?

No, probably not, one thing Damen had never been was passive. He’d have his hands all over her, he’d be making her come, making her feel good because that’s what sex with Damen was like. He was attentive, focused, the same determination he approached life with he turned on his lover’s body, sought out all their secrets with his fingers and his tongue until they were ready to fall apart for him.

Laurent had. Was still falling apart for him and he didn’t even have Damen’s hands on him anymore. Probably never would again.

And he missed them. Him. Not even just the sex. He missed their stupid conversations and his stupid dimples and his stupid texts that always made Laurent light up like he was getting a gift.

The woman was sinking lower, trailing gloss sticky lips over his chest as she sank to her knees and Laurent’s body sagged against the wall, the room swaying and spinning as he watched her undo his jeans.

The moment she wrapped her mouth around his disinterested cock he realised just how fucking drunk he was. He didn’t even like women. Was this how fucked up he was? Was he that fucking desperate? Why couldn’t he just say no? He never had, had he? But this?

He attempted to push at her shoulder but he was uncoordinated, sloppy with it and she pulled off enough to smile up at him.

“It’s okay, I’ll get you there,”

It wasn’t okay, nothing was okay. He didn’t say it, just let it happen, let her put her mouth back on him until his body started to respond. It didn’t feel bad, it felt fine, but would be better if it was someone else.

Damen. If it was Damen. Damen liked bathroom sex.

It should be Damen.

She hummed around his cock and he flinched squeezing his eyes closed. He was aware of the flare of panic, wished he could sink into the back of his head, could remove himself from this the way he usually did but it never came. It never came and instead he was aware of the rush of pain in his chest when he was stupid enough to look back down.

In a flash, a vague shadow of a memory played behind his eyes. A different brunette with a pale lithe body instead of curves, eyes that glittered with tears and not make up, a flat chest instead of the tits half protruding from her top. A different mouth. A different view as he gazed down the length of his own body with a running commentary of degradation in his ear from a voice that haunted his dreams and his waking hours in equal measure.

He refused it, grit his teeth, tried to block it out but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because all he could feel was someone else’s mouth, hear someone else’s voice, feel the weight of hands on him as they held down a body too drugged to really move.

Laurent dry-heaved and shoved away from her, making excuses as he rushed to refasten his jeans and stumbled from the toilets, ignoring her annoyed words and insults. He didn’t stop, not until he was bursting out onto the street. Trembling and overwhelmed and overcome with the realisation that the memories he’d most feared were in his head after all. Not lost to a drugged up black out as he’d hoped.

He should call Aimeric. Go to see him. Find the courage to ask what had happened. Which of the two of them it was in his memory. What else there was to look forward to remembering.

But not tonight. Not now. He wouldn’t cope with it.

He just wanted-

It was like wanting to go home. Except home was not the shelter he needed it to be. Home was a person and that person didn’t want him.

He staggered toward the nearest bench, tipping onto it as his stomach churned, from the alcohol, from the memories, from all of it. Somehow he was still reaching for his phone, holding it to his ear as he doubled over and pressed his forehead to his knees, blocking out the rowdy shouts and screams from the street around him and the thrum of music from the clubs.

It rang out so he dialled again, he didn’t even really know what he was doing, just driven by some instinct that screamed safety or comfort or-

“Laurent whatever it is-“

Damen’s voice was sharp, not nearly as drunk as he had been… how long had it been? An hour at most? Maybe? Fuck, was he still with that girl? Did he sound breathless or was Laurent imagining it?

“Damen please don’t,” he said, voice shakier than he would like.

There was a noise on the other end of the line, rustling, movement.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

His voice was warmer and Laurent breathed out in a rush at the concern there.

“No, there was a girl and she tried to- but I didn’t want- I’m really drunk can you- can you come back? I miss your face and I don’t want to go back inside and… please Damen,”

He wasn’t really sure what he was saying or if he was making sense. He just wanted him and the alcohol and the ache made it seem imperative. Like he’d about die if Damen didn’t come to him.

“Where are you? Still at the club?”

Laurent sniffed, still doubled over, his voice when it came was an embarrassing wobble “outside it,”

There was movement, a voice Laurent didn’t want to think about.

“Stay where you are, alright? I’m coming to get you,”

“Please, I don’t- I’m so drunk and I don’t want to be here,”

Damen was actually coming to get him? He tried not to be hopeful, no one ever showed up for him, so why would Damen now? When he hated Laurent?

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, just stay where you are, can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” he managed

“I’m on my way, just wait there for me baby, I won’t be long,”

He wasn’t sure he had heard it right but he hung up and he stayed put anyway, forcing his own head up and his body to unfold, to lean back and smoke a cigarette. He pulled his knees up, his eyes slow to blink and people tried to talk to him. To ask for cigarettes. Or what he was doing. To tell him he was pretty. He couldn’t respond to any of it, he didn’t want to.

He had no idea how long it had been when Damen did show up, dropping to a crouch in front of him. Laurent blinked, pressing one eye closed as his stomach started to revolt. Damen’s face was twisting, concern or something like it as he reached for him, drawing Laurent’s legs down and forcing his feet back to the ground.

“What happened?” Damen asked, his voice impossibly soft

Laurent’s lips pulled down into a frown he had no control over, a tremble starting there from the concern on Damen’s face and how gentle his hand was when he reached for him, fingers pushing his hair back carefully.

“I’m sorry,” he said -or slurred- breath hitching

Damen shook his head, hand dropping to Laurent’s thigh and squeezing.

“It’s okay, come on, let’s get you home,”

“No, wait,” Laurent said, leaning forward to grasp Damen’s shoulders, bunching the material of his hoody in his fists “I don’t want to fight, I don’t like fighting with you, I hate it, I’m sorry, please can we-“

“Laurent, baby, listen,” Damen stroked the outside of his thighs “we’re not fighting,”

“But we’re not good,” Laurent pouted

Damen gave him a sad smile “no, but I don’t want to fight either, I want us to talk, I do just- not right now, okay? You’re drunk sweetheart,”

Laurent sniffed, blinking, and biting at his bottom lip but he nodded anyway.

“You promise?”

The soft flash of Damen’s smile stunned him, his chain of thought dissolving as Damen leant forward to press their foreheads together.

“Promise,” he said

The kiss of his forehead was a welcome balm and Laurent leaned into it, closing his eyes to savour it. When Damen pulled back Laurent let him haul him up, taking most of his weight as he was steered into the waiting taxi and they pulled away from the curb. Inside it he slumped instantly, closing his eyes and leaning into Damen’s shoulder.

The driver said something and the lurch of the car turning a corner made Laurent groan.

“He won’t be sick,” Damen said in response to the driver and Laurent frowned.

Damen’s next words were said at his ear, much quieter and only for Laurent.

“If you’re going to be sick tell me, okay?”

Laurent nodded against Damen’s chest “m’not,”

He might.

Damen’s arm was around his shoulder, holding him steady and taking most of his weight to stop the sway. Laurent melted, relaxed into the hold and breathed him in. Laurent either nodded off or it was a short drive because sooner than expected Damen was disappearing from his side and in a blink he was holding the door open and helping Laurent out of the car.

With a start he realised they were not at Laurent’s flat. They were at Nikandros’ house.

Laurent faltered halfway down the garden path and Damen steadied him, catching him and drawing him against his side.

“Just a bit further then you can lie down, alright?”

Laurent could only nod, leaning against Damen’s side awkwardly as the floor swayed beneath his feet and his head swam. Damen unlocked the door and got them over the threshold and rather than help Laurent up the stairs he lifted him and Laurent sighed into him, arms winding around his neck.

It felt like a dream. Surreal in a pleasant way as Damen laid him carefully on a bed. It smelt like Damen and Laurent was embarrassed about the noise that came out of him that was all relief.

He blinked, bleary as he watched Damen taking off Laurent’s shoes for him, hands going to his jeans after and splaying them open with militant impersonal precision. Laurent lifted his hips, let them be stripped from him and held his arms up when Damen tugged on the hem of his barely-there shirt.

It afforded him time, whilst Damen was occupied, to study him. He didn’t smell like perfume. He didn’t seem to have any red marks on his neck. But he was wearing the jeans he’d been in earlier and a hoody. With nothing underneath.

Laurent’s stomach lurched.

“Did you fuck her?”

Damen’s head snapped up, frowning “don’t,” he warned, tugging the blankets up over him

He left the room without any preamble and Laurent stared at the ceiling, willing it to stop spinning, for the static rhythmic pounding of music still echoing in his ears to quieten.

When Damen came back he was holding a bottle of water and a plastic bowl. He dumped the bowl by the side of the bed and encouraged Laurent’s head up. He sat with a groan, accepting the water and chugging half of it when he realised how fucking thirsty he was.

“Better?”

Laurent nodded, settling back down as Damen placed the bottle on the bedside table. He tried to keep his eyes open, tried to stop the heavy tug of sleep but he couldn’t fight it, he was too exhausted. Too fucking drunk.

He felt fingers at his hair, and the brief press of a mouth at his cheek, real or imagined he didn’t know. He prayed it was real.

“Stay?”

He didn’t open his eyes but Damen’s sigh was loud.

“Please?” he tried, peeling one eye open

Damen was staring back at him, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth before the tension went out of his shoulders and he stripped off his hoody and jeans. Laurent expected to be kept at arm’s length, even when he rolled toward Damen, but Damen opened for him easily, folding Laurent close and stroking down his back in soothing familiar caresses. Laurent closed his eyes, breathing in Damen’s scent from his neck as he curled into him and soaked it in.

“Is this okay?” Laurent asked

Damen hummed, pressing Laurent against him harder.

“More than okay,” he said, voice a quiet hum against Laurent’s hair

Laurent swallowed, tipping his head against Damen’s skin to press a kiss to his neck. Damen’s breath hitched and the next instant there were gentle careful fingers at the shell of his ear. A tickling caress, a lulling soothing stroke that had Laurent’s eyes heavy and the noise of his brain quietening as Damen played lightly with his ear. It felt, strangely, intimate.

“I want to fall asleep in your arms all the time,” Laurent admitted

Damen’s swallow was audible, his body relaxing further into Laurent, releasing tension with a small sigh.

“Go to sleep sweetheart, tomorrow we’ll talk, you can tell me what happened,” Damen said, breathing a kiss into Laurent’s hair.

Laurent nodded and wondered, vaguely, what he’d said about it already. He couldn’t remember but right then it didn’t matter. He let himself be lulled into unconsciousness by the steady beat of Damen’s heart as hope pounded in his own. A matching rhythm.

Chapter Text

The bed was cold and he was alone when Laurent awoke. Part of him was grateful so he could cover his face and cringe in mortification for having drunk called Damen to get him the night before. The other, louder part of him, was bereft.

Laurent got a better look at the room, catching on Damen’s open suitcase on the floor and really, it was absurd that Damen had been the one to leave. It was his house. Why had he left and let Erasmus stay in it?

Why was he still at Nikandros’ house? As Damen was no longer fucking Laurent and likely had little intention of ever doing so again, why had he not run straight back to Erasmus?

He forced himself up, swallowing the painkillers Damen had left out for him and helped himself to one of Damen’s t-shirts, slipping it over his head as he tentatively opened the bedroom door and peered into the hall. He was very fucking aware he was in Nikandros’ house and the last thing he wanted was to bump into the prick whilst he was half naked.

He had only been to Nikandros’ house a few times and only then for parties he hadn’t been explicitly invited to. He hadn’t been not invited, in his defence. Damen had brought him along once, Pallas and Ancel another time. It was an ordinary house, down the road from a pub Laurent had thrown up outside of more than once. He had had the distinct impression then he had not been welcome and was absolutely positive he was even less welcome now.

Creeping along the hallway he made it to the bathroom and closed the door behind him as quietly as he could, breathing out his relief when he managed to lock it. His reflection in the mirror was bad. He looked like shit.

He certainly felt it, the hangover second to the clogging itch beneath his skin, demanding attention as the caged vault in his head pounded, shaking and vibrating for attention. It threw images back at him, vague shadows of memories he couldn’t quite grasp hold of and he imagined his head swelling in the mirror, darkening as it got bigger and bigger until the pressure building in his skull and under his skin made him explode.

He was shaking, a desperate nervous energy beating at him relentlessly. He shook his hands out, tugged at his hair, shook his head like he could dislodge the press of it but to no avail. The tap turned on with a squeak and he doused his face with cold frigid water, rinsed the taste from his mouth with the mouth wash on the side and it didn’t help.

Nothing would. He already knew.

He knew.

Laurent needed a way to drain the pressure building up beneath his skin. He was a dam about to burst, a balloon on the brink of popping. He desperately needed a way to get it out before something bad happened.

Again.

Before he did something stupid. Something he didn’t want to do.

Except he didn’t know how to do that. Not without awakening any more horrific memories. If he fucked someone, like that woman had tried last night, would he just get more memories? They felt close to the surface, swimming just out of reach. Sense memory could very well pull them to the fore again and then what?

He had absolutely no will to remember it. He didn’t want to know. He couldn’t. If he saw-

Laurent wouldn’t cope with it. So if he couldn’t fuck, then what was he supposed to do?

When he went back to the bedroom Damen was sitting on the end of the bed. Laurent froze in the doorway, taking a deep breath as he met Damen’s inquisitive gaze. He had no idea what to expect and it was, abruptly, the worst feeling in the world.

“How are you feeling?” Damen asked

Laurent bit his lip, slipped into the room and leant back against the closed door, painfully aware of the t-shirt he was wearing as Damen’s eyes drifted again and again to his chest.

“Did you fuck that girl last night?”

Damen dropped his eyes for a second, taking a steadying breath before he lifted his chin “it’s not really any of your business,”

Yeah. He knew that. He wanted it to be his business, of course. In his mind it very much was his business but it didn’t change facts.

“You were with her when I called, I- I’m really sorry,”

The ghost of a smile played at Damen’s mouth as he palmed the back of his neck “yeah… that didn’t go down too well but it doesn’t matter now,”

Damen had left her. For Laurent. Because he had asked.

“Where did you sleep?”

“Here for a bit, then I woke up and felt awkward so I got into Nik’s bed,”

With Nikandros. Nikandros who hated Laurent and who was in love with Damen and now lived with him. The churn of his stomach was uncomfortable and at Laurent’s frown Damen shook his head, a half-smile tugging at his lips at whatever he saw on Laurent’s face.

“Nik’s not here, he stayed out last night,”

It was undoubtedly for the best and Laurent was embarrassed by the relief swarming through him. That he wasn’t there, that Damen hadn’t shared a bed with him.

“Why did you call? What happened? Are you alright?” Damen asked

Laurent shrugged, letting loose an unamused breath “yeah, no, not really,”

Damen didn’t move, he nodded slowly, buffing at his cuticles. He wasn’t used to Damen being awkward. He didn’t know how to handle it any more than he knew how to handle Damen when he was angry with him. So both? He was completely at a loss.

“You mentioned there was a girl?” Damen prodded; voice tentative

Laurent squeezed his eyes closed against the slam of the memory, the one’s that followed, the head bobbing over his lap and the tangle of a ring adorned hand in their hair. He didn’t know whether it was Aimeric or-

Fuck. He was going to be sick. Pass out. Come out of his fucking skin.

Instead of answering he turned his head down.

“I need you to punish me,”

He said the words in a rush, as though saying it quickly made it less awkward. Made him cringe less. Made his insides squirm less.

It didn’t help. Neither did Damen’s surprised flinch or answering silence.

“You don’t have to fuck me, that’s not what I’m asking for,” he hurried to add, shaking his head wildly at him

Damen frowned “then what are you asking for?”

Laurent swallowed, forced himself to meet Damen’s stare.

“I need you to punish me, like you did before, just- hurt me if you want, whatever you want just- please,”

Damen’s silence made Laurent fidgety, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he counted the heartbeats between his words and the sound of Damen’s harsh exhale.

“I-“

“Please, Damen I’m begging you, you don’t have to fuck me, I know you don’t want to, that I’m- I’m dirty and fucked up and- don’t you want to hit me? Hurt me? You can, I’d let you, I need to be punished, I nearly fucked Nikandros, I ruined your relationship with Erasmus, you should want to hurt me and you can, I’ll-“

Damen had risen to his feet, had come close enough to grip Laurent’s shoulders.

“Laurent,” Damen said cutting across him “would you stop? Just… just breathe, tell me what this is about,”

Laurent swallowed, breathing out raggedly as Damen stepped back. Damen’s brows were drawn down, his mouth a pouting worried line and Laurent crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself as though he could trap everything inside, refuse to let it spill out.

Laurent tipped his head back “please Damen, I don’t want to talk, I can’t I just need it, I need you, okay?” he looked back at him “you’re the only one who can do this for me and I hate that I have to ask but I don’t know what else to do, if you don’t… Damen please I don’t trust anyone else with this,”

Damen stared at him for a long moment, brow furrowed as he bit down on his lower lip, something familiar in his eyes that Laurent wanted to latch onto.

“Punished?” Damen asked, voice softer than Laurent had dared hope for.

“Yes,”

Damen nodded, slowly, eyes shifting and Laurent desperately didn’t want to know what he was thinking. Say yes, please fucking say yes.

“You can do anything, I won’t say no, you don’t have to fuck me or anything I-“

“Stop talking,” Damen said, glancing around the room “take your clothes off and kneel,” he said pointing to the end of the bed.

Yes.

Laurent’s breath shuddered out of him, tension rolling from his frame as he hurried to do as Damen had said. He felt the sting of humiliation keenly when he stripped, Damen’s cool gaze making his face flame and his blood heat as he settled on his knees on the floor where Damen had asked.

“Good, stay there and don’t move until I come back,”

Laurent didn’t nod, Damen stayed for a long beat before he left the room and Laurent closed his eyes. He had no idea what Damen was going to do. If this was going to hurt- or rather how badly it was going to hurt.

He didn’t mean the pain. He’d take the spanking gladly. It was an altogether different kind of pain worrying him. Damen had been stark in his opinions last night and Laurent couldn’t stomach more without crying and that- Damen would see too much.

When Damen came back, he was reading something on his phone, biting his thumbnail with a crease in his brow. When he was done, he nodded, breathing out and shifting his gaze toward Laurent.

The breath Damen took was fortifying and Laurent watched him, nerves swimming under the surface as he waited for whatever Damen was going to do.

“Shuffle back a bit,” Damen said

As Laurent shuffled back and resettled on his knees Damen rummaged through the bedside table drawer. When he came back, he was holding two pens.

“I’m not writing lines,” Laurent frowned

Damen chuckled, shaking his head as he came back toward him “imagine if that’s what I did?”

Laurent pouted up at him and Damen grinned, wide and genuine and Laurent couldn’t focus on anything but the fluttering in his chest.

“Arms out in front of you, palms down,”

Laurent did as he was told, lifting his arms out in front of him as Damen balanced the pen across his knuckles. Confused, he turned his gaze up.

“Okay, now all you have to do is not move,”

“Damen-“

“Do you trust me?”

Laurent didn’t even have to think about it “yes,”

“Then you’re going to stay still, keep your arms out and your mouth shut, until I say otherwise,”

Laurent breathed out “okay,”

Damen didn’t say anything else; he sat on the bed for a long while, watching Laurent struggle. His arms started to ache embarrassingly quickly and it was difficult to keep them up, to stop them from shaking, to keep the pens where Damen wanted them. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he dropped them, but he suspected very much it would not be good.

After a while Damen left, told him to stay in his position until he came back and Laurent was left alone, with the door closed, on his knees, naked, with his arms up and aching. He had to squeeze his eyes closed, breathe through the surprising pain, and try his best not to fidget.

It wasn’t the pain he had been expecting but it was a distracting pain all the same. It wasn’t like the spanking, with the spanking all he had to do was absorb it, but this? He had to control it. Fight against it. Not let it win.

His skin prickled, the room wasn’t cool, it was the middle of August, and yet he felt the air keenly, aware of every inch of exposed skin. He was aware of the pens, aware of his hands, of the ache in his shoulders and the roughness of the carpet beneath his bare legs. He had no idea how long it had been, no concept of time at all. Focusing on the time, on his heartbeats, made it worse.

It didn’t get better until he made the decision to just do it. He thought of Damen, and what he’d asked of him. Damen had said to trust him and it was like the second he made the decision to do so, to stop fighting the order, to let go- he started to drift. Let the calm take over. It wasn’t a blank calm like it normally was, it wasn’t a cold fog. It was warm, humming, pulsing with something he wasn’t sure he could define. It felt like relief, like everything bad was leeching out of him. He focused on it, on the feeling, let it wash over him and through him until Damen came back.

When Damen removed the pens and let him drop his arms he was sleepy, peaceful, quiet in a way that had slowed his heart rate, made him feel like he wasn’t going to jitter right out of his skin after all.

Damen sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him and Laurent blinked, owlish and waiting.

“Come here,” Damen said, voice soft and low.

Laurent crawled forward until he occupied the space Damen had indicated, almost between the spread of his thighs. Damen’s hand went to his hair, a gentle tickle that had Laurent closing his eyes, leaning into it.

“How do you feel?”

Laurent knew he was smiling but he didn’t open his eyes to see what Damen thought of it “sleepy, good… relieved,”

“We’re not done yet, okay?”

Laurent peeled his eyes open, blinking at him before drifting tellingly to between Damen’s legs. He hadn’t asked for sex. It didn’t mean he didn’t want it. He did, he really fucking did. He’d do anything to be close to him, to feel him. But Damen wouldn’t, he already knew.

“Tell me why you needed to be punished,”

Laurent’s head snapped up, already shaking it as Damen’s hand tightened in his hair, giving him a soft tug, a warning that made Laurent hum in response.

“Stop hiding from me,” Damen said “if you help me understand why you needed it, I can decide what to do next, but for that you need to talk, do you understand?”

“I understand,”

“Let me do this for you Laurent, tell me why you need it,”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell him everything, to unleash the torrent, but it would poison everything, stain the room, stain Damen, snatch this moment from Laurent’s grasp and tear it up. Laurent had done enough of that already.

He closed his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest and let a half-truth escape instead.

“Because I hate myself,”

His words were quiet but he knew Damen heard them, he knew because his fingers flexed against his scalp and his breath came out a little heavier. He couldn’t look at what his face was doing, he didn’t want to know.

“Go on,” Damen whispered, fingers digging in to his scalp, a reassuring and soothing caress, hard enough to stop Laurent from tensing up.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m coming out of my skin and it’s the only thing that makes it better,”

“Being punished?”

“Hurting myself,” he breathed “or… this, with you, it helps but it doesn’t- doesn’t hurt the same way, it feels… like relief,” he finished, squirming at the words that were falling so easily from his too-loose tongue.

But it was true. Those two things, he had realised, were not nearly the same. What did it get him? An escape he supposed. But this escape with Damen was different. It was warmer. Intimate. It left him feeling good not-

Not whatever else he did with strangers. It wasn’t the same but they both sated the itching relentless pulse of shame and pain and- all of it.

Damen nodded, swallowing thickly “and what did you do that you needed to be punished for?”

Fuck. He couldn’t tell him. He couldn’t tell him even half of it. He settled instead for a truth that was both mortifying and fresh and haunting him.

“I- there was a woman last night, I didn’t want her, she still- she tried to blow me and I was just letting it happen and- fuck Damen I don’t even like women,” he turned his head toward him, pleading silently for him to get it “I was so drunk and I didn’t want to and when I did push her away and left… it felt too late and I felt dirty,” he said it in a rush, as if saying it quickly would hurt less.

Damen didn’t say anything, for long enough Laurent started fidgeting, worried about what he’d said. He hadn’t thought too hard about what he was saying, the words had come up all on their own but what if Damen judged him?

Of course he would. Laurent was gay. It showed how low and desperate he was, that he’d even contemplate a woman and-

“Thank you for telling me,” Damen said “you did so well for me Laurent,”

Instantly he calmed, relaxing again, the tension leaking back out like a full body sigh as he tipped his head into Damen’s hand.

“Will you look at me?”

Laurent blinked, his focus on nothing but Damen, compelled by the softness of his voice and the comfort of his presence.

“It’s never too late to say no, you know that right? You’re allowed to change your mind, you’re allowed to say so, it’s never too late baby, and you’re not dirty, sex isn’t dirty and neither is making a mistake or changing your mind, do you understand?”

Laurent’s ability to breathe had vanished, his lungs caving in until he realised, he was holding it. He let out a shaky whoosh of an exhale, working to swallow, blinking at Damen who stared back at him soft and sure and-

How was Damen always so sure? It was as infuriating as it was sexy. He walked around like he could make the earth move for him if he wanted it and Laurent doubted he had ever had that kind of confidence in anything, let alone himself, or the quiet luxury of being settled in his own skin that way.

What was worse, Damen had a way of speaking that was simple. Easy. It made Laurent want to believe him and that was always a scary thought: how easily Damen had made himself someone Laurent could unequivocally trust.

Damen didn’t know the full picture of course. He didn’t know what Laurent really was or what he’d really done. He was talking about sex, normal sex. Not the depraved desperate kind of filth Laurent did.

And it was filthy, those guys in the backrooms, endless men when cruising. He’d let a homeless man fuck him once on his way back from clubbing. Had let another guy into his flat after he followed him off the bus without a word like he was desperate to be murdered. He couldn’t stop it wasn’t normal. Maybe he had never thought about it properly before but it wasn’t normal. Not even a little bit.

Sex was dirty. It was power. A game. A weapon. A punishment. It was something to be ashamed of.

But then, it wasn’t all the time was it?

He wasn’t ashamed of what he did with Damen, even when Damen was punishing him, it felt more like relief, like draining poison, it wasn’t punishment in the true sense. The way it was sometimes when Laurent had sex with people he didn’t want.

And still, no one had ever said anything so starkly to him before because it was true, wasn’t it? Laurent could say no. He could. He didn’t have to do any of the things he did. Not anymore.

So why did he? He feared the answer to that question.

“I know,” he said, because logically he did “I know what I do with you isn’t dirty, you- you make me feel good,”

He felt his cheeks darken, his face getting hot, it was ridiculous, he was naked on his knees in front of a fully clothed Damen who had just commanded him to hold his arms out for an aching length of time, yet the admission was what had him balking.

Damen’s expression melted, concern giving way to the sweet bloom of Laurent’s favourite smile.

“I like making you feel good,” Damen said, thumb stroking gently across Laurent’s blushing cheek bone “because you’ve been so good for me, so honest, I want to give you something,”

Laurent’s heart rate picked up, a thrill of heat curling through him as he met Damen’s gaze.

“So tell me what you want baby,”

“I need-“

Damen tugged his hair again, not hard, enough to let him feel it “I said want, tell me what you want,”

Want not need. It shouldn’t be difficult to discern the difference but Laurent wasn’t sure that he did. He knew what he wanted though. What he wanted so desperately he was willing to beg for it if he had to.

“You,” he said “I don’t know what I’m allowed to want, I don’t- anything, I want-“ his gaze dropped to Damen’s lap “I want to make you feel good, I want you to-“

“Tell me sweetheart,”

“I want you to want me to make you feel good,”

“I do,” Damen said “I want you, fuck I always want you,”

It wasn’t praise, not really, but it lit him up all the same.

Laurent licked his lips, shifting forward, meeting Damen’s gaze “can I blow you?”

Damen nodded, removing his hands from Laurent’s hair and planting his hands behind him instead. It stretched out his torso, made his tight t-shirt ride up enough to expose a band of skin. The moment he was given permission he pitched forward, splaying the front of Damen’s jeans open.

Damen lifted his hips, let Laurent pull them down enough to free his cock. He wasted no time. He leant forward eagerly, shuffling closer to get his mouth on him. Damen was only half hard but he rose quickly in his mouth, thickening on Laurents’ tongue and filling his mouth the way he wanted.

He closed his eyes, humming, whining around the taste of him as he bobbed his head diligently, chasing the circle of his hand as he fed Damen’s cock into the back of his throat, spreading his own legs when the taste of him was enough to make Laurent harden. He imagined he was erasing the woman, the nameless girl who’d had Damen just last night, from Damen’s skin, from his cock, from his fucking mind.

Part of him expected Damen to take control, to put his hand back in his hair but he didn’t, he didn’t lift his hips, or push his head down, he sat back, letting Laurent do as pleased, encouraging him with quiet noises alone.

Pulling off with a wet slurp he tipped his head up.

“Please,” he whispered “do it, I want it hard, don’t hold back,”

Damen didn’t look convinced and Laurent refused to drop his stare. Maybe he still didn’t understand. He needed it. To be used. To sate the slick slimy pulse in the back of his head that made him feel-

Worthless. This is all he was. All he was good for. He wanted to be good for Damen though, specifically. So good he’d forget about the girl. Forget Erasmus, or his brother, or Nikandros. Forget everyone who wasn’t Laurent.

“Are you sure?” Damen asked “I don’t-“

“Damen please,” Laurent begged and waited

Damen stared back at him, eyes wide until, finally, he nodded.

Laurent leant forward, mouth already open and Damen’s gaze went dark as his mouth popped open to mirror Laurent’s as he swallowed Damen’s cock down.

He was desperate for him, moaning as he bobbed his head to encourage him, using every trick he’d ever learned as he stared up at him, begging silently for Damen to get it. Laurent reached up, pushing his hand beneath Damen’s t-shirt and splayed one hand possessively across his flexing abs to feel the muscles move and twitch with each thrust of his hips.

Damen’s fingers sank into Laurent’s hair, he tugged, wide palms settling on Laurent’s scalp and the sides of his head as he pushed him down, pressed his cock into Laurent’s throat.

He let him. Let his jaw go, went lax and docile, sucking diligently and relaxing into his hold; into the fuck of his cock as it stabbed ruthless and relentless. The sound was obscene, wet, spluttering, choking; the crack of him gagging was whiplike and continuous. Rhythmic. Erotic.

His eyes were watering, his jaw aching where Damen was digging his thumbs into the divots and the mix of saliva and Damen and bile in his mouth dribbled down his chin. He could barely breathe and he thrilled to it. Thrilled to the choking spluttering fucked out noises emitting from him as he soaked Damen’s cock and his own chin, letting Damen skull fuck him into asphyxiating.

When Damen heard the desperate wheeze and rattle, he didn’t let up, he shifted, one hand clenching hard in Laurent’s hair as the other went to his face; fingers pinching round his nose. Laurent startled, and his hands rose to Damen’s thighs, clasping onto his muscle. Holding on. Not pushing off. Damen shook him, still clinging to the front of his face, suffocating and too hot as he gagged around him and the noise was fucking obscene.

Perfect. Damen was fucking perfect.

When Damen pulled him off Laurent pitched forward, gasping for air, face a mess from his mouth and nose and eyes; all of them streaming. His throat felt raw and he spluttered, coughing around the stripped aching scrape.

When Damen drew him back with a harsh tug at his hair Laurent’s mouth fell open and he let Damen’s cock straight back in. He didn’t push, didn’t thrust or try to fuck his throat so Laurent pushed himself down, eyes closing as he moaned around the length of him. He pushed and pushed until he was holding Damen in as deep as Damen had forcibly held himself.

Above him Damen said his name like a curse and Laurent thrilled beneath it, under his taste. Damen was everywhere. All of his senses entirely overwhelmed by Damen. He wanted. He wanted to please him. He wanted him to think of this, of Laurent. To want him as desperately as Laurent wanted him. He wanted Damen to want to please him too. To give it to him. Whatever it was. He wanted it.

He tried to hold his gaze, tried to stop his eyes from slipping closed but it was a struggle, a battle he was losing as his awareness condensed and shrank to Damen and his cock and the way he felt inside Laurent’s skull.

“I’m going to come,”

Laurent moaned shamelessly around him, sucking him harder, working him with his fist and tongue and lips, encouraging, begging, waiting for it. When Damen came, he let loose a strangled moan and Laurent savoured the flood of him in his mouth, the taste, the texture, all of it.

Damen pumped into his mouth, fucking himself through it, until it spilled over Laurent’s lips, a warm mess dripping down his chin. When Damen pulled out his cock was come coated, sticky with it and still mostly hard.

Laurent opened his mouth, sticking his tongue out to let Damen see the mess he’d made. Damen cursed, teeth sinking into his bottom lip and Laurent knew he shouldn’t. It was a bad idea. A terrible idea.

Tipping his head down Laurent spat Damen’s load into his hand, letting it spill, soaking him. He glanced back up, holding Damen’s gaze as he wrapped his hand around himself. Stroking his own cock with Damen’s come.

Damen’s mouth parted, cock twitching with renewed interest, fingers curling into Laurent’s hair.

“Fuck, look at you, so fucking stunning baby, so hot covered in my come,”

Laurent couldn’t breathe, he was squirming, distracted by the slick wet sound of Damen’s come on his cock and the needy panty breaths spilling from him. Damen’s spotlight gaze was intense, his eyes dark, holding Laurent’s stare and panting back at him like Laurent was getting them both off.

When Damen reached out with his free hand and wrapped it around Laurent’s throat, he moaned, melting into his hold as Damen tightened his fingers, his palm cutting off Laurent’s air, slowly, until he was struggling to draw breathe. When Damen cut him off completely, choking him hard as Laurent fisted his cock his body twitched, eyes flickering as the rush of pleasure and loss of air coursed through him, heightening every last drop of pleasure. Electric, dangerous, maddening as heat rushed at his face and his lungs protested, body shifting into and away from Damen’s hand. He was close, so fucking close, his vision going cloudy, his thighs fucking shaking and the edges blurring as though unconsciousness was rushing at him. But then he was coming, and Damen was releasing his hand in slow increments as Laurent moaned out loud and spilled over his fist, gasping in air as the pleasure dragged on and on and on.

Panting he leaned forward, forehead connecting with Damen’s thigh and immediately gentle careful fingers were massaging his scalp in soothing strokes, helping to calm his raging heartbeat, gave him something sweet to focus on.

He stayed there for several long peaceful minutes, catching his breath and breathing Damen in, savouring his taste in his mouth and the sticky cooling feel of him on his skin.

“Are you okay?” Damen asked, his voice quiet and tentative

Laurent groaned as he straightened, maybe he’d been in the position longer than he thought. Peering up he blinked, taking in Damen’s expression. He was staring at him, soft and uncertain.

“Yes,” Laurent said voice rough and used “thank you,” he added

Tipping his head down he grimaced at the sticky mess he’d made of himself and peeled his hand away, grateful when Damen reached for the bedside table and handed him tissues to wipe his hands with. The second he rose to his feet he swayed and Damen jumped up, holding him steady, still staring and tentative.

“Honestly Damen, I’m fine, I needed that,”

Damen nodded, still unconvinced as he finally tucked himself away and did his jeans back up.

Laurent made quick work of putting his own jeans on, tugged Damen’s t-shirt back on too and flashed Damen a grin when he asked if he wanted a shower.

“No, I don’t mind it I want-“ he cut himself off

Damen breathed in deeply “what do you want?”

His voice threatened to make Laurent shudder

“I want to feel it… you,” he said looking away from him so he didn’t have to witness Damen’s reaction “I should go,”

“Not yet,” Damen said “last time you got- you were out of it, I’ll get you something to eat and when I think you’re okay, then you can leave,”

Laurent didn’t hate the command in his tone or the answering warmth spreading through his limbs. A quiet little voice in the back of his head made him say what he knew he shouldn’t. It would ruin it. But he had to.

“I was like it after you fisted me too,” he said pointedly

Damen flinched, shoulders stiffening “fuck,” he said “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left, I would never want to actually hurt you-“

“You didn’t,” he hurried to reassure him “I mean it hurt but in a good way, I liked it Damen,”

“I still should have-“

“How about you get me that food and I’ll go sit somewhere it smells less like sex?”

If they didn’t Laurent wouldn’t concentrate on anything except sex. With Damen. He hadn’t been fucked in so long. He hadn’t had sex at all, except for the brief encounter with the woman, with anyone except Damen since-

Since he’d let him go bare.

It wasn’t long at all. Not really. But it was the first stretch of time, in a long time, where Laurent hadn’t sought it out. Not even for this. Not even when he’d needed it. He wasn’t counting the woman, it hadn’t lasted very long and neither of them had gotten off, she was something else entirely.

He wasn’t sure what to feel about it.

Damen flashed him a small smile and nodded, leading him downstairs and directing him to Nikandros’ living room. It was the same as the rest of the house. An Ikea show room with odd little trinkets dotted around the place like he’d raided his dead nan’s collection.

Damen came back with a hot chocolate, an energy bar, and some crackers. Laurent eyed the drink sceptically. Damen shrugged, palming the back of his neck.

“I read online it’s good for- after,” he said as he took a seat beside Laurent on the sofa.

Laurent frowned “after sex?”

“After care,” he said and when Laurent only blinked at him he added “after a BDSM scene,”

Laurent’s eyes flared wide and he nearly choked on his mouthful of whipped cream but he managed, swiping at the excess with his arm.

BDSM. Damen had read up on it? When? For him or in general? Was he doing this with other people? He knew BDSM was a thing but he hadn’t considered for a second that was what they were doing but really… it was. Kind of. Maybe. He had Damen punish him. Dominate him.

Was it the same?

Maybe Laurent needed to read up on it.

“Is this something you do with other people?” he asked, trying not to frown and failing miserably.

“No, do you-“

“No,” Laurent hurried to say “God no, I haven’t done this with anyone else, I wouldn’t,”

“And what you said about needing it?”

“It’s complicated,” his cheeks flamed and he took another generous gulp of his drink, the sugar helping resettle his body “but I wouldn’t let someone spank me or, or- anything like today, that’s not something I do, I’ve only ever done anything remotely like it with you,”

Not even the general acts but the way it made him feel. The connection. The vulnerability. The freedom. It was just different. He wouldn’t let anyone else do those things. He’d never let himself go with anyone else. He didn’t trust anyone else. He didn’t-

They weren’t Damen.

Damen breathed out, something unwinding in his shoulders “oh, well I guess we were both a little blind to it,” he said “is that… something you want?”

“I don’t know, occasionally I think but,” he shrugged.

Damen hummed, chewing on his lip and scrutinising him.

“I’m not sure you do though, is the thing,”

“What does that mean?” Laurent asked

“It means I think need and want are different things,”

Fuck. Well. Laurent had no idea what to say to that and to distract them both he opened the energy bar, swallowing it down in three large bites as Damen watched him, amused.  

Nikandros calling hey loudly proceeded the slam of the front door and cut his words off before they could even make it to his tongue. It was followed, moments later, by the living room door flying open. In any other circumstance Laurent might have laughed because the way Nikandros’ entire demeanour changed when he spotted Laurent on his sofa was comical.

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

Damen sighed “we’re just talking Nik, he’s leaving soon,”

Which definitely would not have worked if Nikandros had come home half an hour earlier.

“Fine, whatever, just remember you’re meeting Erasmus at three,”

Laurent stiffened as Nikandros swept out of the room, holding his mug tighter and scrunching his empty wrapped in his hand so the foil could bite into his palm. Stop him from shouting after Nikandros to call him a prick.

“So, you’re getting back together?” he ventured instead.

“I- no, no we’re not, I just wanted to talk to him, we kind of left it in limbo and haven’t spoken very much,” Damen sighed, his hands restless as they swiped at his jean-clad thighs “I’m going to tell him I don’t want to get back together,”

Laurent’s heartrate picked up, the annoying flare of hope in his stomach reacting to it like a blood hound with the scent. He would do anything to have them stay apart. For Damen to be single. It meant hope. If he got back with Erasmus then they really were done and Laurent didn’t want to think of them as over.

“Why not? He’d take you back,”

“I know,” Damen said around a grimace, sinking back heavily against the sofa “I didn’t mean to say that, I just meant-“ he waved his hand, shaking his head

He knew what he meant. They both knew he could make it work with Erasmus. He wasn’t sure if it meant anything that Damen wasn’t going to try. Even though he loved him.

Laurent bit his lip, tempted fate “so why aren’t you getting back with him?”

“He deserves more than me,”

“More than someone who loves him?”

“More than someone who didn’t love him enough,” he said pointedly “he deserves someone who’ll put him first,”

“You did,” Laurent said weakly

Damen breathed out an amused huff “when?” he shook his head “I never did because he never was, we both know it,”

Laurent swallowed, the catch in his throat audible. Damen hadn’t put Erasmus first because he didn’t think of him first. The emotion made him blink furiously, take another fortifying gulp of his drink.

Laurent had been first for Damen. All this time. Fuck he really had gotten it all so wrong.

“I’m sorry Damen, I’m so fucking sorry,”

The blink of surprise on Damen’s face should probably have offended him but it didn’t.

“Are you?”

“If I could take any of it back I would,” he swallowed “the whole of the past year, I just- you were so happy with him, and I’m not like him, I’m not like that, he’s good for you and I don’t have that in me and it fucking killed me, I regret telling you I didn’t want to be with you when I did, I regret saying any of that bullshit to Nikandros, I regret ever being the reason you were hurting, I didn’t know I was hurting you, I figured you were happy and didn’t care and-“ he tipped his head back blinking furiously “I just need you to know that I’ve never had with anyone what I had with you, that everyone else was unimportant, they meant nothing, you though… you’ve never meant nothing,”

He took a deep breath and let his eyes find Damen. His eyes were wide, his mouth parted and his chest moving quicker. There was pain in his gaze. Something rigid in his frame that hurt to see. Defensive maybe. Untrusting.

But then, why would Damen trust him? Laurent had never really given him a reason to trust a single word out of his mouth had he?

The door swung open again as Damen opened his mouth to respond and Nikandros appeared, holding his hand up.

“One more thing,” he said “don’t get any bodily fluids on my stuff, I can imagine you are fucking riddled with STI’s and I don’t need that on my things,”

“Nik,” Damen hissed

Nikandros levelled such an unimpressed look at Damen that Laurent bristled with it.

“I will make sure you keep that testing appointment,” Nikandros said and this time when he slammed the door Laurent barely held back a flinch.

Damen leant forward, elbows on his knees, rubbing at his forehead “ignore him, he’s just being protective,”

Laurent nodded, throat gone tight and rose to his unsteady feet “I need to go,”

Damen didn’t fight him on it, showed him to the door and gave him a tight-lipped smile. On the threshold Damen fidgeted, rippling with unease.

“Are you sure this was okay? The punishment thing?” Damen’s voice was tired, his shoulders tight with tension

Laurent was helpless staring back at him “when my head is too loud you’re the only person I want to see,” his swallow was thick “you’re the only person I trust… the only one I really want, so yes Damen, it was okay, I really needed it,”

He crossed the threshold, pausing when he was close and squeezing Damen’s arm.

“You’ve never been replaceable to me Damen, there’s only ever been you, that’s always been what scares me,”

He shifted, moving past him but Damen caught his hand and helplessly Laurent turned back. Damen’s eyes were riotous, intense as Laurent stared back at him.

“I don’t-“ Damen shook his head “I’m here if you need me, for anything, I mean it Laurent I’m always here, and thank you… for trusting me the way you do,”

Laurent’s eyes burned, emotion rising like a tidal wave and he wanted to lean in, fall against him, he wanted to sob, he wanted a great many things. He squeezed Damen’s fingers, offering him a wobbly smile and left.

He had to, there was something he needed to do. Something he’d been too distracted to think about before now. He would have, if he hadn’t been so fucked up by-

Everything.

Laurent should get tested. He needed to get tested. It was entirely irresponsible and stupid and ridiculous that he hadn’t. It was probably too late for any emergency HIV preventative medication and maybe he wouldn’t care, if it was just him, but it wasn’t. It hadn’t even fucking crossed his mind. He’d been too busy burying his head in the sand to think about the one terrifying fact that could and would drive him to do what he hadn’t done since he was a teenager: Damen could be at risk because of him.

He’d put him in danger. Him and Erasmus both. He hadn’t even fucking thought about it.

Stupid, so fucking stupid.

He hadn’t even thought about it. Not once. Not when he was taking it bare drunk as fuck at the club, not the day after when he went to Damen’s office. Not when he did it again the next day or the day Damen fisted him. Not at all. He was certainly thinking about it now.

He hadn’t been tested in a long time. Laurent could have anything. He wouldn’t know. He avoided even thinking about it because he was too fucking traumatised by it. He would rather not know. He never wanted to know. It’s not like it had ever mattered before because he’d never been aware of any unprotected sex. There had probably been times but he had probably been too fucked up to notice. But it was different now. Because it effected Damen. It could hurt him. And Erasmus.

~*~

Laurent went straight home from Damen’s to shower before going to a clinic to get tested like he should have done years ago. Fuck, he should be doing it regularly. He promised himself, he’d never let it get like this again. He never wanted to be here again, anxious and worried and staring down the barrel of a gun he’d pretended for too long didn’t exist.

The tests themselves had been triggering and he’d bullshitted his way through them, gave a couple of fake phone numbers at the end of it and high tailed it out there as fast as possible. For now. Because he had another appointment in September because apparently, he needed to wait 45 days before he could get an accurate HIV reading. Which was just fucking perfect. A couple more weeks of anxious fretting, exactly what he needed.

He'd done a rapid test anyway which had come back negative, but all that business with the club and before Aimeric-

He was more concerned about that because he knew there hadn’t been condoms. But for that he had to wait a few more weeks.

So after re-booking he’d ran out of there with a handful of condoms and several tiny useless packets of lube.

All he could do was wait out the two weeks for his results to come back. Wait and fret.

In that time Laurent attempted to re-establish his routine, shake off the debris of the collapse and get back to reconstructing himself and all his walls. He tried to hook up a handful of times. He went cruising twice and bailed before he even got his jeans down. He got on his knees for a guy in the back room of a club and didn’t even get his mouth on him before he felt like he was suffocating and ran away. He had two different hook ups with two different people from Grindr. Didn’t make it past saying hi to the first, never even made it into the second’s house.

He didn’t know what was wrong with him.

But it felt wrong. Cloying. Slimy. Sleazy. Dirty. He didn’t know. It was like as soon as someone put their hands on him his mind started to vibrate, screeching and screaming and spitting at him instead of sinking into the cold numb abyss he’d escaped to for so long on auto-pilot. It had him churning up visions of things he wished didn’t live in his head. Darkness and pain and other hands and other fears and he couldn’t do anything without panic clawing at his throat and a rush of the past singeing his brain.

Before, the sex had given him numbness, now it gave him shame and pain and a vivid flash of memory.

Usually, when his skin itched, when he felt the urge, he’d go and fuck and things would abate, he’d feel shitty, full of regret and shame but it was the kind he could deal with when the other thoughts threatened to overwhelm him.

Those thoughts, of pain and hurt and powerlessness, those he couldn’t deal with. Except now he didn’t have a way to get there. Nothing except his own toy box and his own hand and hours and hours and hours of porn.

Sex was the only thing on his mind. Playing out fantasies in his head, fucking himself over and over until he was sore from his biggest dildos, drifting off and thinking about it no matter what he was doing or where he was.

It didn’t even get him hard half the time and it was confusing. His body wanted but when he put it in the position to take it, he couldn’t and suddenly his body wanted nothing less. He had no idea what to do.

He spoke to Damen, texting mostly, but nothing particularly serious. He half typed a hundred texts to him asking for a chance but changed his mind every time. He couldn’t, not until the two weeks were up at least and he knew whether he had an STI or not.

When the results did finally come in after two anxious weeks of waiting it was pretty much what he’d expected. He had already known, deep down, it wasn’t going to be all rosy and fine. He knew it. And he was right. And because he hadn’t given the clinic Damen’s real number it meant he had to tell him himself. The idea filled him with dread and shame in equal measure.

It was the thought weighing on his mind all through Monday in the office, the results burning a hole in his phone and in his brain. And a fucking prescription he had to pick up after work.

Generally, it could have been worse but he couldn’t settle, not until he’d done the last HIV test. It could still be bad even if it was not-great-but-definitely-not-terrible now.

After work he headed toward the pharmacy but before he even made it to the end of the street he was accosted by a surprisingly rough hand on his shoulder yanking him back.

“We need to talk,”

Erasmus didn’t give him a chance to reply, he shoved at Laurent’s shoulder and nodded toward the pub. Completely blindsided and annoyingly curious, Laurent followed him.

Erasmus hadn’t so much as looked at him since the day after Laurent had told him about Damen. In the three weeks since then Erasmus, and most of the other people in the office, had acted as though he didn’t exist. It had been fine by him, more than fine, it’s not like he liked any of them or cared.

Why now?

He had no idea. He followed Erasmus into the pub anyway. It was a shitty old man pub, filled with mismatching chairs, with sticky floors and stickier tables and plenty of old crusty beer mats. It smelt like ale and some sort of food that made Laurent’s stomach turn.

Erasmus went straight to the bar, ordering a glass of white wine and a vodka for Laurent. He grabbed them the second they were placed on the bar in front of him.

“He’s paying,” Erasmus said, leaving with their drinks to a small table in the corner.

Laurent bit his tongue, fuming as he reluctantly paid and glared at Erasmus.

Erasmus didn’t say anything when Laurent joined him. He took a large gulp of his ridiculously and pointedly expensive wine and sat there, head bowed, fiddling with his sleeves. Laurent was aware his own hackles were up, on edge, arms folded over his chest as he stared at him.

The longer Erasmus sat there, small and meek and vulnerable, the more Laurent’s patience wore thin, something scratching at him, a hiss he could feel and not hear. Like a dog backed into a corner.

“Are you back together?”

The words were prompted by the pounding in his chest, the question he hadn’t had the courage to ask Damen.

Erasmus squared his jaw, fiddling with his glass “no we’re not and we won’t be,” he said

Laurent tried not to let the relief show. But he was relieved, so fucking painfully relieved. Damen had told him he wasn’t getting back with him but it felt better to hear it from Erasmus too.

“So what do you want?” he demanded

Erasmus turned his head up, kittenish anger scrunching up his perfect face as he shook his head.

“You have no right to talk to me like that,”

“And yet here we are, I don’t have the patience to pretend to like you today so just say whatever it is you want to say and then do us both a favour and let me fuck off,”

Erasmus blinked, chewing on his bottom lip before he took a fortifying breath. When he lifted his hand to swipe at his brow, pushing his bangs away, it was shaking.

“Pretend to like me,” he parroted

Laurent grabbed his vodka for something to do, taking a generous sip as Erasmus released a shaky breath and fucking finally managed to meet his eyes.

“Why, Laurent?” Erasmus asked “what have I ever done to you to make you… what did I do?”

Was it not blatantly obvious?

“Damen, obviously, please do pay attention, I know you’re slow but I really can’t be bothered with the timid mouse routine,”

Erasmus shook his head “you’re a liar,”

“Excuse me?”

“Damen said you played games with him for a year before we got together, if you wanted him, you had him, but you didn’t, so why really? You didn’t want him but didn’t want anyone else to have him either? Just didn’t want to see him happy?”

Laurent couldn’t answer. Not without admitting he had wanted Damen. That he was very fucking aware he’d had him, and if he could go back he’d do it differently. Never let him go. It was too late, his realisation, his admittance, it had all come far too fucking late, until his jealousy and his fear and his breaking heart had had a mind of their own.

In truth? He thought again and again about what Auguste had said about Damen, and how true it was for him too. He hadn’t known what he’d had and what he’d wanted until it was gone.

“Happy? Please don’t kid yourself, I clicked my fingers and he came running every time, if he was happy with you darling, then he wouldn’t have,” Laurent said and sat forward, glaring at him “don’t you just love the way he talks in bed? Or that little breathy noise he makes when he first sinks his cock in? Or-”

“I liked when he told me he loved me,” Erasmus fired back

And it was a direct hit. The kind of slap that had Laurent sitting back in his chair, catching his breath, barely refraining from lifting a hand to his chest to make sure it hadn’t caved in. Laurent didn’t have anything to say. He opened and closed his mouth twice before clearing his throat and Erasmus watched him the whole time, his expression shrewd and knowing.

“I thought we were friends, I defended you, I always defended you when people were mean about you, when they said unkind things, I-“

“I never asked you to, maybe you should have listened, it’s not my fault you’re a fool-“

“There is no shame in wanting to see the best in people,” Erasmus said “just because I’m not rude like you doesn’t mean I’m a mouse, it’s not weak to be a nice person, manners don’t cost anything and there is no need to be so mean,”

“Nice,” Laurent scoffed “have I hurt your feelings?”

“You helped break my heart,”

Laurent blinked, shocked by the easy admission. It had taken Laurent nearly two years to admit he even had a heart to break.

“Don’t look so surprised, I would have spent the rest of my life loving him, of course I’m heartbroken, I’m not like you, I have feelings, and I just want to know why you couldn’t just go away we were happy and you didn’t want him so why?”

“I didn’t-“ he shook his head “I have no idea what the fuck you want me to say,”

“Are you sorry?” Erasmus asked

Fuck.

“No,” he admitted “I’m sorry for the way you found out,”

Erasmus frowned “but you’re not sorry you did it?”

Looking at his face, his perfectly lovely doe eyes glassy with waiting tears and his chin trembling, Laurent felt the shame. A lick in his stomach making him want to hide.

“No,”

His voice came out quiet. As timid as he’d accused Erasmus of being. Erasmus pulled a face, part fury, part disgust and Laurent shook his head at him.

“I’m being honest, don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to if you-“

“Honest?” Erasmus laughed, blinking furiously as he tipped his head up to the ceiling “you don’t know how to be honest, you lie all the time, it’s all you do and about stupid stuff, I don’t think you can be honest,”

“I am being honest right now you don’t have to like it-“

“I don’t like it, I don’t like you I don’t like anything about you and I see now why everyone else in the office fucking hates you, why your own family wants nothing to do with you,” Erasmus said “because people don’t even need to know you for more than one conversation before they smell it on you, you’re toxic, you’re a terrible person, a shitty employee and there is a reason you have no friends,” Erasmus said rising to his feet “you don’t deserve Damen, you’d only leech whatever goodness is left in him so I’m glad you don’t get to keep him, I’m fucking glad that you’re alone, it’s what you deserve because you’re a pathetic cruel little boy and that’s all you’ll ever be,”

“Fuck you,”

“Yeah, fuck me, but I’ll get to move on, I’ll get on with my life and it’ll be like you never existed but you?” Erasmus gave him a once over full of derision “you have to live with yourself and quite frankly, I can’t imagine anything worse than not being able to escape you,”

Laurent was stunned watching him leave, vision swimming as he sucked in air, fighting to keep focused, to stay present. He curled his fingers into his palm, forced his nails into this skin until it stung.

When he’d counted to ten he got up, racing after him, practically jogging down the street to catch up to him.

“Wait,” he called, slowing to a stop when Erasmus froze.

Erasmus span around, tear tracks on his pale cheeks. He swatted at them angrily “what? What more could you possibly have-“

“I’m so fucking sorry Erasmus,”

Erasmus snapped his mouth closed, stiffening as he stared warily at Laurent. Like he was waiting for a punch line.

He forced the words out, making them come. Erasmus deserved them, he deserved so much more but it was all he had to offer.

“I know you hate me, so this isn’t going to change anything and I get it, you should hate me, god knows I do, but I am sorry, you’re a good person, you really are and you’re right, it’s not weak, you’re stronger than I am, we both know it I just- fuck I’m just sorry, okay? I can’t take it back, I can’t make it right, I just needed you to know that,”

“Oh,” Erasmus said, biting at his lip and staring down at the floor.

“You’re so good Erasmus don’t-“ his breath, mortifyingly, hitched and Erasmus turned his face up to look at him, wide eyed and bewildered “never lose that, you don’t know how rare it is,”

Erasmus stared at him like he’d grown a second head so Laurent took a step back.

“Damen loves you,” he choked out “and I hated it and I’m sorry, I am, I’m so sorry,”

Erasmus was still staring at him, mouth open and tears still glittering on his lashes.

“For what it’s worth, I can’t imagine anything worse than being stuck with me either,” he added

He turned on his heel, fleeing in the opposite direction toward the pharmacy as quickly as he could without actually running. It was nothing but the truth. Laurent would have a whole lifetime with this, with himself, and some days -most days- he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to live with himself either.

~*~

It took Laurent two days to work up the courage to text Damen to ask to meet. He asked if they could meet after work, to grab a drink and talk about something important. Damen agreed to meet, gave him the name of a bar somewhere near the train station and promised he’d be there.

Laurent was there first, ordered them both a drink before he could second guess whether or not he should have done so, and waited for Damen to arrive. It filled him with so much dread he thought several times of walking out. Standing him up. Going to throw himself in front of a bus rather than face this fucking conversation. But he stayed because although Laurent might not give two fucks about his own health he did care, belatedly, about Damen’s.

When Damen arrived he had a shirt on, his jacket over his arm, sleeves rolled up to the elbows and Laurent got caught on the tendons there, the dark hair, the wiry veins that stood out when he pulled the chair opposite Laurent out and sat down. He looked really fucking good and it was very fucking unfair.

“Are you alright?” Damen asked, putting his laptop case on the seat next to him and reaching for his pint “you look pale,”

Laurent snorted, swiping a hand down his face “yeah I’ve been better,”

Damen agreed easily, sharing a smile with him and even though it wasn’t funny in the slightest, Laurent wanted desperately to laugh. Hysteria probably. A mixture of the late August heat, Damen looking so very fine whilst being off limits, and the heavy hang of anxiety.

“What did you want to talk about?” Damen asked

He was relaxed, sitting back in his seat, literally no idea he was about to get some very telling bad news. How many people had Damen slept with since they broke up? Or rather, stopped sleeping together.

If he had it too would he have a lot of people to tell?

Laurent frowned and took a deep breath. It did absolutely fucking nothing for him. He let it out anyway on a puff of air and dropped his gaze to his drink.

“I have chlamydia,” he said

It landed about as well as he supposed a statement like that could ever possibly land. Which was not good. Damen stiffened, sitting forward to plant his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands for a long silent moment.

With his lips pressed together and nerves still dancing in his stomach Laurent stared, jittery, bouncing one leg under the table to at least try to help with the restlessness.

“Right,” Damen said finally, sighing as he sat up straight.

He wasn’t relaxed any more. He didn’t lounge back or look at Laurent. He kept his eyes off to the side, biting the inside of his cheek as he pursed his lips. Holding back.

“You can say it,” Laurent offered “I know what you’re thinking and you can- you can say it,”

Damen shook his head, took a long pull of his drink and let it hit the table with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

“I’m not thinking anything at all,” Damen said looking for all the world like he had a thousand things he wanted to unleash and was holding in check barely.

“Well, you might after this next bit,” Laurent said

Damen arced a brow at him, staring him down.

Laurent smoothed his palms along his jeans, working to swallow.

“I did a rapid test when I was there, it was negative- for HIV I mean but… I’ll need to do another one in a few weeks because I have to wait six weeks from… so- you might want to do the same,” he said

Damen read between the lines, the things Laurent wasn’t saying out loud. The implication. Damen nodded tightly, wincing as he stared down at his hands.

“Only me,” Damen snorted “that’s what you said,”

Laurent bit his tongue, scratching at the varnish on the chipped wood grain of the table.

“I didn’t lie to you,”

Damen gave a disbelieving huff, shaking his head “it’s fine,” he sighed “I- it’s not a problem anyway,”

Laurent snapped his head up, canting his head in question.

“I got-“ Damen made a vague gesture with his hand “PeP, the 72 hour one, after, and I’ve been tested, I’m just waiting for results, Erasmus has been and he said he was fine but I should probably tell him this lovely new development,”

Damen had been tested already. And he’d gotten PeP. Because he hadn’t trusted him. Damen had said it, hadn’t he? He didn’t trust Laurent. And he’d been right not to. It shouldn’t sting. Damen was just being responsible, it wasn’t an attack or personal, it was the sensible thing to do. Didn’t stop it from smarting though.

Laurent nodded “right,”

“Don’t do that, it’s not fair to look at me like that,” Damen said “and I was right to do it, obviously, because I wasn’t the only person you were going bare with and you lied to me,” he breathed out a laugh though it was anything but amused “but it’s fine, none of my business,”

“I know, I’m not being fair but-” Laurent put his head in his hands, hiding his face and pressing the base of his palms into his eye sockets

“But what?”

Laurent dropped his hands “I really didn’t lie to you, you’re the only-“ he snapped his mouth shut, already rising to his feet “it’s fine, forget it,”

Damen snatched his wrist, pulling him back into his seat.

“What does that mean?” he asked and the crease in his brow was severe, made Laurent want to shrink away.

“It means it’s not like I’ve ever asked for it, it’s not like I just let anyone do that, I’m not a fucking moron, I don’t even like-“

Damen’s face went hard, mouth a thin compressed line “Laurent-“

“Don’t, just- I know, okay? I know it was me and I pushed you to do it, but that’s what I mean, I don’t even like it for fucks sake, I don’t fuck bare, I never knowingly do that, I can’t, if someone- they just… but I asked you to, it’s- different,” he finished lamely rubbing at his chest where it felt like his heart was attempting to beat its way out from behind his ribs.

Damen was shaking his head, something like fury in his features. A look Laurent never wanted to see from him. Laurent got back up, his chair making an awful dragging noise as he shot to his feet and snatched his arm away before Damen could reach for him.

“I’m not going to stay just to let you insult me, believe me it’s nothing I don’t already know so, I have to go,” he rushed to say before turning on his heel and leaving.

Damen caught up to him outside, grabbing his shoulder and hauling him around.

“Damen-“

“Laurent I’m not fucking mad at you,”

“You look mad,”

“Of course I’m fucking mad, do you realise what you just said?”

“I- what did I say?”

“Laurent if…” Damen swallowed, took a step closer “if they did that without permission that’s… it’s assault Laurent, you know that right?”

Laurent blinked, something hard strangling his airways as he tried to suck in a breath as the word buzzed in his ears.

“What?”

“Consent Laurent,” Damen stressed “if you didn’t-“ he softened his voice “baby that’s not consent,”

Laurent frowned “I didn’t know about it though,”

Damen’s expression looked as torn open as Laurent felt and he resisted the urge to shrink away.

“That’s not a yes, if they did it without you knowing or against your wishes, or if they pressured or coerced you… that’s rape Laurent,”

Assault. Rape.

He breathed out, shakily, blinking furiously as those words rammed against the vault in his head and a static whining noise pierced through his hearing. Like a siren. A warning. He shook his head, staring up at Damen through blurry eyes and he could choke on the feeling swarming him.

“I have to go,”

“Laurent,”

Damen caught his hand, it wasn’t hard, it wasn’t rough. Loose enough that Laurent could pull away but that was his problem. He didn’t know how to pull away from Damen, he didn’t want to pull away from him, even when he should.

“Don’t run, talk to me, it’s okay, just talk to me Laurent, please, let me be here,”

Laurent shook his head “I can’t, not now, not right now, please I- I need to go,” he forced out

Damen’s fingers were gentle, his thumb stroking against Laurent’s, a soothing caress he felt everywhere. Every inch of his skin. Deep in his frantically beating heart. Right down in the core of him where hope still lived no matter how many hits it took.

“You can though, I’m here, just please talk to me, when you’re ready?”

The soft genuine look Damen gave him was so devoid of the disgust and fury he’d expected he could only nod, squeeze Damen’s hand to reassure him. Of what? He didn’t know, but he appreciated the gesture so much. Even if he’d never take him up on it.

Damen read it on him, stepped in closer, tugging Laurent in gently until they were chest to chest. Damen reached up, stealing the air from Laurent’s lungs as his face was cupped by two wide warm palms.

“Baby I need you to listen to me,”

Helplessly Laurent nodded, fingers finding their way to Damen’s shirt, clenching into the material to anchor himself to the moment.

“I’d never be mad at you over something like this, I just care about you and I need you to know that whatever happened, whatever you’re not telling me, it wasn’t your fault and I’m here for you, no matter what, okay?”

Laurent choked, nodding dazedly up at him, blinking the moisture out of his eyes. Damen’s thumb was a gentle caress beneath his eye, catching the ghost of a tear before Laurent found himself encased in Damen’s arms, wrapped up in him.

He buried his face in Damen’s chest, those words, all of his words, whirring through his brain. When he pulled away he reached for Damen’s hand, squeezed it tight.

“Thank you, I just need to be alone right now, I need-“

“You don’t have to explain, but please call me?” Damen said “when you’re ready I’m right here, just say the word,”

He nodded, offering Damen some semblance of a smile and sniffing hard against the pressure building in his face. Damen nodded right back at him, squeezed his fingers, and let him go.

~*~

He spent the next two days with Damen’s words ringing in his head. It was like trying to make puzzle pieces fit together when they didn’t belong to the same picture. They had texted back and forth, mostly Damen checking in on him or Laurent just wanting to talk about nothing in particular.

But Damen’s words never went away, those three in particular. Assault. Rape. Consent.

Laurent didn’t say no. He never said no. But, a quiet voice in the back of his head asked, had he ever said yes either? Properly, enthusiastically, in a way that he meant… with anyone but Damen?

The idea churned through him, frightening and confusing. He lost hours looking up definitions on the internet. Trawling through forums online to read what other people had to say.

It was bizarre. He could read about a situation similar to something he’d experienced and he sympathised with the anonymous person, had no trouble saying it was assault. When he tried to apply the logic to himself it faded, twisted, got all turned around and murky.

It didn’t make sense. It was frustrating and confusing and he knew, logically, that what Damen had said was true. But there was part of his brain telling him he didn’t count. It didn’t count because-

Because why?

He deserved it?

Maybe.

His convoluted maudlin thoughts were interrupted on Friday evening by a fist pounding on his door. It startled him enough to have him about shit himself. Closing the tab for the porn he’d only idly been watching he slammed the laptop closed and went tentatively to the door. He couldn’t hear anyone and he didn’t have a peep hole or a way to look without opening the door.

He knew the way Damen knocked. He knew how Ancel or Aimeric knocked. He didn’t know anyone else who would show up unannounced unless-

No.

He threw the door open, freezing when he saw who was on the other side.

“Do you always take that long to answer the door?”

Nicaise shoved past him, wandering down the hall like he’d been fucking invited whilst Laurent fish mouthed in the doorway. He checked the stairs, making sure his uncle wasn’t lurking anywhere before slamming his door closed and going back to his living room. Blinking to make sure that yes, that was Nicaise sitting on his sofa and stealing one of his cigarettes.

Laurent turned his face away, refusing the swim and churn of violent sickening memories that could -at any minute- break free from the cage in the back of his head,

“Did he send you?”

Nicaise looked so painfully young. He was wearing a hoody a little too big for him, baggy jeans, had his hair pushed back in a headband and dark rings around his pale eyes. He looked as tired as Laurent felt.

It was the devastating realisation of it all that made Laurent move, had him sliding onto the opposite side of the sofa and handing his lighter over like he was okay with a kid smoking in his flat.

He wasn’t, but Nicaise wasn’t exactly a normal kid.

“No,” Nicaise exhaled smoke, not looking at him as he flicked Laurent’s lighter on and off.

“Why are you here?”

Nicaise shrugged, turned an attempt at a sneer on him.

“Came to see if you wanted to fuck,”

He didn’t say again. Laurent heard it anyway, flinched and turned his head away.

“I’m sorry,” he said forcing his gaze toward Nicaise.

He was still sneering, little face all scrunched up in an approximation of anger. Laurent could see the cracks in it, the obnoxious vitriol slathered over wounds that wouldn’t heal. He could see it because he saw it every day in the fucking mirror.

“Nicaise, look at me,”

Nicaise met his eyes, guard slipping enough to let Laurent see the nervous flit of them.

“Whatever happened, whatever he made you do, none of it is your fault, you didn’t deserve it and I’m so fucking sorry that it happened, that I didn’t stop it, you know I’d never touch you, right? You know I don’t- I don’t like that stuff, right?”

Nicaise took a deep drag of his cigarette, flicked ash in the general vicinity of Laurent’s ashtray and nodded.

“I know, that’s why I’m here,” he said

Laurent understood. Somewhere safe, he supposed. Bizarre, after everything that Nicaise could even stomach being in the same room as him, let alone that he considered Laurent safe. It felt like someone had just handed up something delicate and careful, like a bomb about to explode. He had no fucking idea how to diffuse it but it’s not like he could throw it and run. He was the only one with the bomb.

“You didn’t do anything to me, you know,” Nicaise said

Laurent swallowed the acid on his tongue, the sharp indistinct swell of shame and denial that wanted to tell him he knew better. He must have.

“Didn’t I?”

“You refused and then you were really out of it you were basically a breathing doll, it was fucked up,”

Laurent shuddered, clicking his jaw together to grit his teeth, bite down until the urge to scream had subsided.

Nicaise nodded “you told him no- to do what he wanted to you but you wouldn’t touch me,”

“Was it bad?” Laurent asked

Nicaise turned his face away. Answer enough. Laurent swallowed

“Right,”

“It- your friend, the other one,”

“Aimeric?”

Nicaise nodded “he cried, if that helps,”

It didn’t. Or maybe it did. Laurent didn’t even know what Aimeric had done to him, he didn’t remember a fucking thing beyond vague impressions and two half-memories and he wasn’t sure if it was for the best or not. He hadn’t spoken to Aimeric since.

He felt impossibly, horrifically, guilty about it now.

Laurent sighed, padded to his fridge and retrieved two bottles of beer. Nicaise might be a kid but it was already too late. One beer couldn’t fuck him up any more than he’d already been chewed up by the world.

“How do you even know him?” Laurent asked, bouncing back down onto the end of the sofa.

With his keyring he popped the lid off his bottle and tossed them to Nicaise.

“He’s dating my mom,” he said, voice accompanied by the hiss of his bottle top clinking off.

Laurent looked up sharply, eyes boring into Nicaise “what?”

His uncle had dated, he knew that. Sheilds, women he flaunted and wooed with money and fancy things. But Nicaise’s mother?

Did he do that a lot? Had he dated other women expressly to get to their sons? Probably the sick fuck.

Nicaise shrugged “she’s a receptionist at the surgery, they’ve been dating for a year,”

Of course she was. Laurent knew exactly how it would have played out.

“I think-“ Nicaise said tentatively “I think they’re going to get married; I heard them talking about having kids and us moving in with him,”

Laurent stared at him, horror filling him, the idea of his uncle having children of his own? It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Jesus,” Laurent said for lack of anything better to say “what are you going to do?”

“Do?”

“I don’t know, you could tell her, tell her what he’s doing and she’ll-“

“She knows,”

The words were a violent clatter. A shudder that spasmed in the room and had Laurent breathing out in a rush, sitting up straighter, sure he must have misheard.

“What?”

Nicaise dropped his chin, picking at a thread on the edge of the sofa “she walked in on it,”

“And didn’t fucking care?” Laurent asked incredulously

He regretted it immediately when Nicaise flinched, trying to hide it by turning it into a shrug.

“They argued, she cried, he convinced her- I don’t know what exactly, but he doesn’t try very hard to hide it anymore and she just pretends it isn’t happening, I don’t know what he said but more than once I’ve heard her tell him that I need to be put in my place and then he’ll… come fuck me I guess,”

Bile slithered around in Laurent’s stomach, churning as he let those words settle. He thought his own father was bad. How much worse would it have been if Aleron had actively encouraged him? Sent him away to his uncle with his fucking blessing?

“That might be the worst fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” he said

It was tactless but it made Nicaise snort “funny, I was going to say the same about you fucking your own uncle,”

It wasn’t funny, not in the slightest but Laurent still found his lips twitching as he shook his head at him.

“No offence but your mother is a piece of shit,”

Nicaise nodded “she was 15 when she had me, I ruined her life, or so she says, it’s not really that different from the way she’s always treated me,”

Nicaise pulled his legs up, turned to rest back against the arm of the sofa to look at Laurent properly “he’s rich and charming, she says he is the universe’s way of making up for the rest of her shitty life and I’m pretty sure if they have kid’s she’ll let him do anything so long as she doesn’t have to work and can play pretend at being middle class,”

It was fucking crazy, the things people could be convinced of, could be coerced into doing with the right leverage, the right manipulation, the right temperament.

“So why did you really come here?”

“He was drinking and my mom was out with her friends and I knew what he’d want so I left, he’s old so he like, writes everything down and shit, has this whole book of names and addresses and little notes about people, it’s creepy but came in handy,”

Of course he fucking did.

“Will he know you came here?”

Nicaise snorted “no, he thinks I don’t like you,”

“I thought you didn’t like me,”

Nicaise shrugged, pouting at the slip.

“He made me watch it,” he said quietly

Laurent’s heart rate picked up when Nicaise’s eyes flashed to him and Laurent didn’t need him to explain. He knew what it was. The prick had filmed the entire encounter after all. Of course he’d make Nicaise watch it.

“Sometimes he puts it on whilst he’s- and he makes me look at it, even after he finishes, he makes me watch the whole thing and it’s like, a whole fucking film, it’s like 70 minutes long I think,”

Laurent rolled his lips together, staring adamantly at his bottle, picking the label off it idly with his thumb nail.

“He’s made me watch other videos too,” Nicaise whispered

Laurent pressed his eyes closed, tried not to let the memories come and when they did, tried his best not to let them linger.

“Of me, right?”

“When you were a kid,” Nicaise specified.

Laurent nodded. There wasn’t anything else to say. Except maybe it explained Nicaise coming here after all. They were kindred, in a way, weren’t they? Tied together in a mess neither of them had made and neither of them could escape. It was pathetic. Tragic.

“It’s weird, because it’s kind of like watching you die,” Nicaise said

Laurent snapped his head up, staring hard at Nicaise. He wasn’t looking back at him, he was frowning down at his cigarette, watching the end glow.

“At the start you’re just- unsure, eager to please, but then, the older you get it’s like… it’s like you’re not even there anymore and that- that terrifies me, I don’t want to be like that but I can’t- I don’t know, I think about how shy you were, the way you smiled and then, later you just- I think he could have taken a knife to your throat and you wouldn’t have stopped him,”

“I don’t think I would have either,”

“Would you now?”

Laurent looked at him, let Nicaise discern for himself what he wanted in his expression. Nicaise’s swallow was loud, the way he pressed his eyes closed and hung his head made Laurent’s heart hurt.

“Do you remember it?”

Laurent didn’t need to specify what he was talking about. He told Nicaise himself, once, hadn’t he? It was better to be shared when you were high.

Nicaise took a long drag of his cigarette and reached across to stub it out before replying.

“Yes, I wasn’t drugged, or drunk, he just sat there, telling us what to do and I think your friend was sober too, it was just you, he said you’re always difficult,”

Laurent snorted, tipping his bottle up for a deep gulp “yeah, he tells me that all the time,”

“I think it’s a good thing,”

“You do?”

Nicaise shrugged “if you weren’t difficult, you’d be like me and your friend, and I think… I think I’m starting to get that you were right,”

Laurent couldn’t remember what he’d said but he could see it in the flash of Nicaise’s gaze. His tired too-old stare peering out from what should have been round innocent eyes.

“I can’t make it better for you,” Laurent warned “I can’t even figure out how to make it better for me,”

“I think you do know, you’re just scared,”

Laurent felt those words and he swallowed thickly, Nicaise was looking at him, thoughtful and accusing in equal measure. Laurent nodded, carefully.

“I think I do too but I don’t know if I can, if I’m in too deep, or maybe I’m just too broken to do it, I don’t know,”

“I don’t think you’re broken,”

“I am Nicaise, he broke me but I ruined myself, it’s how it is, you do it to yourself in the end, he gives you the gun but you load it all on your own,”

Nicaise shook his head “don’t say that, I have to believe it’s not true, I have to, because if it’s true for you then it will be true for me too and I’m not ready to give in to that,”

God, how was the kid so strong? He was what? Fourteen? Fifteen at most and he was already braver than Laurent had ever been. Stronger. More will. More fight. No, Nicaise wouldn’t break the way Laurent had, the way Aimeric did.

Not if he got out now. But if his mom married the prick? If they had more kids and Nicaise had to watch it happen to them too?

It would ruin anyone, no matter how strong they were. There were some things that there was no coming back from.

~*~

It was nearing midnight and Laurent should be in bed. He should be in bed, tossing and turning and willing sleep to come, or three pills deep and dozing, not standing outside Aimeric’s flat contemplating knocking.

Nicaise had left hours ago, when Laurent stuck him in a taxi and sent him off to his father’s house instead of the house his piece of shit mother lived in. Or wherever his uncle was. He hadn’t stopped thinking about Aimeric since Nicaise left. He should have called him back. Text him back. Talked to him before now.

Aimeric had reached out a few times but Laurent had been very busy making a ruin of the one part of his life he actually liked so instead he’d ignored him.

For a month.

And the guilt was unbearable.

He knocked, loud enough to be heard if Aimeric was in bed. There was a light on under the door, if he pressed his ear against it there was the vague hum of the TV somewhere beyond. Aimeric was home. Home and ignoring him.

He knocked again when there was no response, louder when it didn’t illicit anything either.

“I know you’re in their dickhead,” Laurent shouted banging on the door with a closed fist.

He couldn’t say what it was. He didn’t know why but something was wrong and he knew it. He could feel it, aware of it in the air as his body started thrumming with tension and a scream echoed in his head that said go now.

It had him pulling out his wallet, sliding a card into the space between the lock and the door and fucking around until, with a shoulder barge, the door opened. With the noise and the slight sound of splintering wood Laurent hurried over the threshold and shut the door in case anyone cared to look out into the hall. It didn’t close properly but it was better than nothing.

When he turned to study the rest of the flat he deflated, an echo of his own pain screaming back at him when he saw the state of it. There were bottles fucking everywhere. Vodka, some gin. No whiskey or Scotch, Laurent knew. Because he was the same. He couldn’t stand the smell; it made his stomach heave.

“Aimeric?” he called, staring at the mess in and around the ashtray.

It was overflowing, there was half a loaf of bread out on the counter, an unopened bottle of milk that looked to have turned, a small stack of unopened letters.

“Aimeric?” he called again, poking his head into the bedroom.

The lights were all on. But he wasn’t here. The bed was unmade, there were piles of clothes everywhere and Aimeric’s phone was on the pillow. He had to be there somewhere; he’d never leave without his phone.

Turning Laurent went to the bathroom, rapped his knuckles against it.

“Don’t hide Aimeric, I’m sorry okay? I should have been here,” he said

When there was still no response he frowned, tapped at the door again and realised it was unlocked. He gave it the smallest push, not sure what he expected.

But this was worse. It was so much worse.

For a second Laurent’s brain couldn’t process what he was seeing. There was just red, and red, and red. And Aimeric in the middle of it, so fucking pale he was nearly as white as the tile beneath him.

Aimeric.

He fumbled for his phone, calling emergency, and hitting speaker as he went skidding toward Aimeric, hands flying uselessly to his neck and his face and the ugly gaping wounds on his wrists.

Dispatch answered, they told him to apply pressure, he told them the address and he begged them to hurry. It was a blur, a terrifying sickening blur of realisation as he stared down at Aimeric’s cold lifeless face. His lips were going blue.

“No, no you can’t do this, not like this, please Aimeric, not like this,” Laurent babbled, doing as he’d been told by dispatch.

The approach of sirens had him holding his breath and when they arrived, they had to prise him away. He couldn’t make his body work, could do nothing but stare in abject horror as they jumped into action around Aimeric.

The last time Laurent had seen him he’d been unable to meet his eyes. Unwilling to hear him sob, to listen to anything he’d had to say. Had ignored every single attempt to reach out since. Aimeric had been drowning and Laurent had let him.

And now he was lying alone, with his wrists slashed open on his fucking bathroom floor. Laurent should have been here. He should have done something.

If Aimeric didn’t survive Laurent would never forgive himself.

Chapter Text

There were questions. So many questions. Questions like, did Aimeric have a history of self-harm? Had he given any indication? Was he depressed? Had he shown signs? Had something happened? Did he take anything?

Laurent didn’t know. He didn’t fucking know any of it. He should know. He should have the answers to those questions, shouldn’t have to guess and recall the same useless information to different emergency professionals. But he didn’t know the specifics. He’d ignored Aimeric and now here they were.

He barely remembered the ambulance ride. He didn’t remember the rush through to the ward. Or surgery, or wherever the fuck he was now. He had no idea who’d given him a shiny blanket or the tepid cup of tea he’d been clutching like a lifeline for what seemed like hours.

All he could see was Aimeric. The blood. The sheer amount of it. The gashes he’d made in his wrists. Laurent kept blinking and envisioning himself in Aimeric’s place. His own bathroom. His own face pale and tinging blue.

It could have been him. Maybe one day it would be. Maybe it should have been him.

There was a nurse in front of him but Laurent couldn’t hear her, couldn’t do anything except nod until they went away again, bustling off to god knew where.

Laurent shouldn’t be here. He didn’t want to be here. There was a buzzing in his head, growing increasingly loud. Like white noise. Like he’d gone offline and there was no reception, his brain not receiving any of what was in front of him. Present but not. Not really.

Things happened in bursts, in stutters, in freeze frames like some haunting tableau he had no control over. He made no decision to walk yet he found himself outside. He didn’t remember getting his phone out but there was a car and he was getting inside.

Somehow, he was knocking on a door, with no recollection of how he got there as the desperate clenching void in his head swallowed him whole. Pulling him back. Protecting him from this.

Like a shelter. It’s what it had always been. Waiting for the bombs to stop.

He pressed the doorbell, heard it blaring, pressed it and pressed it and pressed it until the door was swinging open, two figures coming into focus, one behind the other, bleary and sleep rumpled. Oh, right. It was really late. Or really early he supposed.

“Laurent? What-“

Damen’s voice made him look up, had him blinking his face into focus and Damen in front of him went wide eyed, taking him in, taking hold of his arm carefully and guiding him into the house.

“Fucking hell is that blood?”

That was Nikandros but Laurent didn’t bother to look, couldn’t focus on Damen for too long either because it was a little bit like squinting into the sun. Damen was there though, stooping into his field of vision, attempting to force eye contact Laurent instinctively turned from.

“Laurent,”

His voice was so soft. So calm.

“Whose blood is that sweetheart? Can you tell me what happened?”

There were more words he couldn’t make sense of, couldn’t seem to find the will or the energy to process them let alone respond. It was like the world was spinning around him and Laurent had stayed still. Or was lagging behind.

The whole world was moving on but he was stuck.

Fitting, he supposed.

“It’s not mine,” he said tongue heavy in his mouth like it didn’t want to work anymore than the rest of him did “it’s Aimeric’s, I found him, he tried to kill himself and I don’t…”

He trailed off and turned his eyes down, holding out his hands and saw there was indeed blood. A lot of it. Dried and flaking and sticking to his hands. To his shirt. Under his nails. He reacted, rubbing at it, frantic, and scuttling and panicked when it didn’t immediately come off.

“Stop, baby stop,” Damen said as if from far away

Laurent turned to him, helpless to follow, a tide obeying the pull of the moon.

“Shower, come on, I’ll put you in the shower,”

Shower. For the blood. Aimeric’s blood.

The cloying tackiness of the blood on his hands didn’t dissipate but Laurent followed Damen up the stairs anyway, let himself be stripped, let himself be steered into the shower and guided under the warm water.

“I’ll leave you to it, I’ll be back with clothes,”

The door creaked closed. He didn’t hear it shut. It might have. He didn’t check. He leaned forward instead, enjoying the water as he pressed his forehead against the tile and tried not to picture Aimeric.

Except Aimeric was all he could see. Aimeric on his bathroom floor, Aimeric on his uncle’s bed dead eyed and trying to apologise. Aimeric between Laurent’s thighs, holding something to him, Aimeric holding Laurent’s head up and forcing his mouth open, Aimeric when they’d first met, Aimeric on his knees with his head bent low over someone’s lap, Aimeric-

Dying.

Maybe he’d been dying this whole time. Like Nicaise said. Maybe Laurent had been watching Aimeric dying, little by little, a spectator to a slow rot. A tragic decay. What had he called it once? A long slow march to the gallows.

He was only aware of Damen again when he felt his hands on his skin, his broad body behind him, the soothing sound of his voice which Laurent assumed were words but weren’t filtering in past the too fast slam of memory and horror and -

Exhaustion. It never ended. It was never going to be over. Maybe Aimeric was right. Maybe Laurent should be hoping he succeeded. Maybe he should have left him there to peace. Instead of what? This?

When he blinked again, he was out of the shower, his hair was wet, his hands were clean and he had a familiar safe scent enveloping him. There was another blanket around his shoulders, fluffy this time. Another warm drink in his hands.

Vaguely, he was aware of Damen and Nikandros close by, their hushed whispers as they talked, but it was like watching a film. Like he wasn’t really there. There was a large heavy sheet of glass between him and the world, letting him drift. Stopping him from feeling any of it.

It didn’t last. It couldn’t. It never did.

When he blinked again Laurent sucked in air, disoriented and confused as he took in the room. It was familiar but he was having trouble placing it. He had no memory of how he’d gotten there. He put the mug down, the contents cooling and he jumped up, frowning as he looked down at himself. At the too-big t-shirt and someone else’s shorts he was wearing. His hair was damp.

“Laurent?”

Laurent span around, eyes landing on Damen and he struggled to place why he was here. What he’d come for. What they’d done. He never blanked with Damen. He didn’t retreat. Not for long, never for long, but this? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything.

“How did I- how long-“ he frowned looking for a reason as he assessed Damen “did we fuck?”

Damen flinched; eyebrows raised “what? No, of course not, Laurent-“

Damen came toward him, hand outstretched as though he intended to touch him and instinctively Laurent flinched away, realising only as he did so he’d never flinched from Damen before. Damen’s hands weren’t unwelcome. They were never unwelcome so why- why now? What would he read in that? What would he see? How much had Laurent let him see?

He turned wide eyes up to Damen, breathing in deep as Damen held his hands up and took a step back.

“You’re scaring me Laurent, just tell me what’s happening?”

Laurent couldn’t breathe.

He had been aware of it, aware of it writhing beneath his skin from the moment he burst into Aimeric’s seemingly empty flat. Or maybe before then. Maybe it had always been there, waiting, waiting for him to feel it. To acknowledge it. To let it out.

It was a strange push and pull, unsettling and caustic in the centre of his chest, swaying like a metronome between pretending and falling apart. It was there, always, an hourglass running out of time and it had been carving a gaping wound into his chest for nearly a decade. It was the drag and hitch of every breath filling his lungs between that first time and blinking aware in Nikandros’ living room. It was the way he could feel his blood beneath the surface, racing, the slow scorch of banking embers waiting to spark into flames inside of him.

Every bad decision, every wrong move, every little bit of pain, everything he choked down and refused to feel, all of it more fuel for the inferno building beneath his skin.

And now it had a hold of him.

It broke over him swiftly, with a loud thunderous gasp as he was torn asunder and the molten pain came pouring out. Everything else faded to background noise, the room going fuzzy, the sound sucked out, nothing but the pulse in his ears and the thrum in his neck.

Laurent’s heart was pounding, hammering, running, and running and running from a sensation it could never escape, from a monster that was always bearing down on him. The beat was irregular, skipping and stumbling in its frantic cadence, lurching uncomfortably in his chest.

He sucked air down, greedily inhaling and inhaling to no avail. It was like someone had a hand clamped around his throat. There was no hand, no pillow smothering him, no obstruction to his airway but there might as well have been. It was like drowning on air until he was wheezing and gasping and shaking with the sheer rush of fear and adrenaline shredding his veins.

Laurent spluttered for breath, dragging too much of it into his lungs and still wasn’t able to hold onto enough of it to breathe. It hurt, it ached, and he couldn’t think past the sudden ferocious pounding of you’re going to die reverberating like a satanic chant again and again and again in his head. He stumbled, hit the wall, slid down it as his hand scrambled uselessly at his chest, yanking on the too-loose collar of the borrowed shirt as he tried to make himself breathe.

His vision blurred, tears clogging and rolling down his cheeks and there was nothing to do except coil himself tighter, yank his knees to his chest and bury his face in an attempt to hide from the world, to shrink into himself and disappear.

He was shaking, eyes squeezed shut furiously as he crossed his arm over his head and dug his nails into his forearms. The bite of pain barely registered over the sound of blood as it pumped and rushed through his ears, through his veins, in his chest and it wasn’t enough. There was no anchor, no control, he might die, right there on the floor with his face buried in his knees and his chest and stomach coiling with fright and nausea and- fuck he couldn’t do this.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t stop, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t even think.

It hurt.

Time didn’t register, nothing registered but after a few long, long disconcerting, disorienting moments it started to seep back in. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, he didn’t know or care but the air started hitting his lungs properly and he concentrated on the way his chest expanded, focused on the cool air dragging down his burning throat. Laurent choked it down, like breathing again after breaking the surface of water. Gasping at the end of a sprint.

He was as empty at the end as he been full at the start. He was loose, detached, foreign in his own skin as his body fought to regulate the chaos left behind.

When it was over, when it was really over and the gasping had subsided and the tears had dried on his cheeks and the iron fist around his heart slackened somewhat, he was drained. Sick, nauseous with the after effect. He was tired, exhausted in a way that was so much deeper than mere weariness. It was a fatigue that had sunk into his bones, into every muscle and every vein, and bled into his brain. He was far too young to feel so old.

He was just tired.

He was tired of being ashamed, tired of the fear and the pain that had become constants in his life, like friends, companions on his long and terrible road.

He was tired of never being good enough, tired of running and tired of fighting. He was tired of his own ashen face in the mirror, tired of the nightmares and tired of the memories that haunted him.

It scared him, all of the things he kept inside, they had always scared him. The darkness, the void of despair and hopeless self-loathing and just- pain. Laurent had been skirting it for years, poking at the fraying edges, barely keeping away from it. It had always been there, filling and filling and growing until the dam had burst, the darkness spilling past his barricades and spreading inky fingers through his veins and dripping poison into every spare inch of him.

He was bleeding out as thoroughly as Aimeric had been on his bathroom floor and he didn’t know how to stop the flow. He had never known. He had never wanted this. Because he’d known, always, that if he broke, he’d shatter and there wasn’t any coming back from that, was there?

He lifted his head, meeting Damen’s wide worried gaze and was surprised to see Damen had his hands on him when he couldn’t feel them. Had one hand tangled in his hair, the other clutching one of Laurent’s knees. His mouth was moving.

The pounding at his temples was enough to help him reacquaint himself with his own body and he sucked in a breath, letting it spin out of him on a long, exhausted exhale.

He blinked, sniffing, and Damen’s voice filtered in, soothing calm tones. He was aware of a clock ticking somewhere in the background. Was aware of Nikandros hovering close by out of his immediate vision.

“I don’t remember coming here,” Laurent said and his voice was a rough croak “I’m sorry that I did,”

“It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m here, it was a panic attack, it’s over now, you’re okay,” Damen said as though he’d been saying those words on repeat for a long time.

Laurent nodded, leant into the hand Damen still had on his head, pressed his eyes closed for a long beat as Damen ran his other hand up and down Laurent’s leg soothingly.

“What’s the last thing you do remember?” Damen asked

Laurent shook his head “the hospital but it was such a blur I don’t know exactly,”

“And you don’t remember leaving? Or how you got here?”

Laurent shook his head

Damen surveyed him with concern “has that ever happened before?”

Laurent was too tired to lie.

“Yes,”

Damen swallowed, nodding “you’ve been here over an hour,” he said voice placating and calm, the way people spoke to wild animals or someone about to get bad news “is it always like that?”

Laurent shrugged “sometimes yes, but it’s usually-“

“Short, moments, like you’re spacing out,” Damen said

Of course. Of course he would say that. He’d seen hadn’t he? How many times had Laurent done it in front of him? Too many. Damen had noticed, he’d tried once or twice to talk about it but Laurent always shut him down.

Laurent pulled his arms tighter around himself, didn’t look at him as he nodded.

“I’m so sorry,” Damen said

“Please don’t do that, you haven’t done anything wrong, and it’s not like I told you what was happening,”

“Do you know what’s happening?”

Laurent shrugged “it’s like I just-“ he waved a hand in front of his face “I don’t know, it’s like autopilot sometimes like I keep moving but I’m not present and I don’t remember, but other times it’s like I just freeze and get sucked into my head,”

“When that happens,” Damen said carefully “does anything else happen?”

Laurent shrugged “it’s like the world feels far away, like it’s just a movie- I don’t know, I- sometimes there’s a memory and I just-“ he shook his head “and other times I just switch off and I don’t know, I don’t know Damen,”

“What is it?” Damen asked, not unkindly

Laurent let out a wet sounding laugh “how long do you have? I’m so fucked up it could be any number of things,”

Damen sucked in a breath “don’t say that,”

Laurent didn’t add anything, there wasn’t any point.

“Have you had a panic attack before?”

Laurent wiped his face on his arm “that would require feeling,” he said derisively.

Damen frowned, giving a small shake of his head. Laurent didn’t want to explain it any further, he’d already said too much.

“Have you spoken to someone? Like a doctor?”

Laurent laughed, shook his head and buried it in his arms. That was a joke.

“No,” he managed “no one, and I’m not going to,” he said looking back up, daring Damen to tell him to go see his fucking GP.

“Maybe you should?”

The very idea made him want to scream. No. He’d deal with this as he dealt with everything else: alone. Yes, he should go, but he didn’t trust doctors. Didn’t like anything that could go on his medical record. It was all ammunition for his uncle. It was bad enough he’d see the chlamydia medication, or the PrEP when he started it if he was lucky enough to have his next HIV test come back negative.

He wasn’t about to add mental health issues -and details- to the list. His uncle had enough ways into Laurent’s head, he didn’t need another. But there was something he did need. More than ever. More than anything. He needed to ground himself, back in his body, he needed-

“I need-“ he sucked in a breath, reaching for Damen “I need you, can you? Can you do it now? Please? I need it,” he said scrambling forward

Damen tried to hold him off, still let Laurent wrap his arms around his neck, even as he kept him firmly out of his lap with two hard hands at his waist.

“Punish me please,”

Nikandros beyond them somewhere made an incredulous strangled sound but Laurent ignored him, didn’t care, didn’t take his eyes off Damen.

“I don’t- it can be like last time,” he pleaded “you don’t have to- you don’t have to fuck me, I know you don’t want me like that, please Damen,”

“Laurent-“

Damen shook his head, his eyes wide as something visceral swam in his gaze, like concern but sour somehow, something Laurent couldn’t place and needed to make disappear.

“It can be anything, you can do anything to me, I just- I need- I need to stop thinking I need it, I need you to, Damen, please, I’ll beg if you want, just tell me what to do,”

“Laurent I can’t do that,”

Damen’s voice was strangled and Laurent drew himself back, recoiling from the sharp tone and the same something in Damen’s gaze that was far too knowing.

“No,” Laurent said squeezing his eyes closed “no, of course you can’t- that’s- I shouldn’t have asked, I shouldn’t even be here, I should-“

“Laurent, wait, it’s okay we can-“

“Can I use your bathroom?” he asked already pushing to his feet

Damen blinked, scrambled to stand too, and nodded dumbly as Laurent moved past him into the hall. Laurent raced up the stairs and locked himself in the bathroom before Damen could get a word out.

He leaned back against the door, sucking in air as he saw his jeans and shoes still puddled on the floor. He swiped them up, changing Damen’s shorts for them and managed to make his shaking hands do up the buttons and get his shoes back on. His shirt was a bloody mess, but his jacket was fine and if Damen’s t-shirt fell to his thighs he supposed it didn’t matter much.

Because if Damen couldn’t then there was really only one place to go.

He had the address typed in on his taxi app, saw the car was four minutes away. He avoided looking at himself in the mirror. He didn’t need to know how terrible he looked.

He waited until the car was a minute away before flying back down the stairs, trying to haul it all back into the cages in his head and failing miserably. Damen and Nikandros were in the living room, exchanging hissed whispers when Laurent poked his head in.

“Sorry for coming here,” he said “I need to leave,”

He turned on his heel, making for the door and had his hand on it when Damen caught up to him.

“Don’t go, we can figure something out, I don’t want you to leave,”

“I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t have come here,”

“Laurent please, at least let me drive you home,”

“No,” he said and checked his phone “and the taxi’s here anyway,”

“Laurent, please don’t go, I can- maybe we can talk about-“

Laurent cringed, flinching as he shook his head “we both know you don’t want really to and I shouldn’t have asked you so this is- this is better,”

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t worry about it Damen,”

“But I am worried,” he said “Laurent please, you’re not in your right mind right now, I only said no because you shouldn’t be making this decision and-“

“Exactly,” he snapped “you don’t get it,”

“Jesus Christ do you need to be fucked that badly?” Nikandros asked

Damen turned, hissing at him to shut the fuck up as Laurent laughed, a shaky hysterical sound. His head was really starting to hurt.

“You don’t get it,”

“I do get it, I just don’t think you should be making this kind of decision right now, I get it okay Laurent? I understand, would you please just stay and-“

“It’s here, I won’t…” he swallowed “I’m sorry I dragged you into this… I have to go,”

Before he could hear from Damen’s mouth what his face was already saying and before Nikandros could add some more vitriol he left. Practically running down the path to the car.

The townhouse when he arrived was dark. There was one light on in one of the upstairs bedrooms but really, he didn’t care if the bastard was up or not. He hammered his fist on the door. Loud in the dark of the quiet neighbourhood. He hammered at it until the door swung open and he was met by the raging furious face of his uncle.

“Aimeric tried to kill himself,” he said, way too loud.

His uncle hissed, dragging him over the threshold and shutting the front door all nice and quiet so as not to draw any further attention.

He turned a stoic unimpressed face on Laurent, taking him in.

“He’s in the hospital, he slit his wrists,” Laurent said

He didn’t know what kind of reaction he expected even as he watched him for one closely. He shouldn’t have been surprised when there wasn’t one. Not a single twitch in his expression.

“So? Why are you telling me? Am I supposed to go and see him? Suicide is the coward’s way out and I don’t have time for cowards,”

Laurent held back the shudder and the slightly hysterical laughter waiting to leap out of him.

“So I’m the one who found him and now I need something,” he said injecting as much meaning into it was possible.

It got a reaction. His uncle’s eyebrows rose, climbing up his face.

“You can’t possibly have used everything I gave you last time, not even you are that greedy,”

“I don’t need drugs,” he said forcing the words out

The critical measuring gaze sweeping over him made his skin crawl, had goosebumps breaking out over his body and when the smile followed the light of understanding Laurent tried to ignore the cold sweat starting at the back of his neck. Ignored how badly he had started to shake.

“Oh, I know what you need,” his uncle said “wait here,”

Laurent waited, not even daring to lean back against the wall as he squeezed his eyes closed. He was back in no time, sliding his phone back into his pocket and throwing a balled up shirt at Laurent.

“Put that on, the one you’re wearing is too big,” he said

Laurent unfolded it, noticed the size and swallowed down the lump in his throat. Shredding his jacket he tugged Damen’s shirt over his head and let it drop to the floor, squeezed himself into the shirt that was far too fucking small for him. It was a child’s shirt. Too small even for Nicaise.

He didn’t want to think about it.

“It’s number 426, his name is Howard,” his uncle said “I’ve ordered you a taxi,”

Laurent nodded, putting his jacket back on.

“Have you waxed?”

Ice. A shiver down his spine.

“Shaved,”

His uncle hummed “tell him you’re 17 and when he doesn’t believe you tell him you’re an addict, it’s not so far from the truth,”

No, just six years and one degree he supposed.

He gathered Damen’s shirt and let himself out, smoking on the street as he waited for the taxi. Clutching Damen’s shirt to his chest the whole time. Like a child with a teddy bear.

The second he climbed into the car he wanted to throw up.

What the fuck was he doing? Why was he doing this?

Did it help? Had it ever helped?

It was like running on a treadmill or treading water, he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. It didn’t matter where he went or what he did there wasn’t enough of anything in the world to stop what was happening inside him. Maybe it had always been that way because, in the end, the thing he was trying to escape? There was no out running it. There was no out running the feeling, there was no escaping himself.

He could never escape himself. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? No matter where he went or what he did or what he told himself, he was still there, in his head, living and breathing the lies he whispered to himself in the dark. The fervent it’s fine he told himself over and over: it didn’t matter. But sometimes it wasn’t fine. Laurent knew it all too well, and the black cloud he’d sensed was on his horizon was racing toward him. And he was stumbling headlong to meet it.

“Pull over,”

The driver glanced back at him, tutting even as he did as he’d asked. He pulled over on a random residential street and Laurent climbed from the car, sucking in deep lungsful of air, and paced.

He didn’t want to do this.

How many more hits could he take? How much more could he conceivably take before he was just like Aimeric?

It’s not like he couldn’t see the cliff edge. He saw it, vividly, so how long before apathy became an active will not to exist? How long before staring at the cliff edge became a frantic sprint toward it?

Had Aimeric seen it coming?

That was the thing about last chances, oftentimes there was no way of knowing it was the last, that there were no more doors beyond it, no more tries, no more attempts.

If he did this, would there be one more door beyond? Or just a gaping hole from which there was no coming back?

Laurent didn’t want this. He didn’t.

What would happen if he didn’t show up? His uncle would not take it lightly. He would be made to pay. Was it worth it?

It was like playing Russian roulette, except there was only one empty chamber. Everything else could and would kill him. He didn’t know what was right and what was really his choice and what was -

Compulsion.

Was there even a difference?

Compulsion could be dressed up to masquerade as choice. The right words, the right trimmings. The right amount of fucked up logic and excuses.

Fuck. He could be fucked literally or metaphorically and only one of those options made him want to immediately throw up.

It was an out of body experience, but not the kind he was used to. The way his arms and legs shook, as though his limbs weren’t able to cope with the rush of blood through his veins, was all too real and he was all too present. It was strange to be so aware of it. He could feel every pump of his heart beneath his ribs, the erratic hammering of a too fast rhythm. His pulse was thrumming in his neck, in his wrist, even his eyes, a steady beating drum growing louder and louder and faster and faster. The awareness was unsettling, unnerving, distracting to the point where it was all he could think about.

He didn’t want this. What did he want?

What did he need?

Maybe the answer didn’t lie with him. There was someone else. And he should never have walked out.

He got back into the car.

“Complete the trip, there’s somewhere else I have to be,”

The driver sighed “we’re ten minutes away,”

Laurent leant forward, brandishing his phone “complete it, he won’t check, I’ll book right now, good?”

The driver grumbled but did as he was told, accepting Laurent’s ride when he ordered it.

“Marlas General?” The driver asked

Laurent nodded “there’s somewhere I need to be,”

They were halfway there when his phone lit up, a message from Damen.

Please don’t do this Laurent. I know what you need and it’s not this. I promise you it’s not this at all. You don’t need to be punished sweetheart, you’ve done nothing wrong. Please believe me.

Laurent read it over and over, biting the inside of his cheek. If he hadn’t been sure he was doing the right thing, he definitely felt like he was now.

I’m not, I’m going back to the hospital to be with Aimeric. I’m sorry about earlier.

Slipping out of his jacket he pulled Damen’s shirt back on, threw the fucking kids shirt out the window and ignored the weird looks the taxi driver flashed him in the rearview as he did so.

He kept the window down, let the air rush in and calm him. A balm against the jittery indistinct glow in his core that was screaming at him, telling him he needed it

For now, maybe, it was enough to just breathe and let the air in.

~*~

The nurses told him Aimeric’s surgery was successful but he was still asleep. He had a sneaking suspicion they only let him in to sit with Aimeric despite it being outside of visiting hours because Laurent looked so terrible they were taking pity on him. He only needed to pout and tell them he’d been the one to find him and the kindly older woman was herding Laurent toward a private room at the end of the corridor.

Laurent slipped into the darkened room, eyeing Aimeric in the bed as he took a seat at his bedside in the world’s most tragic chair. It was squeaky and uncomfortable but Laurent pulled his legs up, rested his chin on his knees and stared.

Watching.

Aimeric was still impossibly pale in the hospital bed, so pale and so still, all Laurent saw in his mind was the flash of Aimeric on the bathroom floor. Dying.

Laurent’s eyes fluttered to Aimeric’s wrists, heavily bandaged, hiding the wounds that would scar. Badly he assumed. Aimeric had such pale delicate skin and those tears had been jagged serious slashes. They would be raised and ugly and red.

A constant reminder.

Was it better this way? Or would Aimeric be mad at him?

All he’d considered when he called the ambulance was his own selfish terror. That he’d never forgive himself if Aimeric died. But what if Aimeric never forgave him for saving him?

For taking this from him. In a life where so few choices were his own, Aimeric had chosen this. And Laurent had snatched it away. Was it cruel? To force a life he didn’t want to live on him?

Or was this just a desperate cry for help? A pain that wouldn’t abate, that just needed an outlet. Laurent understood that need at least.

Laurent wasn’t sure if he was jealous or not. If he envied Aimeric the strength it must have taken to do it. Aimeric was stronger than he was. Taking it all into his own hands. Laurent had never had the courage or the will and he wasn’t sure what it said about him.

The world span and Laurent went with it, following where the it led him, following an invisible set of rules and expectations, trapped by bars that no longer existed anywhere except in his own head. Still a puppet on a string.

He didn’t know how to be a real boy.

Aimeric did. Nicaise did.

Laurent must have nodded off, falling asleep with his head in his knees because when he woke up, his neck was stiff, his eyes were sore, and Aimeric was awake. Laurent turned a glance at the window, saw it wasn’t quite dawn yet and unfolded his stiff legs from the chair.

Their gazes clashed, an aborted flinch stuttering through Aimeric’s prone frame as he whipped his eyes away, staring up at the ceiling. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin beneath reed thin and purple. He was still so fucking pale.

“They said it was you who found me,” Aimeric said, voice entirely devoid of emotion.

Laurent exhaled in a whoosh and tried not to see himself in the sad dead stare that swivelled to him.

“I broke your front door,”

Aimeric snorted, lips twitching but he didn’t say anything else and Laurent didn’t know if there were words to make it better. He doubted it. Silence settled, uncomfortable and thick and Laurent fidgeted, picking at his cuticles as he tried to summon words. Any words. But he was blank, entirely empty of a single syllable.

“I wish you hadn’t found me,” Aimeric breathed

The words were a slap. A gut punch. The kind of blow that echoed long after the words had faded.

“Well I do like to be contrary,”

Aimeric snorted again, meeting his gaze.

“I’m so sorry Laurent,”

He cocked his head in question and Aimeric’s expression twisted, a grimace morphed by pain.

“I- the things he made me do,”

Laurent stiffened. He still didn’t know, he never wanted to know.

“Don’t-“

“I don’t want to be like him,” Aimeric sniffed, his voice wet, a choked noise working its way from his throat

Laurent’s swallow was thick, the sting of it pulsing in his face as he tried not to let himself feel those words.

“Aimeric-“

“You said no to him and I couldn’t,” he whispered

Horrified, all Laurent could do was watch as the tears slid down Aimeric’s impossibly pale cheeks.

“You told him to fuck himself and I just- I just did what he said,”

Laurent bit his lip, chewing on it.

“Why?”

Aimeric squeezed his eyes closed, face screwing up as more tears fell.

“I don’t know,”

“Maybe you do,” Laurent said

His heart was beating so hard it was making him ill, a physical ache in his chest that made everything tight, too big for his body, an anxious pound unidentifiable between a throb and something far, far, worse.

Aimeric’s bottom lip trembled, meeting Laurent’s gaze. His face quickly getting blotchy, pink spreading over the pale skin.

“I was scared,” Aimeric blinked rapidly, tipping his face toward the ceiling “I’m always scared,”

Laurent nodded, breathed it in, reached out and gripped Aimeric’s hand tight, tighter still when Aimeric grasped him back, clinging like a lifeline. Laurent didn’t say anything else and Aimeric drifted back off. Nurses came and went and beyond the window the sun came up, bursting over the horizon in shades of pink and Laurent tried not to read a warning of blood in the clouds when they parted around a red dawn.

~*~

Damen was waiting for him when he got home. Sitting on the top step with his phone in his hand and he jumped up when he saw Laurent. He eyed him critically as Laurent finished climbing the stairs and dropped his gaze as he unlocked the door.

“What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t okay last night, I just needed to make sure you were alright,”

“I’m not just getting home,” Laurent said folding his arms over his chest “I mean I am, but I went to see Aimeric,”

Damen shook his head “I wasn’t checking if you were lying Laurent, I was worried about you,”

Laurent sniffed hard, swallowing thickly “I didn’t sleep with anyone,” he said quietly “I didn’t- I went to the hospital,”

“I know,”

“Do you?”

“You said so, I believe you,” Damen said like it was that simple after all the times Laurent had lied or omitted.

Laurent settled a pointed look on him.

Damen breathed out “do you still feel like you need to be punished?”

Laurent bit his lip, nodded hesitantly. He didn’t know what he wanted, but he would take any means of being close to Damen. In truth he would settle for just being held. Held together. Safe in Damen’s arms where he could switch his head off.

He didn’t know how to ask for that.

“Do you trust me?” Damen asked “to know what you need?”

“Yes,”

Laurent only noticed the bag as Damen proceeded him into the flat, wandering off down the hall and depositing it in the kitchen. Laurent followed, tentative in the doorway as Damen unpacked.

“What are you doing?”

Damen didn’t even glance back at him “when was the last time you ate?”

Laurent opened his mouth to respond and realised he hadn’t eaten in 24 hours. He’d had toast the previous morning, had skipped lunch, got distracted from eating dinner by Nicaise coming over and hadn’t stopped to think about it since.

On cue his stomach rumbled, protesting and empty and he cringed at the audible noise. Damen threw an idle smirk over his shoulder.

“Yeah, I figured,” he said “you go get changed, I’ll make breakfast,”

Laurent wanted to ask what was happening but he was well acquainted with the idea of gift horses and mouths so bit his tongue. Instead he did as he was told. He dropped his jacket and swapped it for a hoody, swapped his jeans for joggers. He kept Damen’s t-shirt on. If he also kicked about three weeks’ worth of dirty laundry, four empty alcohol bottles and two wayward dildos under his bed in the process it wasn’t for any particular reason.

None at all.

Damen turned toward him as soon as he went back into the kitchen, scanning him in what could have been a concerned once over. Could have been. But Damen’s gaze got stuck on his chest, at Damen’s shirt there, and lingered a beat too long before flitting away.

It warmed Laurent regardless.

He hopped up onto the counter as Damen moved around his kitchen with the kind of ease that shouldn’t have surprised him. But Damen had never cooked for him before. Not at Laurents’ house anyway.

It was quiet whilst Damen cooked and instead of awkward or uncomfortable the silence was settled, calm, let Laurent put his head back against the cabinet and close his eyes, lean into it.

When it was done Damen led him past Laurent’s dining table and they sat on the sofa instead, plates on their laps. Damen watched him take several bites before digging into his own. He waited until Laurent had eaten everything and was shifting his plate to the coffee table with a hand laid across his full stomach before saying anything.

“How is Aimeric?” Damen asked

Laurent sighed “alive but not good,” he said

“And how are you?” Damen asked “really I mean, don’t just say fine,”

How was he?

He breathed out, grappling with the twin desires to do as Damen asked and to bury it all down and say fine just to be a dick. To deflect.

“It scared me,” he said without looking at him “scared me more because I understood why he’d do it,”

“Do you want to hurt yourself?”

“I hurt myself all the time,”

Too honest maybe though it’s not like Damen knew exactly what he meant. It didn’t seem to matter; his gaze was astute and instead of the pity Laurent had expected to read in his expression he saw something far worse: understanding.

“Why?” Damen asked instead of the many, many things he’d expected to hear off the back of that.

But then, why did he expect any different? Damen had never tried to change him, sand him down, remake him. He fit himself around Laurent, tempered him, moulded them together until they were something new rather than trying to hammer Laurent down to fit into his side.

“I deserve it,”

Damen didn’t say anything for a long moment before he leant across and pressed a gentle kiss to Laurent’s temple.

“I don’t think anyone inherently deserves anything, one way or the other, it’s an arbitrary concept, ultimately the only person who gets to decide what you deserve is you,” he said, sitting back

Laurent’s swallow was audible, emotion catching in his throat.

“I think I’m pretty fucking bad at deciding for myself actually,”

“Then I’ll decide,”

The arousal was instant, not a kick but a bloom, warm and soft as Laurent turned his eyes up and met Damen’s gaze. Damen wasn’t smiling, he wasn’t joking, he wasn’t looking at him like he was crazy or like Laurent needed to explain himself. He said it as he meant it. Like always. Simply.

Instead of watching Laurent struggle with what to say Damen got up, took the plates out to the kitchen and came back with a full glass of water. Laurent eyed it derisively.

“Water is boring,”

“Yes and it’s why you don’t drink enough of it, I know, humour me,”

Laurent took the glass, took a sip and shifted to put it down. Only Damen’s look stopped him. He settled back instead, holding his pint glass of water.

“So this is what I deserve? Water?”

Damen snorted, giving him a cuff to the back of his head “no, that you deserved, the water is part of it though,”

“Part of?”

“Taking better care of yourself,”

Laurent moved to protest but the absolute bomb site of his flat made it difficult to argue the point. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d had a glass of water. Or any liquid that didn’t contain caffeine or alcohol.

“Is that you telling me what I deserve?”

“Yes, it is, because if you won’t do it then I will,”

Laurent snorted, humoured him “alright, so what do I do?”

“Well first,” Damen reached over and tapped the glass pointedly “it’s supposed to be 2 litres but I’ll settle for one litre at least, every day,”

Laurent took a swig, hid his smile behind his glass “four glasses, right, what else?”

Damen grinned “well the only food you have in is instant noodles and crisps so food Laurent, eating better is a necessity, you won’t be 23 forever,”

Laurent groaned “oh god you’re gonna make me work out aren’t you?”

Damen’s laugh was nice. He’d missed it so fucking much.

“No, god, I’m optimistic not insane,”

“What else?”

“When it gets bad,” Damen said, pointed “then you’re going to call me, before it gets to the point where you’re freaking out, understood?”

Laurent rolled his lips together “before I do something stupid, you mean,”

“Yes,” Damen said “it’s not about you sleeping with other people you can-“ Damen swallowed “you can do what you want I’m not policing you but it’s the other thing that worries me,”

Damen exhale was audible and Laurent’s eyes were drawn to the bob of his throat, the tilt of his jaw as he nodded.

“The punishment thing?”

“Yes, that,” Damen said “someone could take advantage of that Laurent and you can tell me if I’m over stepping, but I don’t intend to let that happen,”

Laurent soaked it in, Damen’s concern and his care and the determination on his face.

“I haven’t had sex with anyone else since that time in your office,” Laurent said looking down at his glass

He didn’t dare look at Damen.

“And I mean that last time you fucked me, but like, in general too in case it needed clarifying, the last person I did anything at all with was you,” and then, much quieter “and I have never done anything like the stuff we do with anyone else, I never would, it’s different,”

It wasn’t a long time. Not really. But it had been nearly a month and though Laurent had tried- he hadn’t. It was important for Damen to know that. Damen didn’t ask him why. He didn’t praise him, neither did he say anything derisive. Instead he scooted closer, tugged Laurent into his side.

“You haven’t asked what happens if you break the rules,”

Laurent turned his face into Damen’s chest, surreptitiously stealing his scent in the pretence of turning his face up.

“What will happen?”

Damen met his gaze, quirking one eyebrow at him “you’ll be punished,”

Liquid heat raced through him. It wasn’t the frantic desperate thing he was used to. It was electric, hot and quick, but also a heavy kind of weight settling in him, on him, grounding him, something to cling to, not something he needed to grapple with or work out or expose.

It just was.

He licked his lips despite himself, gaze flickering over Damen’s face “like what?”

“Well now I know you wouldn’t like writing lines so that’s one,” he said smiling wide when Laurent pouted “they’re punishments sweetheart, they’re not going to be fun,”

“I disagree the spanking was very fun,”

“Which is why it’s not a punishment,”

“So is that a reward?” he asked

“A fun-ishment,” Damen said easily “but first, there’s something else you need right now,”

“You mean my punishment wasn’t hearing my new rules?”

Damen flicked him “I’ve told you to drink water and eat, oh how terrible of me, what a wicked punishment I’ve inflicted,”

Laurent laughed, jabbed him in the ribs, delighting in Damen’s wince.

“Alright, so what is my punishment?”

“You don’t need to be punished, so that’s not what’s happening, but if you trust me, you’ll take your shirt off, and sit,”

Laurent put his water down and stripped his hoody and shirt off before Damen even finished speaking, dropping down to the floor between Damen’s legs as he’d indicated. He was on his knees, trying not to appear too eager.

It was confusing when Damen told him to turn around and cross his legs. He did so, shifting until he had his back to Damen and was sitting cross legged on the floor between his thighs. Damen didn’t stay though, he disappeared into the bathroom and came back with something in his hands.

“Should I be scared?” Laurent asked to loosen the knot of unknowing in his chest

Damen snorted, settling back on the sofa behind Laurent. The pop of a lid cap made Laurent want to turn around but something told him not to. To trust whatever was happening. Instead he settled and waited whilst Damen squirted whatever it was into his hands and sucked in a hissed inhale when Damen put his hands on him.

The cool lotion warmed quickly between his skin and Damen’s palms. Damen was firm, pressing into his shoulders with unerring precision forcing groans out of Laurent’s throat, as his spine loosened and tension unravelled without any conscious thought at all.

It was strange, arousing and intimate, and entirely non-sexual. Laurent wasn’t sure what to do with it except bask. Closing his eyes let him concentrate on every caress of Damen’s fingers as he diligently worked at Laurent’s muscles. When he pressed on a particularly sore spot that Laurent hadn’t even known existed he hung his head, dropping his chin to his chest, unable to stop the moan tumbling out of his throat.

Damen didn’t comment and despite himself Laurent flushed. They weren’t doing anything sexual and Laurent was on fire. A different kind of fire than he was used to with Damen, something equally as consuming but without the urgency. Magma over a blaze.

When Damen was done he leant forward, pressed a kiss to the nape of Laurent’s neck and the goosebumps were immediate and visceral. A full body shiver he couldn’t disguise.

“You need to put your clothes back on,”

Laurent wanted to protest, wanted to turn and plaster himself to Damen’s front but the tone was final. Gruff, but final.

He wrestled himself back into Damen’s shirt and let Damen haul him up, let Damen arrange them until Laurent was practically lying on top of him, his head on Damen’s chest, their legs tangled as Damen put a movie on.

Damen’s arm were heavy around him, grounding, never a cage. Safe. Exactly what he had wanted.

“How you feeling?” Damen murmured

Laurent’s entire body was heavy, the contentment bone deep and so thorough he might melt.

“Relaxed,”

He didn’t remember the last time his body hadn’t been tense. The last time anyone had touched him without trying to fuck him or hurt him. The last time anyone had done something for him without any expectation attached.

No exchange.

Damen thought he needed it. Maybe he did.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice muffled by Damen’s shirt.

Damen hummed, trailed his fingers through Laurent’s hair “thanks for letting me,”

Laurent didn’t have a response, so he let himself drift, curled his fingers into the material of Damen’s shirt and focused on Damen’s steady heartbeat beneath his ear.

Their hearts were in sync.

~*~

Aimeric was still in the hospital a few days later, under the watchful eye of two very lovely if not slightly terrifying nurses. Laurent had come straight from work where it was becoming more and more obvious by the day he was going to have to find a new job. He wasn’t sure he could put up with the snide comments or Erasmus being around in general no matter how painfully civil he was being.

Aimeric was sitting up in the bed when Laurent made it in, playing with the edges of his bandages. He was still incredibly pale, though his eyes weren’t ringed by deep purple anymore at least.

“You good?” he asked taking a seat beside the bed.

“Well they’re not sectioning me so I guess so,”

Laurent faltered, eyebrows flying up “could they do that?”

“If I was too honest,” Aimeric sighed “I told them I was high when it happened and that I didn’t want to die so we’re good, the blood work showed I wasn’t lying at least,” he said before snorting “they assured me a comprehensive report was being sent to my GP,” Aimeric said buffing at his nails absently with uneasy fingertips “he’ll only be pissed off I survived it,”

Laurent could imagine. It probably felt a little bit like Laurent’s fucking STI medication being emblazoned like ammunition in his records. At least he was clean now.

Of the chlamydia at least, he was officially out of the woods. Still another two weeks before he could do the HIV test though. He was just grateful neither Damen nor Erasmus had suffered as a consequence of his own stupidity.

“Do you still want to die?” Laurent asked

“Yes,” Aimeric said without looking at him “I don’t want to live like this,”

“Like what?”

Aimeric’s snort was anything but amused

“I don’t want to see the things I’ve seen every time I close my eyes, I don’t want to be his creature, I don’t want to have to live with it all it just- it hurts too much,”

“Yeah,” Laurent agreed

There wasn’t anything else to say. He understood it. Understood it in a way that was unnerving and terrifying.

“I asked him you know,”

Laurent canted his head in question

“If he really loved me or if it was like you said,” Aimeric snorted wetly “you know what he said?”

Rolling his lips together, and staring down at his own hands, Laurent went still. Bracing for whatever horrendous things were going to follow. And it would be bad. He knew it. He could imagine it was so bad that it might, if it was said harshly enough, drive an already broken boy to try to kill himself.

“He said you were always smarter than me,” Aimeric whispered “he laughed at me, he laughed at me and told me I was only ever good for one thing and that there was nothing there to love, I was a pathetic needy little whore who didn’t know how to think,”

Laurent pressed his eyes closed, absorbing those words.

“He said you were better,” Aimeric said “that you’d been his favourite,”

Fuck he didn’t want to hear it, he couldn’t.

“He said you were tighter and prettier and if he could he would have kept you fourteen and sweet forever, his perfect pet, whereas I was too needy, I liked it too much, because you would cry sometimes and get embarrassed when he made you come on his-”

“Stop,” Laurent choked out

Aimeric did, his rant stopping instantly as his gaze found Laurent. Laurent was shaking, a violent chatter belying the pleasant heat of the room and he couldn’t see, his vision blurred. Tears, he realised, he was crying.

Aimeric looked horrified.

“I’m sorry,” he said as though realising all of the things he’d said “I’m so sorry I-“

“It’s fine,” Laurent said swiping at his tears “he only said it to hurt you, I didn’t- that’s what he does you know?” Laurent swallowed “he puts just enough truth there to distract you and says whatever it is that will affect you most,”

“Is that what he does to you?”

Laurent nodded “he didn’t like me better Aimeric he just had better access to me,”

Aimeric swallowed, shook his head but Laurent talked over his denial.

“It’s not about like, or love, or want, you need to stop thinking about it like it’s some kind of romance because it isn’t, he’s a monster, his only preference is that they are young, vulnerable, and dumb enough to make him feel powerful,”

“For me it was love,”

“Aimeric-“

“No, I know, I know it wasn’t for him I do, and I know it wasn’t real, but that doesn’t change that it was for me, that I thought it was real, I felt those things,” Aimeric canted his head “did you?”

Laurent swallowed, tried to articulate what it had been like, what he had felt.

“He told me it was love,” Laurent said “and I accepted it I guess, that it was, it must have been because what did I know? I was a kid,” he shook his head “when I really think about it I never believed it, not really, maybe that’s why- that’s why he likes to torture me now I think, because I realised even before he was done with me what he really was,”

“Smarter than me,” Aimeric said the ghost of a smile on his face

Laurent shook his head “I was just around him more, it’s hard to keep the mask up for long periods of time, I’m his nephew, it was always going to slip once or twice with me,”

“And did it?”

“Sometimes,” Laurent said “followed by apologies and promises of love and how it was my fault for making him act that way,”

Aimeric nodded, thinking it over, Laurent could practically hear his mind whirring.

“When did you realise you didn’t love him?”

“I think deep down I’ve always known I didn’t, I loved him like my family and over time even that went away, it felt too wrong, too shameful,”

Aimeric heaved a sigh “so when did you know he didn’t love you?”

Laurent offered him a pointed stare. Aimeric understood.

“If I’m so broken and so stupid I can’t tell that he didn’t love me even when he was hurting me,” Aimeric said “what hope do I have for the rest of my life? Even with someone good like Jord? I’ll always be like this, I’ll always-“

“No, stop, you won’t, you won’t,”

“How do you know?” Aimeric stressed “it’s not like you’ve ever been in love, you said it yourself, all you care about is sex,”

“I-“ Laurent sat back in his seat “I don’t,”

Aimeric settled a scornful look on him, one of disbelief and irritation.

“I know you, you’ve never even had a relationship and you fuck more people than you can conceivably count,”

“It’s not about sex,” he breathed “I-“

Fuck. God. How had he gotten here?

“I don’t even like it most of the time,”

And there. The admission. He had never really let himself think about it but there it was. Out loud in the world where he couldn’t take it back. Had to face it.

Aimeric frowned “then why?”

“I don’t know, punishment maybe, habit, all I’m good for,”

Aimeric’s expression cracked

“It’s like, it’s like I can’t stop,” Laurent twisted his hands together “I don’t want to but something in my head just- makes me, and I don’t want to do it, I hate myself after but it just… I can’t stop,”

“All of them?”

Laurent shrugged “the more I think about it the more I worry the answer to that question is yes, because I don’t know if I’ve ever… I mean, if they want me then I’ll let it happen or sometimes I get this feeling like everything is too loud and I want to-”

Hurt himself. Hurt himself the easiest way he knew how. The way he’d been taught.

“So I hook up and then I feel like shit but it’s the better kind of shit, because I deserve it and it’s easier than anything else, I’m just… used to it, and they want me so I just let them, and fuck, I don’t know, it’s like validation? But I don’t know whether I just hate myself so much I need to feel wanted or whether I need to validate all of the awful things I think about myself and justify the way I feel,”

Probably both. It was a mess. He was a mess. It was a horrible cycle he couldn’t break and it was ruining his fucking life. His whole world seemed to revolve around sex some days, getting it, thinking about it, not even the orgasm, they didn’t matter and they didn’t always happen. It was the act itself and even when he didn’t want to it was what he defaulted to. There was a toxic whisper in the back of his head telling him he needed it. It was all he was good for. It was what he deserved.

Even in the absence of sex it was the centre of his world: trying desperately not to think about the things he’d done, the memories collected like fucked up scars in the back of his head that were never going to heal right, ignoring the pain or the shame.

In Laurent’s long and varied and fucked up sex life the only outlier, the only thing that did not fit his pattern, was Damen. It all felt different with Damen. He felt different with Damen. Even when Damen was wrapped up in Laurent’s instincts to escape his shame or drive himself to sex, his first thought was of Damen because he wanted him. Needing the outlet and wanting Damen specifically. Until it was all tied together and creating messy ruinous situations that had made Laurent implode.

Something had had to give though, hadn’t it? One person can only hold onto so much, take so much, before it had to come out. He was lucky, in the scheme of things, that Damen hadn’t decided to cut him out completely. But if friends -and whatever the punishment thing was- was all they could be, Laurent would take it. Take it and be grateful to have him.

“I didn’t know,” Aimeric blinked, eyes glassy

“I’ve never said it out loud,” Laurent said “never thought of it just like that,”

“Is that why you never dated?” Aimeric asked “why you’ve never had someone?”

Laurent shrugged “I don’t know why, I just couldn’t bear the idea of letting anyone that close, I never wanted them, not really, so why would I date?”

“I’m sorry Laurent,”

Laurent nodded, bit down on his lip, staring back at Aimeric. His friend. Sitting in his hospital bed as alone as Laurent was, vulnerable and bearing his soul to Laurent whether he knew it or not.

“There was one guy,” Laurent offered, nerves pinging in his stomach at the very idea of sharing something like this.

Aimeric canted his head, attentive.

Laurent drew in a deep breath “I wanted him every time, I don’t think I’ve ever really wanted anyone the way I wanted him, it was never a chore or something to get through, it was good, I don’t know why it was different, but it was, it was like… like I couldn’t keep my hands off him, the way he felt, the way he made me feel it was - different,” he said “like, in my chest not just in my body but like- everywhere, he made me enjoy it and I was there every time instead of…” he waved another vague hand toward his head “I could never stop thinking about him, and I wanted stupid things, like just a kiss, or to make him smile, or I don’t know, just to hear his voice, you know?”

Aimeric swallowed thickly, nodding and Laurent had thought the expression on his face would make him queasy, defensive. Pity was not something he ever wanted. But all he saw on Aimeric’s face was sympathy. And understanding.

“Who was it?”

“Damen,”

Aimeric blinked, brow furrowing “Damen Damen, as in like-“

“Yeah, my brothers ex,”

Aimeric’s mouth popped open, an incredulous half smile pulling at his lips and it was the first time in a long time he’d seen anything even remotely like a smile on Aimeric. Laurent was surprised by the answering warmth he felt at the sight of it, the small private smile that ghosted his own mouth in response.

“How… I didn’t even know you’d slept with him,”

“I was sleeping with him for over two years,”

“Jesus,” Aimeric blinked “did you love him?”

Love. It wasn’t an easy word. It certainly wasn’t a word that Laurent could trust or one he’d ever put much faith in. His Uncle said he loved him, told Laurent love hurt sometimes, poisoned his view of it before he’d even had a chance to feel it.

His family were supposed to love him. They said the words the same way they’d comment about the weather: idle and without emotion. They had never been there for him. His only experience with love was what Auguste had been like with him when he was a child.

Before everything got messy. Before Laurent was chewed up by the world and before Auguste revealed himself as a selfish idiot who rarely thought to put anyone else first.

But Damen?

The way he made Laurent feel, the physical sensation of it all, not the sex, the rest of it, the way his smile could tug on something deep in Laurent’s chest, the way his voice soaked through him, had him itching to turn toward him and into him. The way just his scent felt calm and safe and had deep fissures of something like joy erupting in his stomach.

Damen was, as always, the outlier.

Laurent bit his lip, jaw aching as he clenched his teeth and blinked furiously. Aimeric made a small noise, distress or something like it.

“It doesn’t matter now, it’s over,”

“Laurent it does matter, of course it matters,”

“I didn’t know, or maybe I did, maybe I knew and I was too fucking scared, too fucking broken to admit it because look at me, I’m a mess, and he’s- and I’d only end up hurting him or worse, he’d break me and I don’t know how many times you can be broken before there’s no way to glue the pieces together again but I think- I think it would kill me, and I can’t-“

He sucked in a ragged breath, accepting the tentative clutch of Aimeric’s hand and clung back, squeezing hard.

“It’s a mess, I think I missed my chance,” Laurent admitted

“No you didn’t,”

“I did Aimeric, because I’m a broken toy, I am what he made me,”

His uncle’s perfect pet indeed. A whore. Who ruined everything he touched.

“Then don’t let him win,” Aimeric breathed

“What?”

“He doesn’t get to do that Laurent, if you let Damen go, if it- he wins, you see that, right? This, you and me, he’s taken enough don’t let him take this too, not if that’s how you feel,”

“I could say the same thing to you,”

Aimeric made to withdraw his hand but Laurent clutched it harder “don’t let him win, he doesn’t get to kill you Aimeric, he doesn’t, call it bravery if you want, spite maybe, whatever you need to call it but he’s taken enough from both of us,”

“I don’t know if I can,”

“Maybe you should let them help you, they’ll put you in therapy, maybe you should take it,”

Aimeric nodded, chewing on his bottom lip as the fingers of his free hand made unconscious patterns against the bedding stitching.

“What about you?”

He didn’t mean the therapy.

“It’s over with Damen,”

“Did you talk to him? Ask?”

He didn’t know if he could, too scared maybe of the answer he’d be met with.

“You deserve love Laurent, you deserve to be happy too,”

Did he? He wasn’t sure if he deserved it but he wanted it. He wanted it so fucking badly. With Damen. He wanted Damen’s love. He wanted to love Damen openly and loudly and forever. He could carry on as he was. He could live the rest of his life by himself and it would be shitty but it would be fine. He wanted him though. The chance of normal: something he had never even let himself think about but had snuck up on him and consumed him and changed him all the same.

“And you deserve to live,”

Aimeric met his eyes, tears spilling down his cheeks and tightened his fingers “I can try,”

“Yeah,” Laurent agreed “me too,”

Try. It was such a big word.

~*~

Laurent was painfully aware he was going about his situation all wrong. He had told Aimeric he was going to try, even though he had no idea what it really meant. He’d had sex with Damen since they split up. Well, Laurent had blown him. Once. They hadn’t kissed though. But Damen had been supportive and they’d been texting a lot. Damen had also called him a whore, a liar, and was furious over the Nikandros incident. There was a lot of mixed and confusing signals and Laurent had no idea if it was even a possibility. He had a feeling it was not.

Instead of going straight to Damen to talk to him about it, to get an answer even if it was just to hear Damen say he didn’t want it, somehow he found himself sitting in Auguste’s back garden instead.

It made sense in his head. In a weird convoluted kind of way. As if he was trying to prove to himself, or maybe to Damen, that he was serious. He didn’t want to be Damen’s dirty little secret. He wanted to be open about it. To get rid of any potential barriers. Erasmus was gone, it made sense for Auguste to be next.

He also didn’t want his uncle to have this threat hanging over him when he inevitably got mad about the ditched friend. He couldn’t threaten Laurent with telling Auguste if Auguste already knew, after all.

Auguste’s house was familiar. It never changed. Laurent hadn’t spent a lot of time there but it was enough, he’d spent more than a few nights there as a teenager -a few when Damen had lived there- and it was the same now as it had been then. It was strangely nostalgic.

“So, out with it,” Auguste said, handing Laurent a beer as he slid down onto the chair opposite him “you never come over on a Saturday night, or ever, so what have you done now?”

The early September evening air was balmy and Auguste’s garden was pristine. Pretty in a way that made Laurent want to relax. It was the fucking fountain. It was a big wall fountain, nestled against the fence, some fake waterfall design with stone cherub heads around the basin and the noise was soothing. When Damen had lived here there had been a mini football net at one end of the lawn. Laurent had used to stare at it and when Damen had asked if he wanted to play he’d only been able to turn a blank expression on him.

They weren’t the same people in his memory. Damen wasn’t and Laurent certainly wasn’t. It was a weird nostalgia to have and it didn’t make the discomfort in his chest any easier.

Auguste’s patio had a large heater and on the garden table in front of them there was a heavy glass ashtray. Laurent had visions of Auguste hitting him over the head with it, as it was certainly heavy enough to constitute a weapon.

“How are things with what’s-her-name?” Laurent asked taking a swig of his beer and looking across at his brother.

He was relaxed, wearing his hair shorter than Laurent had seen it in a while. He had scruff across his jaw, probably the only thing that let Auguste look remotely his age.

Auguste snorted, resting an ankle on the opposite knee as he lounged in his chair, cigarette hanging from his mouth.

“Oh Margot got a bit clingy,”

“Really? A 21-year-old got clingy?” Laurent grinned

Auguste shrugged “I wanted to fuck her brother anyway, was probably a bit of a sign it wasn’t going anywhere,”

Laurent swallowed, holding back a flinch “so you’re seeing the brother now?”

“Nah, not even I’m that tacky,”

Great. Maybe it was a bad idea after all. It’s not like there was anything to even tell him. Laurent and Damen were done. It was never going to happen, not after everything Laurent had done and said and the things he’d let Damen see.

“So you’re single and probably stalking local university bars again?” Laurent asked

Auguste laughed, shrugging idly “saw Damen split up with his twink,” he said leaning forward to stub his cigarette out in the weapon of an ashtray “would it be weird to hit him up?”

Laurent was not expecting to hear his name and the white-hot lash thrashing through him made his jaw clench. Telling him didn’t seem such a bad idea anymore.

“Yes, it would be,” Laurent said

Auguste snorted “yeah but it doesn’t have to be serious and the sex was always-“

“I had sex with Damen,” Laurent said, which was what it came down to he supposed.

It really wasn’t the detail he had wanted to lead with though.

It was far too loud and way too quick, cutting whatever Auguste had been about to say off at the knees before it made Laurent want to go drown himself in Auguste’s fucking fountain.

Auguste snapped his mouth shut, whipping his head around to gape at Laurent as though he’d spoken a different language. Laurent resisted the urge to fidget and the longer Auguste studied him the more uncomfortable it was.

“So, maybe don’t hit him up,” Laurent prompted

Auguste shook his head, blinking out of a daze “ah, you’re fucking with me,” he said, breathing out a laugh “nearly had me there Loz, not gonna lie,”

Laurent waited for his brother to meet his eyes again before he shook his head “I’m not joking,”

“I don’t believe you,”

Laurent wanted to laugh. Or scream. Was he that much of a joke to his brother he couldn’t even have one serious conversation.

“Why would I lie?” Laurent asked “it is weird, I’m very fucking aware you had him first, and it’s uncomfortable but,” he shrugged

Auguste gawked at him, mouth opening and closing before he shook his head, expression telling Laurent how seriously he was not taking him.

“No, there’s no way, I mean no offence bro but you’re not Damen’s type,”

“What? Blonde and hot? That’s Damen’s type,”

“I - there’s no way Damen would-“ he motioned toward Laurent “seriously, I don’t even mean this offensively, I really don’t, but you’re way too easy for Damen, he likes a challenge, he needs a challenge,”

“Nearly two and a half years, that’s how long I was sleeping with him,”

Auguste cracked up, grinning wide and Laurent wanted to fucking scream. This had to be a nightmare. The one time he was ever honest with Auguste and this is what he got? Auguste laughing and not believing him?

Jesus how the fuck did Auguste see him if he thought, genuinely, that Laurent would say this shit for the sake of it?

“Yeah, no, now I know you’re fucking with me, you rarely get their names let alone a repeat,”

He wasn’t even wrong, was the worst part. Damen had always been different. Laurent hadn’t wanted to admit it even when it was staring him in the face.

“Auguste,” Laurent sighed “I’m being honest, please for once, can you take me seriously? Please?”

Auguste grinned, held his hand up as he pulled his phone out. Laurent sat up straighter, stiffening as Auguste flicked through his contacts. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why the fuck he still had Damen’s number but, he figured, he should be choosing his battles at this point.

“What are you doing?”

Auguste hit call and put it on speaker, holding his finger up “you be quiet, I’ll ask him myself,” he grinned like this was all one big joke and he expected Damen to laugh with him.

“Auguste you won’t like this,” Laurent warned

Before Auguste could comment Damen was answering and his voice had Laurent squirming for several different reasons.

First, he sounded out of breath so he was probably working out. He better be just working out. Second, this had the potential to be very fucking awkward. Third, it was Damen and Laurent liked his voice. It settled him even when it did things to him.

“Hello?”

“Hey D,” Auguste said and Laurent had not been prepared for the way Auguste’s voice changed.

Softer. Intimate in a way that made Laurent’s stomach roll and his chest revolt.

“Hey, been a while, you good?”

Damen’s voice, at least, did not do the same thing. Thank fuck.

“You sound breathless, did I interrupt something?”

Damen breathed out a laugh “working out, mind out of the gutter dude,”

“You’re no fun,” Auguste pouted, winking at Laurent like this was all some big hilarious thing they were sharing.

Laurent put his hand to his forehead, rubbing at the glaring tension starting in his temple. This was definitely not how he’d wanted this to go but that was par for the fucking course. When did anything Laurent do ever go the way he wanted? Fucking never.

“So what’s up?” Damen asked valiantly steering the conversation away

“Just a quick one, saw you’d split up with Erasmus, I’m sorry about that,”

There was a pause on the other end and Laurent stared at the phone as though imploring it to show him what Damen’s face was doing. Auguste should have video called him. Or not called at all.

“Oh er- yeah, thanks,” Damen said and Laurent’s lips twitched despite himself.

There was something inherently adorable about Damen when he was taken off guard.

“So I was thinking, I just split up with Margot, you’re single, we should hook up,”

Laurent’s stomach rolled and his head turned to his brother so fucking quickly he was sure he heard something click. Auguste quirked an eyebrow, still grinning like this was in anyway funny.

The intrusive pounding thought started in the back of Laurent’s head. Auguste was so casual about it. Said it like it was a totally normal thing to say to your ex who you’d been split from for over five years. Had he asked before now?

He should say something, let Damen know he could hear him but even as he opened his mouth to do just that he changed his mind. He wanted to hear Damen’s reply first. If he said yes he could just leave. Walk out. He’d have an answer then at least.

There was a moment of silence, it hung heavy as Laurent waited with baited breath for Damen’s response, silently begging the universe not to do this to him.

“I don’t- I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Damen said haltingly

Auguste hummed, canting his head “does that have anything to do with my little brother?”

Laurent’s eyes flashed to Auguste, his tone had changed and his expression with it. There was something shrewd there, calculating as he thumbed at his own bottom lip and stared at his phone. Laurent absolutely did not miss the way he’d phrased it. My little brother. Damen would have flinched at those words, Laurent knew it and he was starting to suspect that maybe Auguste did too.

Maybe Auguste did believe him and this was-

This was punishment. Except not for him. For Damen.

“Why are you calling?” Damen asked his voice less hesitant

Laurent wanted to interject, but he held his tongue. Damen didn’t need him to and the selfish awful part of him needed to hear what Damen would do.

“Have you been fucking my brother?” Auguste asked and Laurent winced, kept his gaze on Auguste as he glared down at the phone on the table. Judging and judgemental.

“Why would you ask me that?” Damen asked and Laurent only heard the caution in his tone because he knew Damen so well. Could Auguste tell? Could Auguste tell Damen’s mind was whirring, his expression probably closing off, jaw tensing with it?

“Laurent said you had and I didn’t believe him, because fucking siblings is gross and tacky, there’s just no way you were that desperate,” Auguste said “there’s no way you’d do that to me,”

Laurent held back the flinch at Auguste’s words, his whole body reacting whether he wanted it to or not.

“What did Laurent say exactly?” Damen said, giving nothing away in his tone

“He said you’ve been giving it to him for two years,” Auguste said “so tell me it’s not true and I’ll believe you,”

“It is true,” Damen said

Laurent blinked, surprised, as Auguste’s entire expression collapsed, a cascade of quick emotions before he squared his jaw, biting the inside of his cheek and staring at his phone with hard eyes. He leaned forward and Laurent held his breath.

“So what is it? Some kind of messed up pay back? Are you just using him? Does he remind you of me?” Auguste said before turning his eyes up, landing on Laurent with unflinching fury “do we taste the same Damen? Do we make the same sounds when we come on your cock?”

Laurent’s jaw worked, insides skittering around the insinuation and he tore his gaze away from Auguste despite himself. He should have known it would go badly. And he had, but it had still needed to be said. Not least because of their uncle but Laurent was fucking tired. He was so tired of hiding.

This was him trying.

“Fuck’s sake Auguste, not everything is about you, we’ve been over for a long time, we speak once in a blue moon, what I have with Laurent has got nothing to do with you,”

Auguste’s expression twisted “except it does, doesn’t it? I thought you had higher standards than this, he sleeps around you know, he’ll never stop it’s what he does, I expect weird and tacky from him but you? Do you even see how fucked up this is?”

“Higher standards?” Damen scoffed “I slept with you didn’t I? Can’t get much lower than that,” he said and hung up.

Despite himself Laurent’s lips twitched at the strangled frustrated noise Auguste let loose and braced himself for Auguste’s reaction.

He didn’t move for a long moment, glaring at his phone and chewing on his lip before turning toward him.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” Auguste said before he laughed “is there anyone you won’t sleep with?”

Laurent bristled “you,” he snapped back

Auguste’s expression said it all before he even opened his mouth.

“I could probably convince you,” he sneered

Laurent dropped his gaze, the familiar curls of shame licking at his ribs as his uncle’s laugh sounded in his head.

“Jesus Laurent, why?”

“It’s not like you were together, you’d been over for nearly three years the first time we hooked up, or have you slept with him since then?“

“No, I haven’t but did it ever occur to you it doesn’t matter how fucking long it’s been?” Auguste hissed “that I might still love him? Did you give a shit about that at all in any of this?”

Laurent blinked, taken aback, and shaking his head “you split up with him,”

Auguste rolled his eyes “so? We didn’t split up because we weren’t in love,”

“No you split up because you told him he’s replaceable and made him think you loved him just because it was convenient,”

Auguste blinked, his surprise apparent in his expression as he sat back in his seat, eyes flaring wide.

“And he’s not to you?” Auguste said “how many people have you fucked on the side? You’ve brought guys over to mom and dads the last two years, am I meant to believe you weren’t the bottom being passed around in a seedy gangbang whilst his back was turned?”

Laurent shook his head, didn’t have a rebuttal because it was true. Auguste read it on his face anyway and his laugh was cold. Mean. Damen wasn’t replaceable, not even slightly. But the rest? Yeah. Fuck.

“Does he know?”

“He was with Erasmus idiot, of course he knew,”

“Except he didn’t like it, did he?” Auguste said “I know Damen, he doesn’t share well,”

“He-“

“No, people don’t change that much and the man I knew, the man I loved, the one who lived here and talked about marriage and kids and begged for my dick, that man was possessive as fuck and if I wanted him to be rough, to claim me, own me, all I had to do was flirt with one person, meet his gaze, and he’d be dragging me off to remind me who I belonged to, so what? Suddenly he doesn’t give a shit you spread your legs for half of Marlas?” Auguste snorted “either that or he doesn’t care about you, which, you’ll agree, sounds more likely,”

Laurent felt sick, blinked as he tried not to soak in any of that information. Didn’t want to hear words like marriage and kids and think about Damen talking to his brother about that stuff. He’d never mentioned it to Laurent. In fact, he was under the impression Damen didn’t want kids. It hurt worse than the sex comment. Sex didn’t have to mean anything beyond body parts and pleasure but marriage? Kids?

Those were loud and intrusive implications far deeper than just sex.

Damen wasn’t possessive with him either. He never had been and Laurent had certainly done more than flirt with someone else. Damen had been very aware of it too. Did it mean something?

“I don’t know,” Laurent said

Auguste breathed out a snide laugh “so he wasn’t like that with you? Pity, he’s hot when he’s like that, gets greedy for it, and the way he says mine like he owns your fucking soul and you’d-“

“Stop,” Laurent said scrambling to his feet “I can’t hear this, I get it, I get it, I’m not you, he won’t ever love me the way he did you, I know that, I fucking know but I can’t help the way I feel about him, I can’t help being in-“

He snapped his mouth shut, shocked by what he’d very nearly said.

Auguste went stock still, expression twisting. Whatever he saw in Laurent’s face, whatever he’d heard at the end of his sentence, he wasn’t laughing anymore. His eyes were as wide as Laurent’s, the realisation all over his face. He looked pale.

“No- you…I- I think you should leave,” Auguste said, voice less steady than it had been a moment ago “before either of us say anything stupid,” he said rising to his feet and pushing past him.

Laurent would be lying if he said those words didn’t haunt him all the way home. Damen. Possessive. Owned.

He thought about Damen’s hands on him, the way it felt beneath the spot light of his gaze and shuddered as he imagined the word mine on his lips. He wanted it. So fucking badly he could barely breathe. He wanted Damen to be possessive of him, to never let anyone else touch him ever again.

To claim him and want him. Loudly.

~*~

Laurent was not obligated to call Damen to explain himself. Of course he wasn’t. Yet somehow later that night he found himself reclining on his bed and staring at his ceiling: spiralling.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the marriage and kids comment. Also the begged for Auguste’s dick thing and the weird comparisons that sometimes plagued his mind too and he was sinking into a familiar pit.

Damen had said to call when it was getting bad so Laurent spent an hour giving himself an embarrassing pep talk before calling Damen like his new rules told him to.

Damen answered on the third ring, way sooner than Laurent had expected, or maybe sooner than Laurent was ready for him.

“Hey, are you alright?” Damen asked, his voice tentative

Laurent exhaled, relaxing into his pillows as he fiddled idly with the string of his hoody.

“Not really,” he sighed “you said to call if it was getting bad, so… is this okay?”

“More than okay, tell me what you need, tell me what will help,”

His tone was firm but it didn’t feel like a command. It was inviting. Warm. If he closed his eyes he could imagine Damen lounging on the sofa with his feet up, TV muted to pay him attention.

“Can we talk it out? Maybe?”

“Of course we can, what did you want to talk about?”

Laurent sucked in a deep breath and forced the words out.

“I’m sorry about Auguste calling you, I was there when he did, I shouldn’t have let him ambush you but he didn’t believe me and he was… well you know my brother,”

Damen breathed out something like a sigh “he was a dick about it,”

Laurent snorted “yeah, that about sums it up,”

“Why did you tell him?” Damen asked “not that I mind, I don’t care but seems kind of out of the blue,”

And it was, he supposed. He’d had two and a half years to tell Auguste and it was only now that they were just friends who sometimes engaged in quasi-BDSM related activities that he decided to tell him.

“Tired of the secrets I guess,” Laurent admitted “now that Erasmus knows I figured I might as well tell him so it’s not hanging over us,” he said and cringed up at his ceiling “me, I mean me, not hanging over me,”

Damen chuckled, the sound rich and familiar and Laurent closed his eyes, luxuriating in the sound. He liked making Damen laugh, even if it was small and inconsequential.

“Makes sense,” Damen agreed “I take it he was way more awful to you?”

It was Laurent’s turn to bark out a laugh “fuck, you heard him, he thinks I did it to piss him off or something, and that I was an asshole for not thinking about his feelings,”

Damen made an incredulous sound “why? When has Auguste ever cared about anyone else’s feelings? Fucks sake, that was always his problem, he doesn’t think twice about treating people however he wants but the second the tables are turned he doesn’t know how to handle it,”

It was true of Auguste. He had so far, in his thirty-five years of life, swanned about with all the privilege afforded to him by race, class, education, and the grace of god and kind genetics. He was -and had always been- the favoured son. And the world had treated him thusly.

“Yeah, well, it’s done now, he’ll probably never speak to me again but it’s out there,”

Damen groaned “I’m gonna call him back,”

Laurent rolled onto his side, biting his lip to tamp down on his smile lest Damen hear it too easily.

“Oh yeah? What are you going to say?”

“Well firstly I don’t know who the fuck he thinks he is treating you like that, you deserve better from him, and secondly the fucking audacity of him, not every fucking thing is about him, he didn’t even cross my mind the first time we were together, didn’t for weeks if I’m being honest, he’s so far removed from you he might as well be any other ex,”

It was like relief, only warmer. Firmer. A balm over an irritated wound. A welcome balm Laurent had longed for but had not anticipated. Damen hadn’t fucked him just because of Auguste. Hadn’t even thought of him.

The thought should maybe surprise him more, but Laurent didn’t want to look for the lie. He wanted to trust it. Damen had never lied to him before, why would he start now? Despite everything, Laurent trusted those words. He trusted them and he held them close. 

“So you don’t… you don’t compare us?”

Damen hesitated and Laurent held his breath.

“I guess sometimes I do, but only recently with the whole… replaceable thing, and before that it was more like, surprise at how different you are or how different you make me feel,”

“So you liked Auguste better?” he prodded, aiming for teasing and valiantly succeeding. Probably. Hopefully.

Because liked? Damen had been plain with the fact he had been head over heels for Auguste at one point. Liked did not cover it at all.

“Did I like the guy who broke my heart and treated me like shit for years better? Is that what you’re asking?” Damen teased right back, a smile in his voice

“You could be talking about either of us when you say that,” he said sobering the conversation and wishing he could take it back

There was a pause, Damen breathing into the phone and Laurent closed his eyes, bracing himself.

“The difference is he never apologised, he didn’t care and he blamed me,” Damen said “you didn’t do it intentionally and you had your reasons, he didn’t, at least none that felt reasonable,”

Damen was defending him. Sure it was only against Auguste but, in a way, it was against Laurent too, wasn’t it? His own thoughts. The little tribunal he held in his head for himself every waking hour, weighing and measuring and found endlessly wanting.

“Does that mean you forgive me?”

The sharp intake of breath over the phone had Laurent’s heartrate increasing, clutching his phone hard as his heart beat a frantic rhythm in his chest.

“We both made mistakes, we hurt each other in ways we can’t ever take back,”

Laurent swallowed, drawing his walls up, guard mounting, preparing himself for the cool disregard of rejection.

“That’s a no then,”

“It’s not about forgiveness Laurent, not here, not in this,”

“Then what is it about?”

“I don’t know, but we’re still here aren’t we? I think it’s about choice, about choosing what you’re willing to accept… what you can live with,”

Or can’t live without.

Damen didn’t say it but Laurent heard it all the same.

“If it means anything to you at all Laurent, I don’t need to forgive you, I understand and it’s okay… that’s where I’m at,”

Laurent swallowed “yeah, me too,”

He did understand. What Damen had done and why. Laurent had already chosen not to take it personally, because he did understand Damen, and his choices. Laurent had already decided what he wanted to live with.

He just had to hope Damen had made the same decision.

We’re still here.

They were. Still. Always right back to each other. It felt different this time. Steadier. More solid in a way Laurent couldn’t articulate, even if they weren’t having sex anymore. It was still close, the kind of relationship that was easy and didn’t always need words. It was a quiet kind of knowing. Or being known.

They weren’t having sex, but Laurent had never felt closer to him. Maybe forgiveness was as arbitrary as deserving. Perhaps they even walked hand in hand.

Chapter Text

Auguste had not got back in touch since Laurent left his house a week ago and really, he’d never expected him to. It wasn’t done, the chapter was over but the book certainly wasn’t. They’d pressed pause but Laurent knew his brother; round two was inevitable.

Damen hadn’t mentioned it since their phone call either, though what he wanted him to say about it was beyond him. Damen had come over once mid-week and cooked for him, brought Laurent a stupid water bottle to help him keep track of how much water he drank daily and had, quite literally, rummaged through Laurent’s kitchen cupboards to make sure there was real food there.

And there was. Laurent had been pretty good at keeping on top of it. He was eating better and when his thoughts started to plague him or the familiar itch under his skin got too much, he called Damen. Even if he felt stupid doing so. Damen was good at distracting him.

If Laurent had taken the odd pill during the week it wasn’t as bad as taking a handful. And if he had fucked himself raw with his biggest dildo after every phone conversation with Damen it wasn’t breaking the rules. He hadn’t been on Grindr, even if he couldn’t quite bring himself to delete it, he hadn’t called his uncle or gone cruising and had even refused Ancel’s offer of clubbing.

Truthfully, he had no real want to go. He didn’t much feel like getting drunk, he didn’t want to get high or pick anyone up, so what was the point?

Instead he was in on a Friday night, wearing his biggest shabbiest hoody and joggers so old they were starting to thin on the ass and the elastic was no longer really doing its job. He was being mildly pathetic, lying on his sofa with his water bottle wedged between his hip and the back and his Netflix playing a show for the 7^th hour straight.

Every single part of him was restless with the urge, the sensation in him that made him feel like he was supposed to be doing something. The reckless stupid part of his brain said he needed to hook up. Screamed it, the sound reverberating in his head like a siren. He hadn’t been fucked in so long. He was itching for it and it would be so easy. So quick.

The other part of him recoiled at the idea of hands on him, saw flashes in his mind of other hands and bile and shame and regret clawed up his throat in equal measure.

Mostly, he thought about Damen and how badly he wanted him and how the slick uneasy desperation beneath his skin when he thought about hooking up wasn’t desire at all. It never had been.

Knowing it and doing anything about it were very different things though. He supposed his rules said he should call Damen, but it was a Friday, and Laurent knew Damen was out, which made everything worse.

His head was throwing images at him, a little reel of pain making him nauseous and uneasy: Damen kissing the random woman at the club, Damen making love to Erasmus, Damen leading some girl into the back of a taxi, Damen’s hand at Erasmus’ hip…

Damen could be with anyone doing anything and Laurent wouldn’t know about it.

He probably was. Damen was hot and single and had a high sex drive and it’s not like he was getting it anywhere else.

The parade of maudlin thoughts were interrupted by the knock on his door. One glance at the time and Laurent already had a horrible feeling he knew who it was. It was late. Around the same time as last time.

When he pulled open the door he was not surprised in the slightest to see Nicaise. He didn’t look up at Laurent, just shoved past him and marched himself down the hall. Laurent sighed, following him.

On the sofa Nicaise had his knees up, his hood up, and his head down, face buried in his arms. His small frame was squashed into the corner of the sofa, young and fragile and a ripple in a pond. An echo. Familiar.

Rather than wait for the flicker of his own image to transplant Nicaise, Laurent went to his fridge to retrieve two beers and popped the cap on both before handing one over. Nicaise took a swig, then another and when it seemed he wasn’t going to stop Laurent pushed it back down, half snatching it away.

“You’re only getting one so don’t waste it,” he said

Nicaise shrugged, taking it back and pouting at it. Something had happened. It was in his eyes. Or rather, what was missing from them.

“What did he do?” Laurent asked, bouncing down onto the other side of the sofa, mirroring Nicaise.

Nicaise’s shoulder’s hitched as he shook his head. An aborted shrug, a half-hearted refusal.

“It was my fault,”

The words really were an echo. How many times had Laurent said that exact sentence? Too many to count. He had never said them out loud, hadn’t had anyone to say them to, but if he had? What would he have wanted to hear?

No. What would he have needed to hear.

“No, it’s never your fault, no matter what you say or do the only person responsible for what he does is him,”

He said the words and though they were meant for Nicaise part of him absorbed them, turned them over, held them close.

Nicaise shrugged, chewing on his bottom lip “I don’t want to talk about it,”

“Okay,” Laurent said “so don’t, what-“

“Did you ever have someone? When you were a kid I mean, when you were his,” Nicaise asked, looking up “like a boyfriend?”

The question took him off guard. It seemed absurd to him because of course not. There hadn’t been much room for anything else in his brain and Laurent had pulled himself in tight and let the world pass around him. He hadn’t even had friends. Let alone anything else.

“Honestly? No, I didn’t want one,”

Nicaise’s smirk was cutting “his dick was more than enough for you?”

Too much for him. All of it had been too much for him and until very recently Laurent had never realised he hadn’t even been acquainted with real desire so it was hardly surprising his teenage self hadn’t given it a second thought. He had realised only days ago that there was a difference between arousal and desire, a difference between what his body might crave and what he wanted, what he felt. A difference between his body reacting and want. He wondered, idly, what his life would have been if his uncle didn’t exist?

He’d been shy to start with, only a handful of friends. He would have been shy forever probably. But sex? Relationships? He didn’t know how different it would be. Was the desire thing a byproduct of how fucked up he’d been made? Or was he always different in that regard? He had no way of knowing for sure. He did know he’d had a lot of sex with a lot of people and he’d never wanted any of them the way he wanted Damen. Even when the sex was good, when he came, when the rush and high of orgasm left him sated. It was like scratching an itch. But the all-consuming hopeless want he had for Damen was an entirely different thing. It was something he felt all over. Everywhere. Not a biological thing his body was doing but something stemming from some other place inside him.

He'd never know if he would have felt it before now if not for the way his life had turned out.

“But not enough for you apparently,” Laurent said

Nicaise was ruffled, scowling at him “don’t act like you didn’t like it, I’ve you’re your videos remember?”

“Do you like it?” he fired back

Nicaise shrugged, half nodding “it feels good… sometimes,”

“Yeah, until it doesn’t,”

It had felt good at first. It was the worst part about it. A fact Laurent couldn’t hide from and the one that haunted him the most. If he’d been held down, forced instead of led, if it had been violent instead of coerced then maybe he could live with it, maybe the shame of it wouldn’t feel quite so cloying. It was the after that hurt, when the rush and high was done and he’d put his clothes back on. That was when the pain was apparent, physically and emotionally, both in his too-young too-used body and in his shredded chest and mind where he couldn’t make sense of anything. Didn’t know which way was up. Until he was walking on eggshells in his own house. His own skin.

The emptiness of feeling like something was wrong, the tandem sensation of pleasure and shame. The ache of regret. The anxiety that lived with him every second of every day. Of being found out. Of not being found out. Of wanting it. Of not wanting it. Of understanding how wrong it was. Being told it wasn’t. The manipulation of words and the ease with which Laurent had let them make sense to him.

The hatred that had festered in the smoke of his flaming thoughts. Hatred for himself. For his uncle. For the situation. The world. Every person who didn’t see and didn’t save him from himself and the Frankenstein making him a monster of ragtag parts.

It wasn’t fair. Not on him and not Nicaise. Or Aimeric. What had they ever done to deserve this lot in life? Why had it happened? Why hadn’t it stopped?

Laurent swallowed thickly “so that it? You fucked someone behind his back and he didn’t like it?”

Nicaise scowled “no,” he snapped

Laurent let the silence linger, took a swig of his water instead of his beer and waited Nicaise out. It only took twenty seconds for him to relent.

“But there’s a guy at school I like, okay? And I just- he told me he likes me and I don’t know what to do, what happened tonight has nothing to do with him I just don’t know what to do about him,”

Oh shit.

“Aimeric would be so much better at this,” Laurent said “can’t you like pause the issue for tomorrow? He’ll be back at home so I can call him and he can-“

“I don’t think he’d want to speak to me,” Nicaise cut across “what would he know anyway? Didn’t he try to top himself?”

Laurent flinched “because Aimeric likes all the silly romance stuff, he has a crush on a guy too, I’m not good at this, I don’t know what I’m doing any more than you do,”

“He says you sleep around though, so you must know some things,”

Laurent groaned, sinking down into his seat “it’s different, sex is easy, romance isn’t,” he said “and I’m trying not to… anymore,”

Nicaise huffed, opening his mouth anyway.

“I really like him, his name’s Leon and he’s fifteen and I like it when he holds my hand,”

The words made Laurent look over despite himself. Saw the sweet renewed colour in Nicaise’s cheeks and smiled. He knew that feeling too, didn’t he? He’d done all kinds of perverted deviant sex acts but it was the small things that made him blush.

Telling, he supposed. For them both.

“I’m scared he’ll find out if I say yes and I’m scared Leon will just know, like, he’ll be able to tell that I’m not a virgin and then he’ll ask questions and I can’t have that, but then if I say no I’ll lose him and I can’t have that either,”

“I can’t help you, I’ve never had this issue before now either, because I’ve never let anyone close, never wanted anyone close but now- well,” Laurent shrugged “well that’s been on my mind for a long time too,”

Damen finding out about him was on his mind frequently. It would cut all ties between them and he wasn’t ready for that. He didn’t think he’d ever be ready to have Damen walk away for good.

“So what are you going to do?” Nicaise asked, eyes narrowed at him

Laurent laughed “I have no idea,”

“Can you… can you tell me about it? Please?”

Laurent didn’t want to see the expression on Nicaise’s face. If it matched his tone, the sweet vulnerable tone- Laurent didn’t think he could bear it.

He cleared his throat “his name is Damen… I tried to keep him at arm’s length because I was scared he’d see me, see all of it, see that there was something wrong with me, but somehow… somehow he got under my skin anyway, I don’t know when it happened, I don’t remember it happening at all but I woke up one day and he was in my bed and he looked so fucking right there and I just felt-“ he shook his head “like I could stay there forever and eternity wouldn’t be long enough to get my fill of looking at him, or touching him, or just fucking breathing him in,”

When he chanced a glance at him there was no derision on Nicaise’s face. Instead he was chewing his bottom lip, rapt with attention.

“What did you do?”

“Woke him up, we had sex, he asked me if we could be official, and it scared the shit out of me, because what if he found out? what I really was, you know? Or what if he hurt me?”

“So what did you say?” Nicaise pressed

“I laughed at him and told him it was just sex and that he was a fucking idiot for even asking me, we didn’t talk for a month and I- god I missed him so much, I went back to him, obviously, but he had someone else then, and I- fuck I regret so much shit in my life but if I could go back to any one fucking moment it would be then, I want to slap myself and say yes instead and then maybe-“ he waved a hand “I don’t know, but maybe he’d be mine,”

“You’re in love with him,” Nicaise said, voice coloured by surprise

The instant urge to deny it was a violent clash in his chest but it was futile one. Flash thunder. Sharp and sudden and gone again. Laurent breathed it in instead, let it fill him up. If he let himself think about it, said it enough, heard it enough, maybe the word wouldn’t scare him anymore.

“I don’t know how to love,” he said

“Well clearly,” Nicaise snorted “but you don’t have to know anything to feel something, that shit just happens, the rest, the what you do with it part, yeah you fucking suck at that,”

Laurent bit his tongue, fiddling with the flip up straw on his water bottle. Nicaise’s smirk at Laurent’s silence was knowing, eyebrow raised as he shifted, getting more comfortable and stretching one leg out as he shoved his hood down.

“You said to me before that we don’t know how to love and that we’re just broken toys, but that’s bullshit, that’s how you see us and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s that your truth and reality don’t always mesh, I thought what he was doing was a good thing, in reality it’s poison, you said it yourself, see?” Nicaise said

“I’m scared,” Laurent breathed “I’m so fucking scared because one day it means he’ll probably find out and what if he leaves me because of it?”

It was, perhaps, the most honest he had ever been. With Nicaise. With himself. Laurent had been systematically isolated from everyone in his life and he’d held the isolation long after his uncle’s chains had slackened. Because the further away he kept people, the less likely it was they’d find out. Secrets, he had found, were fragile little things. Little grenades waiting to detonate. Land mines beneath random footfalls.

Secrets were easier to keep when there was no around to pry them away.

“If that changes things it was never love for him then, obviously,” Nicaise said with a roll of his eyes and a mocking tone

“Nicaise, I’m a broken fucked up idiot who has what I’m starting to think is a sex addiction and I take pills to numb my own fucking thoughts, I need someone -Damen- to give me structure and make me do basic adult things like drink fucking water, I’m a mess, he might want me, but what if it’s not love for him? That’s even worse because I can’t be a fool for someone again, I can’t let myself be blinded again because what if he just hurts me too? I won’t survive it,”

Nicaise shrugged, rolling his eyes again and pulling a face like the teenager he was.

“Someone who makes you take care of yourself probably does give a shit, you know? Bad people don’t care enough to tell you to do anything unless it’s something they want from you,”

“I know,” Laurent cleared his throat over the sudden lump forming there “so what if I hurt him?”

“The world sucks, people hurt each other every day I could go outside and get stabbed on the way home or run over tomorrow morning, it blows but it is what it is, it’s all just shitty chaos and shitty people and you never know what’s gonna happen,”

It was true. There was never any knowing. Not really. Things were fucking awful and people were fucking awful so maybe if he found something good, someone good, in this fucked up world, maybe he should hold onto it. Maybe that’s what trying really was. Just trying to make the world less shitty with any small victory he could get.

“I think maybe you should tell your Leon yes,” Laurent said carefully “don’t let it be your ‘if I could reverse time moment’ you’ll end up like me,”

Nicaise fished his phone out of his pocket “I will if you will,”

Laurent breathed through his smile, shaking his head as he reached for his phone, nodding at Nicaise. It was so juvenile but Nicaise beamed back at him, chewing on his bottom lip as he typed out a text rapidly on his phone.

If Nicaise could do it, he could, right?

It was poor form, letting a fourteen-year-old be braver than him. And he had promised Aimeric he’d try. He’d been telling himself he was waiting for the right moment but, right moments didn’t just present themselves, not in Laurent’s world.

Now or never he supposed.

I’m way too chickenshit to say this to your face, but I miss you. I miss you so fucking much. I like being your friend but I want more. Everything. Just us this time. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same, I’ll understand, but I needed you to know that.

He hit send before he could think about it too much, caught Nicaise’s smile and the weird bubble of adrenaline and relief and surprise made him laugh. So hard and so long even Nicaise burst out laughing.

It was stupidly late and Damen was on a night out so Laurent tried not to let himself get worked up about the text. If he took two pills to help him sleep once he’d packed Nicaise off to his father’s house- it was better than the alternative.

He woke up the next day to a single text.

Laurent I’ll always feel the same, I was waiting for you to be ready. I would have waited decades for you if I had to.

~*~

Perhaps he should have expected Damen to show up before noon, but he hadn’t. Despite his text, Laurent was fairly certain he’d somehow imagined the whole thing. Good things didn’t happen to him and Damen willing to give him a chance? It was more than he had dared to hope for.

“So where are we going?” Laurent asked once they were in the car.

“That would be telling,”

When he stepped out of the car at their destination he sent Damen a bemused smirk over the top of the car.

“An arcade? Are we twelve?”

Damen faux-gasped, pulling a face at him “firstly, this is not an arcade this is a playground for people with adult money, secondly shut up, I know you like games so let’s play,” he ribbed, tossing Laurent a wink to show he was just giving him shit.

Laurent snorted, falling into step with Damen as they went toward the doors, mind halfway caught on the way Damen said play.

“I like games as in scrabble,” Laurent grinned “I’ve never really played arcade games,”

“So there’s a first time for everything, come on,”

The place was huge, some kind of repurposed warehouse full of bright décor and neon signs on the inside. Exactly, he supposed, what an adult playground would look like, if the term was entirely non-sexual to him.

There were signs for all different kinds of activities Laurent had never done before. From laser tag, and mini golf, to some kind of escape room. Damen led him to the actual arcade where the room was dimly lit and yet remained bright from the flashing of old school arcade games from pinball machines to air hockey and everything in between.

It took precisely 30 minutes and four different machines for Laurent to get cocky.

“So I’m really good at this, right?” Laurent said beaming up at Damen

“Are you sure you’ve never played this before?” Damen said, side eyeing him

“I’m sure, I never played any of these growing up,” Laurent said “I didn’t play consoles much either,”

Damen turned his whole body toward him, paying attention “what did you do?”

“Read,”

Once he was a teenager the answer was have sex. Sleep to make the days go quicker. His interests had been narrow and his immediate world even narrower.

“So arcades aren’t stupid after all?”

Laurent shook his head, leaning in closer “it’s fun,”

And it was. Silly and fun and childish but in a way that made him feel free. When he got bored of the one machine he only had to turn a pout on Damen who would laugh at him and drag him away to a different one. If Laurent wasn’t any good at it he would whinge until Damen laughingly relented and called him a brat as they moved to something else.

Damen was uninhibited with his laughs, threw himself into every game Laurent pointed out with the kind of determination with which Laurent understood he approached everything else in life. Not for the first time Laurent envied his ability to approach something entirely new so easily and without a blink or stutter to show.

He must have been staring because Damen kept glancing at him, mouth twitching until he was shaking his head and hitting pause.

“What?” he asked

“I admire you, that’s all,”

Damen seemed momentarily speechless as he nodded at him, flashing him a small pleased smile even as he turned back to the game. His smile didn’t waver.

From the arcade Damen moved them on to some of the other games the place had in store. Laurent was immediately terrible at axe throwing which was much harder than it looked. Damen, of course, took to it annoyingly well which made the whole process much more irritating. Laurent was better at mini gold though, and by the time they’d done laser tag it was getting dark out and Laurent was thoroughly tired and practically giddy.

They stopped for food at a casual restaurant Damen recommended on the way home and it was only once he was beside Damen in the booth that he realised they’d never been out in public like this. For food. Or otherwise. If they were in public, they had rarely been alone and it was usually at a bar or a club or somewhere where there was a lot of other people.

Was it a date? Was that what was happening?

Laurent excused himself to the bathroom and scrambled to get his phone out of his pocket. Luckily Aimeric was in an answering mood.

“Hey,”

“Yeah hi, listen, how do I know if I’m on a date?” Laurent asked

Aimeric’s answering laugh made Laurent fidget, huffing as he rolled his entire head back to glare up at the bathroom ceiling.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and grimaced. He was blushing. Fucks sake.

“Yes hilarious, help now please?”

“Well, ask him, is it Damen?”

“Obviously it’s Damen, I haven’t had a lobotomy,” Laurent said “and I can’t ask we’ve been out all day, now we’re at a restaurant so what do I do?”

Aimeric laughed again and Laurent really was not above smashing his phone to make him stop.

“Why did I save your life again?”

“So that someone could be entertained by your insanity,” Aimeric said “now ask him idiot and give me all the details later,”

Aimeric hung up before Laurent could say anything else and he pouted the whole way back to the table.

“I ordered drinks, they’ll be back for food orders in a minute, what’s that face for?”

Laurent slid back into the booth; aware he probably should have sat opposite him. Was it weird to sit the same side of the booth? He was so out of his depth. He had no fucking clue what to do on a date.

“Is this a date?” he asked

Damen blinked at him, eyes roving over him as Laurent fidgeted and chewed on his bottom lip, awaiting his response.

“Do you want it to be?”

“Yes, I thought I’d made myself clear,”

Damen hummed, leaned closer, swooping down so suddenly Laurent sucked in a breath, mouth going dry and heart rate sky rocketing all at the same time.

“So did I,” Damen said, voice low and promising the way he’d only ever heard it in bed.

Seductive.

Laurent didn’t think he could be blamed for the kick of Pavlovian arousal at the sound of it.

~*~

By the time Damen was driving him home Laurent was pleasantly full and his face hurt from smiling so much. He was still staring at Damen, trying to ignore the fluttering in his chest every time Damen tore his gaze away from the road to look back at him.

He wanted to reach out, splay his hand possessively over Damen’s thick thigh whilst he drove, wanted to lean across and lick his neck or suck a bruise there for everyone to see.

What if he couldn’t?

What if, when Damen put his hands on him, Laurent saw flashes of his past? Saw Aimeric, or the backrooms, or any number of other encounters over the past decade? It would break him, if it happened with Damen. He wanted him, so badly he could barely think, could barely breathe, but his body had long been a traitorous thing with its own will. If it betrayed him this time Laurent didn’t know how he’d react or what he’d say to explain it.

And the worst part was he had no way of knowing. He would only figure it out in the moment. It put him on edge, had him unusually quiet as Damen followed him up the stairs to his flat. It had his hands shaking as he unlocked his front door and shoved it open.

He was aware, all the while, of Damen standing behind him, aware he was close, aware of the heat and the overwhelming presence of him making Laurent tingle from his sheer proximity.

Laurent’s words were robbed from him as he turned, stolen straight out of his mouth by Damen stepping closer, his hands rising to cup Laurent’s jaw, thumbs stroking gently at his cheekbones. Laurent reached up on instinct, closing his fingers around Damen’s wrists, tongue darting out to wet his lips as Damen’s gaze ebbed from Laurent’s eyes to his mouth and back.

For a long still moment there was quiet, nothing but the sound of Laurent panting, anticipation eating him up as Damen swayed closer, leaning down, giving him every opportunity to stop him. The thought didn’t even cross Laurent’s mind, he had absolutely no intention of stopping him. Ever. Instead his eyes fluttered closed and he tilted his face up in silent entreaty until Damen’s mouth came down on his.

Damen’s kiss was soft, tender, his mouth a caress that had Laurent parting his lips, accepting the probe of Damen’s tongue with breathy eagerness as Damen’s fingers slid up, back, sank into his hair and tilted him further, angling him exactly where he was wanted.

Laurent melted into him, curling closer, arms winding up and around his neck as he went up onto his tip toes, his body coming alive in Damen’s hands. It was slow, deep, the kind of kiss Laurent had never had; all breath and intent and want and absolutely none of the rush.

When Damen pulled back Laurent shook his head, swayed back into him, catching Damen’s grin against his mouth and licking it away, open, until he had Damen’s mouth back on him, kissing him again just as soft and deep. When he pulled back again Laurent almost protested. When he stepped back entirely Laurent frowned.

“Good night Laurent,” he said, backing away toward the stairs.

“What? You’re not coming in?” Laurent asked, his voice strangled with incredulity and disappointment.

Damen paused, canted his head “do you want me to come in?”

“Yes,” Laurent said “I thought we could-“ he cut himself off

Damen’s eyebrows went up “have coffee?” he suggested, one corner of his mouth rising to match his brow

Laurent snorted, backing up into his open doorway “sure, yeah coffee, if coffee is code for orgasms,”

Damen barked a laugh, but he didn’t step forward “you sure?”

“Damen get in here,” Laurent said turning on his heel and marching into his flat.

Damen laughed as he did as he was told, shutting the door behind him and following Laurent all the way to his bedroom.

“Did you move the kettle into your room?” he asked wryly, even as he was taking off his jacket and kicking off his shoes.

Laurent glared, toeing his own shoes off and all but wrestling himself out of his jacket “no but this is where I want you so shut up and come kiss me,”

Pushing off the doorframe Damen prowled toward him, eyes dark and brimming with intent as he cupped Laurent’s face again. Laurent froze, panting up at him, anticipation writhing beneath his skin until, finally, Damen leant down to fasten their mouths together.

The groan he let loose immediately into Damen’s mouth was telling, had him plastering himself against Damen’s chest, winding his arms around his neck and trying to get closer. It was Damen who turned them, Damen who toppled them carefully onto the bed, Damen who put Laurent on his back, curling an arm beneath his head and rolling off him to his side, pressed down the entire length of him and looming over him, kissing him like they had all the time in the world.

They did. For once they did. There was no need to rush and Laurent was content to kiss and be held and to curl his leg over Damen’s thigh and rut against him for the spark of friction against his rapidly hardening cock.

“Is this okay?” Damen breathed against his mouth

Laurent rolled his eyes, leaning back up, as Damen retreated, refusing his kiss. Damen stopped him with a hand at his jaw, fingers deceptively soft.

“Baby use your words,”

Laurent nodded, tugging on Damen’s hair to get him back where he wanted him “yes, yes, more than okay, shut up and kiss me,”

Damen chuckled, still half laughing as he let Laurent tug him closer, sucking eagerly on Damen’s tongue the second he had it.

His mind wasn’t blank, it never was when Damen kissed him but it was full in the best way, full of desires and wants and Damen and there was no room for anything else to intrude. Not whilst Damen’s large palm was sliding down his chest, moulding around his ribs until he was gripping his hip, pinching, before sliding to cup his ass. To encourage Laurent’s rhythm against his thigh.

Laurent’s head snapped back on a moan, hips chasing, rising as Damen flexed his thigh against Laurent’s cock, encouraging and maddening. Damen’s mouth shifted, travelling to his neck, peppering small nips and bites in amongst the soft kisses he laid there.

It sent shivers cascading over his skin, goosebumps rising in Damen’s wake as he trailed his lush mouth down the tendon, teeth scraping against his pulse point until he was sucking a mark into his skin, Laurent’s back arced up in response, revelling in the rush of it.

With fingers in Damen’s hair he tugged, pulling him up, thoughts racing with the realisation that there was no one else. There were no rules here now, nothing to be aware of and Damen had left a mark on him; he could feel his neck throbbing with it. Laurent desperately wanted to return it. Damen shifted, tilting his head up and back and Laurent curled up, got his mouth on his neck and bit down. Sucking, laving, enjoying the noise Damen made as his palm cradled the back of Laurent’s head and pushed him closer.

Damen knew what Laurent was doing. The thought sparked and Laurent bit down again, sucking as his hips drove up against Damen’s thigh. Damen made a deep noise in the back of his throat as Laurent left a third mark on his neck, a trail of them that, once he pulled back, were glaring on Damen’s skin. Perhaps the most possessive intentional thing Laurent had ever done. No secret. No hiding. A claiming.

He’d never considered that kind of thing for himself. When he thought of claiming and possession he imagined Damen on him and in him with that word on his tongue Laurent desperately wanted of him. Mine.

It occurred to him he could do the same.

With a groan he shoved at Damen’s chest, pushed him over onto his back and shifted to straddle him, his hands scrambling to rid Damen of his shirt, shoving it up and off. When Damen let him throw the offending article on the floor Laurent sat back, astride Damen, panting, and staring.

He had seen Damen laid out beneath him a thousand times. It was not a new sight and yet Laurent got caught on it, on him, on the abrupt newness of the demand rising in his chest screaming at him to never let this go.

“Fuck Damen you’re so fucking… how are you real?”

The words fell out, inelegant but in Laurent’s estimation it was a decent summation of his thoughts. Damen stared back at him, going up onto his elbows, making his chest appear all the firmer and the muscles in his arms and stomach flex. Laurent’s hands drifted, gliding reverently over Damen’s shoulders and down, fitting his hands around Damen’s pecs and further, tracing his fingers against his ribs.

With a shift of Laurent’s chin Damen did as he was told, lying back fully, arms up behind his head as Laurent traced the impressive muscles of Damen’s abdomen, the dips and groves Damen worked hard for and made Laurent fucking salivate. He swooped down without conscious thought, following the same valleys with his tongue for a long moment, exploring because he could. Like this was new. Maybe it was.

He didn’t stop until he had his mouth at Damen’s chest, until he was biting down and sucking a mark there, giving the same attention to the opposite side as Damen’s hands went to his neck and hair, dragging him back up.

Laurent groaned into his mouth, flattening himself against Damen’s lap, grinding against him as Damen kissed him, all tongue and want and slick hot desire.

When Damen’s hands fell to his hips Laurent groaned, at the squeeze, at the way Damen started to grind up against him, dictating Laurent’s rhythm, pushing him back harder on the long line of Damen’s cock.

“Damen if you keep doing - fuck,” Laurent gasped, digging his nails into Damen’s chest “if you keep doing that I’m gonna come,”

Damen hissed, groaning as Laurent’s fingers raked downward “do you want to come?”

Laurent nodded, biting his lip, still riding the length of Damen’s cock beneath him, pleasure sparking in him as he ground his cock hard against Damen’s.

“Do it then, get yourself off baby, let me see you,”

Laurent shifted his hips, driving himself against Damen harder and faster, chasing the friction that wasn’t enough. Not usually. But here, like this, his whole body was striving for it, reaching, shaking with the nearness as Damen kissed him, murmuring words against Laurent’s mouth to encourage him.

He rarely came like this. Barely ever. He usually needed something in him, to push him over the edge, to make demands of his body. But like this? He didn’t know this rhythm and it felt new, the commanding pressure rising in him.

“I need-“ Laurent gasped “I need my jeans off, I-“

Damen made a noise against his mouth “don’t want to stop touching you,”

As he spoke, he ran his hands down, round, cupping Laurent’s ass and squeezing firmly. driving his hips up as he did so and somehow, impossibly, it was enough. Laurent’s orgasm seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, a flash flood of pleasure that had him crying out, shocked by it. He shook, throwing his head back as he ground his hips down, flexing with it, drawing it out, fucking himself through it against Damen as his fingernails dug in at Damen’s chest, dragging downward in a vicious counterpoint to the sweet words Damen fed to him on the tip of his tongue.

It made Damen hiss, hold him harder, drawing it out and out until Laurent collapsed forward, burying his face in Damen’s neck and panting. He’d come in his fucking jeans.

How embarrassing.

He groaned, heat flooding his face when he realised how fucking juvenile it was. Laurent hadn’t even done that when he was a juvenile for fucks sake. He rolled off Damen, covering his face with his hands and laughed, cringing into it.

“Jesus I can’t believe I did that, oh my god,” he groaned

Damen chuckled beside him and Laurent snatched his hands from his face to half glare at him.

“No laughing that was your fault,”

Damen’s lips twitched and Laurent was powerless against his own smile until they were both laughing. Like fucking idiots.

“Stop,” Laurent groused through a smile, slapping at Damen’s chest

Damen rolled toward him, grinning wide “don’t be embarrassed,” he chuckled “it was hot,”

Laurent sent him a real glare this time and it made Damen laugh more, had him leaning forward to kiss at Laurent’s jaw in apology.

“Oh my god, I hate you right now,” Laurent said grinning up at his ceiling as his fingers thread through Damen’s hair.

It didn’t even occur to him that Damen hadn’t come until Damen was leaning back over him and kissing him through his smile. Laurent’s hands sought him out, snaking downward for Damen’s belt, surprised when Damen stopped him.

He frowned, searching Damen’s gaze “you don’t want to?” he asked

Damen smiled, giving him one more kiss before he shifted, going up onto his knees and making a space for himself between Laurent’s legs. Laurent went up onto his elbows, eager as Damen undid his jeans, splaying them open and pushing them down enough for his cock to spring free. Hard, the tip shiny and slick. Damen really had thought it was hot.

Laurent reached for him and Damen playfully slapped his hand away, smirking.

“Watch me,”

Laurent wanted to protest but the idea was suddenly painfully appealing the moment Damen wrapped a hand around his hard length and started to stroke. Laurent was mesmerised, attention flickering from Damen’s face, to his cock, and to the red scratches running down his chest that Laurent didn’t remember doing so hard.

He soaked him in, the movement, the flexes of his muscles, the expressions on his face. It had heat reigniting in his belly, his own breath coming quicker.

He had thought it before, hadn’t he? That watching Damen would be hot. The only other time he’d really just watched him he’d been on a screen and wrapped up in someone else. Laurent hadn’t liked it then, too caught up in jealousy and hurt to notice anything beyond Erasmus but now?

Yeah, Damen was stunning.

“God Damen, you look-“ Laurent cut himself off, biting his lip as though he had any hope of stopping himself from saying something embarrassing.

“Tell me Laurent, what do I look like?”

Laurent groaned, sucking in a shuddering breath “so fucking hot Damen, you have no fucking idea… I think of you, when I touch myself, I always think of you just like this,“

Damen groaned, hand working harder, gaze locked with Laurent’s as they panted back at each other, the air between them hot and thick and fucking electric.

“What do you want baby? Say it and I’ll give it,”

Laurent was the one who whimpered, a strangled noise coming out of his mouth and he scrambled to pull his shirt off. Damen’s focus was narrow, intent upon him, caressing his skin with his hungry gaze as Laurent lay back, bringing his knees up.

“Come on me, all over me, I want it,”

Damen nodded, leaning over him, one hand planted at Laurent’s head as he stroked himself harder. Damen’s eyes didn’t leave him, looking down at him, breathing harshly, getting choppier. He was close.

“Come for me Damen, cover me with it, mark me,”

Damen groaned, dropping his chin, his whole-body shuddering as he came in hot spurts, his come soaking Laurent’s skin, across his stomach and all the way up his chest. Proof of Damen’s want.

Laurent reached down, intending to taste but Damen stopped him, slapping his hand away as he sat back between Laurent’s thighs, hands running up and down them unconsciously. Eyes locked on the telling bulge in Laurent’s sticky jeans.

Swallowing thickly Laurent watched as Damen smirked, splaying the front of his jeans open one button at a time, slow and deliberate, yanking them down, until he was carefully peeling Laurent’s come-sticky underwear away from his cock.

It was uncomfortable, messy, and Laurent bit down on his bottom lip, gaze flitting between Damen and his cock, still valiantly interested. It had just been so long since he’d gotten off.

“You want to come again?” Damen asked

“Please,”

Damen hummed, reaching for him, wrapping thick fingers around Laurent’s come-soaked cock. When Damen leaned forward and spat, adding his saliva to the mix, Laurent groaned breathing deep as Damen’s hand started to pump.

He fought the instinct to close his eyes, body trembling as Damen’s hand worked relentlessly around his still-sensitive cock, making him twitch and his hips rise as gasps shuddered out of him. The noise Damen’s hand made around him was obscene, wet, sticky, the slide of skin against skin punctuated by the needy breaths Laurent let loose.

Damen lay back down, on his side, pressing against him and Laurent turned his head on the pillow, panting as he met Damen’s dark stare. Damen didn’t say anything but his eyes were everywhere, tracing over every inch of his face before flitting down to watch his hand working Laurent’s cock, watching Laurent’s hips both chasing the sensation and shivering away from it. Until Laurent was writhing, everything too much and too good and he was tossing his head, caught on the precipice of an orgasm he knew was going to shake him.

“Damen please,” he gasped

He was so close, so fucking close, he just needed, he needed-

Damen shifted, enough to slide the palm of his free hand against Laurent’s neck and at once he tipped his head back, moaning as Damen’s fingers fit around his throat.

“You want this?”

“Fuck yes,”

Instead of tightening his fingers Damen stroked his cock harder, leaning close so Laurent could feel the warm fan of his breath.

“Tell me, ask for what you want,”

“Choke me, make me take it,”

Damen did exactly what Laurent wanted, his fingers tightening around his throat and his cock all at once, rhythm not faltering as he stroked Laurent’s cock exactly as he liked it and cut his air off slowly. In seconds, in increments, his breathing became rapid, laboured, until he could barely draw a breath, everything going fuzzy and hot and dizzying and Laurent’s hips drove up, his orgasm right fucking there-

“Come for me baby,”

Laurent tensed, whole body pulling taut as he pushed his head back into the pillows and came, shooting ropes all over himself and Damen’s hand, recoating his skin as he shuddered and whined through the contracting twitches of his climax.

When Damen let him go Laurent was boneless, panting hard and smiling wide as Damen leaned over him to kiss him, light, a tease. For long endless moments they lay side by side, Damen still cradling his come coated cock, thumb brushing the underside idly. Laurent was sated, pleasantly warm, thrumming with the nearness and the pleasure of it all. Of Damen.

When he eventually reached for the tissues on his bedside table Damen scoffed and slapped at his hand.

“No, leave it, let it dry,” Damen said, as he pushed himself back to his knees

Laurent blinked at him, the implication lighting him up.

“For how long?”

“Until tomorrow, don’t shower, don’t wipe it off,”

Laurent groaned and his head shot up, staring at him.

“I’m not allowed to shower?” he repeated

His words came out shakier than he’d intended, darker, the idea doing something to him. Damen, of course, saw it. Grinned as his shook his head.

“No and tomorrow you’re going to send me a photo as proof that you waited and then you can wash us off you,”

Laurent groaned, thinking of how itchy and flaky and uncomfortable it would be. But then he’d think of those words, about it being Damen on him, marking him. Claiming he supposed.

He nodded, swallowing thickly as Damen tucked himself away, grinning back at him. Clearly proud of himself. Damen climbed off the bed, retrieving his shirt and pulling it back on. Laurent got up, following him, being annoyingly careful not to accidentally wipe any of Damen’s come off him as Damen went to the mirror in the corner. He had to move two different jackets off it to see himself but when he did he tilted his head, fingers tracing the three glaringly obvious hickeys neither his t-shirt nor his hair covered.

When he turned back around he eyed Laurent pointedly, arcing one eyebrow

Laurent shrugged “I’m allowed to leave marks now,”

Damen hummed, dragged him closer by the nape of his neck and kissed him slow and deep.

“Leave all the marks you want,”

Those words lit him up, had him biting back a smile as his hands went to Damen’s chest where the scratches were. His scratches.

“You can mark me more, if you want,”

Damen’s eyes went dark, flickering to his neck. Laurent swallowed, forced his next words out.

“I mean, you can leave marks on your boyfriend, right?”

Damen’s lips twitched, soft gaze melting into Laurent’s, even when Laurent struggled to hold his stare. His heart was a furious beat in his chest, his stomach squirming with the potential rejection he’d opened himself up to.

“Boyfriends, is that what we are?” Damen asked and Laurent wanted to hit him for the total lack of anything he gave away with his expression.

“You tell me,” Laurent replied, brows tugging down in what he adamantly refused to think of as a pout.

“Did we have that conversation?”

“We’re having it now,”

Damen stared back at him, thumb stroking soothingly at his neck still. It wasn’t enough to stop him squirming for the long few moments it took Damen to nod.

“Ask me, then,”

Laurent bit his lip, curled his fingers into Damen’s t-shirt and tugged him down.

“Can we be official now, please?”

Damen’s forehead kissed his.

“Took you long enough,” Damen breathed

Laurent let the guilt in, let it hurt, reminded himself why he couldn’t be afraid this time. He was going to try because the other option was unbearable. He couldn’t lose him. He wouldn’t.

“I’m sorry,”

Damen shook his head, kissed him again and tipped his head up to kiss Laurent’s forehead.

“We’re not doing that, we’re here now, that’s all that matters,”

~*~

No-one’s ideal week started with a HIV blood test. The ideal week did not continue on with several shitty days at work and absolutely did not include a summons to a family dinner at their parent’s house in the middle of the week. Not when those parents were usually as hands off as possible and insinuated they would come to him if he didn’t show.

Which was absolutely not happening. His parents had never been in his flat and Laurent very much intended to keep it that way.

“It’s 100% about the Auguste thing,” Laurent groused into the phone, for maybe the millionth time that day as he made his way from the bus stop to his parents’ house. Straight after work as per fucking request.

On the other end of the line Damen hummed “it might not be, why would your parents even get involved?”

Laurent took a drag of his cigarette, clutching his phone tighter “they hate me Damen, literally any excuse to call me out and they will,”

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” Damen said

Laurent let his silence speak for itself until Damen amended.

“To Auguste I mean, he and I have been over for longer than we were together, so why does he suddenly give a shit now?”

“Because it’s me,” Laurent laughed “Damen it’s a sibling rivalry thing, just because you don’t subscribe to it doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t, and I should know, I hit on you specifically because you were Auguste’s ex and you’re crazy hot,”

On the other end of the line Damen gave him an amused huff of breath.

“That’s because I never thought of Kastor as my rival,” Damen said “and it doesn’t matter how we started, we’re here now, he doesn’t get an opinion,”

“Yeah, only because rival implies you’re running the same race,” Laurent said flicking his cigarette end on the floor “but we both know it doesn’t work like that Damen, he’s mad and this is gonna be a shitshow,”

He just knew it. Auguste hadn’t talked to him in the two weeks since Laurent told him about Damen and now, out of the blue, he got an invite to his parents? They usually only had a dinner once every other month and Laurent had already checked this off his bi-monthly to-do list.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?”

Laurent smiled despite himself, grateful Damen even offered to put himself in the line of fire for him. Damen knew his parents and he certainly knew Auguste so he was equally as aware as Laurent was about the way this was going to be: a shower of shit.

It warmed him to know Damen would do it for him. Or even so much as offer. But Damen had been his boyfriend for all of four surreal deliriously happy days and Laurent was absolutely not about to make his family drama Damen’s problem.

“No, it’s okay, I’m a big boy I can handle my family,”

By blocking them out and ignoring them the way he had done since he was thirteen. All he had to do was sit there and take it and then leave.

“Okay, call me if you do need me though,”

“I will,” Laurent said before saying his goodbyes and hanging up right as he turned onto his parents’ street.

And saw the distinct sleek black car sitting outside it. Perfect. His uncle was here too. Laurent froze, staring at the car and if he hadn’t known it was going to be bad before, he fucking did now.

He hadn’t spoken to his uncle for nearly 3 weeks. Not since he had ditched the client Laurent had specifically asked for the night he found Aimeric. A reckoning had been on the horizon ever since but he’d been so preoccupied with Damen and Aimeric and Nicaise that he hadn’t had time to worry overmuch about the repercussions. And there would be repercussions. He had known when he made the decision to go to the hospital instead of the man’s house. He had known and he’d been okay with it because in his head it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t anything his uncle had asked of him, Laurent had sought it out, so it wasn’t the same as throwing something in the face.

He’d been lying to himself, of course.

It was better, in a roundabout way, to just get on with it. Get it over with. The sooner it started the sooner it would be over.

His father opened the door, already glaring and surveying him from head to toe as though searching for something. Not a single word passed between them and yet Laurent felt as if he’d had an entire conversation as he moved past his father the moment he stepped aside.

A quick glance into the living room and dining room showed him there were no signs of Auguste, only his mother staring at the TV flashing him a tired smile as he went by. Auguste’s jacket wasn’t on the banister yet, so he went straight to the kitchen for a beer.

And immediately regretted it.

His uncle was leaning against the counter, already holding a beer for him. Laurent’s teeth clicked together, something twinging in his jaw as he held back his grimace. When his uncle held the bottle out Laurent didn’t move to take it, which only prompted the man closer.

To avoid having him come closer still he took it from him, careful not to let their fingers touch. It didn’t stop the man from invading Laurent’s space.

“You’ve been a bad boy nephew,” his uncle said, much too close for Laurent’s liking

He stiffened, going rigid, ramrod straight as his eyes danced to the open doorway, waiting for his father’s arrival.

“Oh, Auguste? Yeah sorry to spoil your fun, but also fuck you,” Laurent said moving to leave the room.

He was stopped by his uncle shifting too quickly, stepping in front of him and barring his way. Reluctantly Laurent meet his gaze.

“Oh? Is that why we’re here? How interesting,” He said

Complete bullshit.

“Sure let’s pretend you didn’t know I told him,”

“I didn’t, I actually meant my dear disappointed friend Howard, you owe me,” he grit out “and I will collect in full, you might have told Auguste but my guess is dearest Damen still doesn’t know what he’s been sticking his dick in, does he?”

Laurent squared his jaw, let his eyes flicker away.

His uncle laughed curling a hand at the nape of his neck “did he know about the chlamydia or the HIV test?” he asked tutting “what have you been up to nephew?”

Laurent tugged himself backward, breathing harshly “yes, he knows about that,”

Damen had gone with him on Monday. Had gone for a blood test too to appease Laurent’s anxiety even though Damen had taken medication.

His uncle nodded “but not the truth about you, interesting, the next time I give you a direction you follow it, understood?”

Laurent nodded, short and stiff, and was finally allowed to leave the kitchen, almost running straight into his father.

“Too late he’s had his fun,” Laurent sneered as he pushed past him

The second he sat down there was a knock at the door. It was definitely Auguste. The weight and rhythm of it familiar. His mother knew it too, turned the TV off and shifted in her seat. She looked tired, her eyes puffy and the grim line of her mouth was already turned down into a frown.

Aleron went to the door and their uncle came into the room, grinning as he took a seat beside Laurent, holding his wine glass up in a faux-toast.

“This will be interesting,” he said

Laurent rolled his eyes and held his breath when his brother and father came back into the room. Auguste greeted their mother with the kind of enthusiasm that always set Laurents’ teeth on edge, overdoing the praise, and giving her a big hug and asking if she’d had her hair done. Laurent huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and waited.

By the time Auguste finally sat down he hadn’t so much as glanced at Laurent.

“So, we’re here, what did you want to say?” Aleron asked perching on the arm of their mother’s armchair.

“Yes love, what is this about? You’ve had me worried,” his mother asked

Laurent realised his mistake at once. His uncle really hadn’t known. And neither did his parents. He had thought, foolishly, that Auguste would have already told them. He had thought this was his parents bringing him here to tell him off but it was much, much worse.

This was a show. Auguste hadn’t told them yet.

When Laurent looked up Auguste was staring right at him, the benign kind of smile he was used to when his brother was about to be a total fucking prick.

“Do you want to tell them? I know you enjoyed telling me, so,” Auguste gestured around them “be my guest,”

“I wouldn’t want to rob you of your moment Auguste,” Laurent said, scowled at him “you want the fireworks, you can light the fuse,”

“What is going on?” Aleron asked gaze hard on Laurent “what have you done now?”

“Oh you know Laurent, what is it always? Sex related and dirty, so,” Auguste said turning to look at their parents “Laurent stooped to a whole new low and slept with Damen,”

“Laurent is that true?” his mother gasped

“When?” his father asked

So very on brand for them both.

Laurent tipped his chin “not when they were together if that’s what you’re thinking,”

He knew that’s what his father was getting at. It provoked a kick of rage in Laurent’s chest because he’d been a fucking teenager when Damen was with Auguste. Damen would never have even looked at someone as young as Laurent had been back then.

“It doesn’t matter when,” Auguste snapped “you looked at me like I was fucking insane for being pissed off so I thought I’d ask our parents, see who’s side they take,”

“We’re not fucking kids anymore Auguste, I didn’t steal your toy, I-“

“No just the only man I’ve ever loved,” Auguste cut in

Laurent sucked in a breath, shaking his head. Yes, he’d loved him. Auguste had loved Damen, in his own way. He’d treated him badly and by his own admission hadn’t realised what he’d had until he lost it but they had been over for a long time by the time Laurent even contemplated Damen.

Laurent had been all of 18 when they split up, it’s not like he’d been fucking Damen behind Auguste’s back whilst they still had ties.

“Why?” Aleron asked, still staring at Laurent with familiar disdain.

“Because that’s what he does,” Auguste said “he fucks literally anyone that will have him, the more scandalous the better, the more fucked up the better, haven’t you noticed?”

To Auguste, to his parents, he supposed it was true. He did have a habit of bringing the weirdest and worst people he could find over to his parents’ house for lunch sometimes. A little game he played of let’s see how uncomfortable they can get. He could see how Auguste had formed such an opinion. He might, before these last few weeks, even have been right.

“Auguste, don’t talk about your brother like that, it’s not nice,” Hennike hissed

Auguste didn’t heed her as he rose to his feet.

“They’ve been having a secret affair; how long did you say? Two fucking years? I’d love to say I can’t believe you’d do this to me, but I can fucking believe it, I can because you can’t help yourself, can you?”

“It’s not like that, it’s not about you,” Laurent said, rising to his feet solely because everyone except their uncle was also on their feet.

And something about it made him uncomfortable.

“No?” Auguste asked “you didn’t chase him just because he’s my ex?”

Laurent couldn’t even deny it. It was the worst part of the accusation. It was fucking true. He had gone after Damen that night because he was Auguste’s ex. Because he was drunk and Damen was hot. Because he thought he could push at some lines and get a kick out of making Damen squirm. Damen hadn’t done what he’d expected and Laurent was pretty sure he’d been surprising him ever since. Forcing Laurent into surprising himself too, whilst he was at it.

It must have shown on his face because Aleron tutted, disgust lacing his tone “somehow, despite everything, I am shocked every time I learn something new about you,”

Laurent flinched. Some things once learned…

“I disgust you; I know, you’ve made that clear,”

“Clear? I don’t think I’ve said nearly enough,”

“You’ve fucking said plenty, or not said it, as it were,”

Laurent was skirting the line, tiptoeing dangerously close to a landmine he desperately wanted to avoid.

Adamantly ignoring the graze of his uncle’s stare, Laurent pressed on.

“Damen is my boyfriend and there is literally nothing you can say or do to change it, you might as well get used to it Auguste, I’m not going to give him up,”

Auguste laughed, shaking his head, all wide-eyed disbelief.

“You? A boyfriend?” He grinned “fuck me you’ll cheat on him within the month, you know as well as I do one dick isn’t enough for you and we both know Damen will leave you the second you do,”

Laurent flinched despite himself, recoiling from the very real fears Auguste had spewed into the universe. Laurent was well aware. He was also terrified of doing just that.

“I-“

The knock at the door had them all swivelling their attention toward the doorway and Laurent sneered, glaring at Auguste.

“Who the fuck else did you invite? Our grandparents? The fucking neighbours? Why do you care so much about this?”

Aleron tutted, excusing himself to go answer the door.

“I didn’t invite anyone,” Auguste snapped “and honestly, I don’t know why I was worried, you’ll mess it up for yourself,”

Laurent blinked, the words cutting him far too close to the places that hurt. To the tender aching parts of him that were aware of that all the time. Painfully aware of it.

The familiar rumble of a voice had Laurent turning, eyes hitting the doorway about two seconds before Damen appeared. Laurent breathed out, shock making him slow as he tried to make sense of it. Damen had come. Why?

For him? It wasn’t how his life went. Nobody ever showed up for him. Why would they?

Except here Damen was anyway. Right there. For him. Damen always came when he needed him, didn’t he?

“If you think you can come into my house and-“ Aleron said hurrying to come back into the room on Damen’s heels.

Damen was so much taller than Aleron. It made his father seem small somehow.

“Nobody asked you so sit down and shut up, you’re good at that at least,” Damen snapped

Damen hadn’t even looked at Aleron as he said it, too busy focusing on Laurent, his expression going from tight to explosive with whatever he saw on Laurent’s face.

“How dare you-“ Aleron began

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Auguste asked, stepping in front of Laurent enough to block him from Damen’s immediate view. And path.

Damen tore his eyes away from him and they landed on Auguste. He had come from work, was still in a shirt, sleeves pushed up to his elbows the way Laurent liked, he must have left the moment they got off the phone. When he stared Auguste down his expression went harder still, eyes narrowing as he shook his head.

“I’m here because I know you and because he doesn’t deserve this bullshit, it was me as much as it was him, so I’m not going to just let you ambush him,”

“Why are you even bothering? He’ll cheat on you, we both know it so-“

“No, he won’t,”

“How can you be so sure?” Auguste asked and Laurent wanted an answer to that too. Damen sounded more sure than Laurent deserved.

“Because I know him and I trust him, so I’m not going to let you hurt him for some petty pissing contest you don’t actually care about,” Damen didn’t waiver as he stared Auguste down “Laurent is mine now so get used to it or fuck off,”

Mine.

Laurent’s knees went weak, his breath quickening as his gaze flew toward his brother. It wasn’t lost on Auguste either, he saw it register, watched it settle in his features as Auguste’s gaze slid toward him.

Laurent’s instinct was to gloat but he stopped himself. He stopped himself because he saw something close to pain lance through Auguste’s expression before he turned back to Damen.

“That’s how it is now then? You’re just going to pretend you weren’t ready to marry me and shack up with my baby brother instead?”

“Laurent is not a child, he’s older than I was when you and I split up,” Damen said, the words as stinging as the slap they were intended as.

Auguste practically snarled, focus flying between Laurent and Damen, breathing deeply, familiar familial fury evident on his face.

“Is this about the replaceable thing?” Auguste asked “I said it to you so you’re just desperate to show me how replaceable I am? By replacing me with him?” Auguste hissed pointing at him quite unnecessarily “you don’t think you’re replaceable to him too?”

“He isn’t,” Laurent said, cutting in “he never has been, he’s it for me, it’s always been just him for me so stop making your problems my problems, or Damen’s, you don’t know anything about this and you don’t care, it’s not because you love him or miss him it’s because he was yours, you don’t want him but it’ll kill you to see him happy with me,”

“No one can be happy with you,” Auguste snapped back

“I’m happier than I’ve ever been actually,” Damen interrupted, moving around Auguste and taking Laurent’s hand, holding Auguste’s gaze “I never would have married you but even if I had I’d still be standing here with him,”

The words landed like a ringing blow, knocking Laurent sideways. Both of his parents hissed and Auguste flinched like he’d been shoved. The implication was… a lot.

“You’d choose him?” Auguste asked

Damen didn’t miss a beat “every time. Over anyone.”

Laurent wasn’t going to swoon. He wasn’t. Except his heart was beating frantically in his chest and he was finding it difficult to swallow as his stomach fluttered with it. Damen would have chosen him.

Over Auguste. Over Erasmus. He was Damen’s choice.

Somehow, despite everything, Laurent believed him.

The bastard had gone and made Laurent sure. Burrowed so far beneath his skin and into his fucking bones, the heart he’d awakened and claimed and fucking owned from the start. Damen was his. And Laurent was as he’d always been: Damen’s.

“Come on, we’re leaving, you don’t need to listen to this shit,” Damen said, squeezing his hand and tugging him out of the room.

He didn’t give Laurent much choice in the matter but Laurent was more than fucking ready to leave. Especially with the way his uncle eyed him, shrewd and delighted as he sipped from his wine glass as though this was the most entertainment he’d had in a while. Loving every single second of it most likely.

“Laurent wait,”

Laurent was halfway down the garden path and he turned, blinking as his mother paused on the front step, wrapping her cardigan tighter around herself. She swallowed, eyes flitting between him and Damen as she shook her head, a soft movement.

“I’m not interfering,” she said “I know you don’t want…” she shook her head again, drawing in a deep breath “but son, I’m… if you need-“

“Hennike inside,” Aleron snapped, appearing behind her, tugging on her shoulder

“But-“

“Inside woman, now,”

She was urged back, dragged by her sleeve and the last thing Laurent saw was his father’s furious expression as the door was slammed closed.

Laurent’s mind was spinning too fast to think about what she might have been about to say so he tugged Damen to the car. When they sped off Damen was tense behind the wheel and all Laurent could concentrate on was how fucking blindingly hard he was. Possessive Damen was hot. And insane. And mean.

And he fucking loved it.

“I’m gonna need you to pull over,” Laurent croaked

Damen’s head snapped toward him, concerned gaze travelling over him quickly, the slight crease of worry easing as a smirk took over.

“Problem?”

Laurent reached down, pushed the heel of his palm against his straining cock and hissed “if you don’t I’ll wank off whilst you drive, I don’t care, that was too fucking hot and I want you so bad right now I can’t even think,”

Damen licked his bottom lip, his teeth sinking into it as he nodded. The sun had not long gone down, the sky was darkening, but it wasn’t yet night. Laurent didn’t question Damen as he drove them down side roads, eventually pulling over into the unkempt uneven car park of a church.

The graveyard was rough, the grass long, the trees shielded the car from the road and the only light was the one glowing dimly above the church door. It looked like no one had been inside in years, even if there was a sign on the board talking about Sunday services.

Laurent unclipped his seatbelt the second the handbrake was on, leaning across eagerly. He was stopped in his pursuit of Damen’s belt buckle by Damen’s hand on his shoulder, shoving him back lightly.

“Push your seat back and take your cock out for me,”

Laurent groaned, hurrying to do as he was told as Damen shoved his own seat back, watching him intently. Laurent was throbbing already, his cock needy and desperate from the display at his parent’s house, the one word he wanted to hear over and over again.

Damen leaned across, cupping his cheek “take what you want,”

Laurent threw his head back, hitting the headrest with a thump as Damen smirked and dipped over him, wrapping his mouth around Laurent’s leaking tip and encouraging his hand to his hair.

He thread his fingers into his hair, breathing hard, overwhelmed by the wet warmth and the way Damen sucked him down right to the base without even a hitch in his shoulders.

“Fuck,” he gasped, fingers tightening in his curls.

This was going to be over so quickly. Damen was on a mission, sucking him exactly how he liked it, ruthless, like he wanted Laurent to unravel as quickly as possible. Damen hummed around him, a greedy kind of sound as his tongue wrapped around the head of his cock and his fingers circled the base. It was methodical and precise, a greedy unravelling, and the noise erupting from Damen below him when he sank all the way down just as Laurent lifted his hips was an obscene crack; a wet choke that made Laurent tremble.

But he wanted his words. He wanted the word.

“Say it again,” Laurent gasped, pulling Damen up off his cock

Damen didn’t even hesitate, he reared up, biting at Laurent’s lips with a messy bruising kiss. It must have been a plaintive kind of plea on his face because Damen took one look at him and knew. He always fucking knew.

“Mine,” Damen said “you are, aren’t you baby? All fucking mine,”

Laurent whimpered, tightening his hand in Damen’s hair and shoving him back down, moaning outright when Damen sank all the way down, the tightness of his throat constricting and the word on a thrumming repeat in his head had him shaking, so fucking close, the pleasure welling up past the point of no return.

“Yes, yours, I’ve always been yours, fuck, Damen, so good, I’m gonna- I’m gonna come, I’m so close,”

Damen didn’t stop, didn’t heed the tugging of his hair or the squirming of Laurent’s thighs, he took him deep, impaling himself, choking on Laurent’s cock until it was too late and Laurent came with a cry, emptying himself into Damen’s mouth.

He couldn’t muster the energy to be embarrassed about how quickly he came, not when Damen pulled off him and parted his lips, letting Laurent see the mess he’d made as it coated his tongue, dribbling from his mouth.

Laurent moaned as Damen leaned in, fingers tugging Laurent’s mouth open. He did as he was told, opening wide and sticking his tongue out, groaning at the filthy way Damen spat Laurent’s load into his mouth, forcing it, letting it spill from his mouth with webbings of saliva straight into Laurent’s. Thick and hot and unbearably sexy as Damen licked at the corners of first his own mouth and then at Laurent’s before tapping his mouth shut.

“Swallow,” Damen commanded, voice rough

Laurent did, swallowing his own load and as soon as he did Damen was kissing him, deep and thorough and fucking filthy. A messy kiss that tasted like his come and Damen’s want.

“You shouldn’t have let me come in your mouth,” Laurent said “what if-“

Damen shook his head, kissing him gently and soothing a hand through Laurent’s hair “the risk is low, and I wanted to, alright?”

Laurent sagged, leaning into Damen’s touch “you’ll be the death of me,”

Damen laughed, readjusting his seat and turning the key in the ignition. He put Laurent’s window down a few inches and Laurent eyed it, his fingers sliding out enough to feel the rush of the air as they started off back down the road.

“You can smoke in here you know,” Damen said, not even looking at him.

Hence, he supposed, the window.

“You don’t mind?”

Damen snorted “save me a few drags,”

Laurent stared at him, chewing on his lip as the evening settled in his bones. Something inside him, something intrinsic, resetting and realigning around the awe-inspiring realisation.

Damen had always chosen him. He had said it before in roundabout ways, but Laurent had never really heard him. Never let himself look past the crushing insecurity and fear to see what was right in front of him.

This was real. Damen wanted him and Laurent believed it. For the first time, possibly ever, he had faith in someone. In something. Something good.

“What?” Damen asked, the quizzical expression on his face so fucking adorable Laurent was in danger of doing something stupid.

“You’re mine too, you know that right?”

The smile Damen flashed him was fond, the eyeroll and the shake of his head indulgent.

“Laurent I’ve been yours from the moment you kissed me,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Maybe it was. Maybe it had been. All this time. Instead of beating himself up about the mistakes of the past Laurent snatched at those words to keep them close forever, locked away so he could peer at them whenever he wanted, turn them over and inspect them, sate himself on them. On him.

“I’d never cheat on you, I meant what I said, it’s always been you for me, I’ve never felt like this before and I don’t think I ever will again,”

Damen’s smile was soft as he reached across the console, splaying his hand across Laurent’s thigh. Laurent slid his fingers between Damen’s immediately, squeezing, gratified when Damen flipped his palm and squeezed back.

“I know Laurent, I trust you,” Damen said pulling their joined hands up to his mouth and kissing the back of Laurent’s “I’ve never felt like this either, like it’s necessary, so big it can’t be moved, you know?”

The vice around Laurent’s heart had his pulse skipping a beat and his stomach exploding with sickly flutters as he swallowed, turning his face away quickly lest Damen see the spring of his tears.

“I know exactly what you mean,”

~*~

Damen was still staying with Nikandros, Erasmus taking his sweet time to move the fuck out of Damen’s house. Laurent understood, on some level, that this was Damen being too fucking nice because of his guilt, but to Laurent it was cheeky and ridiculous.

Damen didn’t have to be doing that, six whole weeks after they split up.

“Damen he’s taking the piss,” Laurent said stubbing his cigarette out with a little more force than necessary on top of the bin.

Damen beside him rolled his eyes, indulgent and annoying as he threw his arm around Laurent’s shoulder and turned them to continue down the street. Usually Laurent could not be paid or prevailed upon to go into the city centre on a Saturday afternoon, it was much too busy and people frustrated him. But Damen had errands to run and a new tailored suit to pick up so Laurent had relented.

He could have let Damen go by himself but since his little display at his parent’s house a few days ago he’d seen Damen every day and Laurent wasn’t quite willing to be away from him yet.

“It’s only two more weeks, it’s the least I owe him,”

Laurent ignored the spiteful stab of resentment and leaned closer into Damen’s side as they walked.

“Let me guess, you offered to help him move his stuff, didn’t you?”

He looked up in time to see Damen’s sheepish expression and Laurent heaved a long-suffering sigh.

“You don’t have to do things just because you feel obligated,”

“I know, but I want to, it’ll be like, closure? I guess,”

Laurent hummed, reaching up to tangle his fingers with Damen’s at his shoulder.

“Do you mind me doing it?” Damen asked

Laurent considered it, turned it over. On one hand no, if it was something Damen needed then he should do it and he certainly didn’t need Laurent’s permission. On the other hand he didn’t want Damen and Erasmus to ever be in the same room together because he recognised he was a petty jealous person and he was painfully aware Damen had loved Erasmus. Maybe even still did.

The thought made him frown.

“Do you still love him?”

Damen stiffened against his side, breathing out a sigh that had Laurent going rigid, turning startled eyes up to him. He stopped walking, ignoring the tuts of the people behind them who made it very clear stopping in the middle of the street was not okay. But fuck them, Laurent was on the verge of throwing up as Damen turned to face him.

“Of course I still care about him, he was in my life for over a year,“ Damen said, meeting his gaze unapologetically

“So you do still love him,”

“I still care,” Damen conceded “but I’m not in love with him, I don’t think I ever was, not really, I told you how it was, why I was even with him, so put the pout away,”

Damen reached up, thumb brushing Laurent’s bottom lip before he stepped closer.

“You have nothing to worry about, I want you,”

“Why?”

Damen didn’t miss a beat.

“Because you make everything feel new,” Damen said “because you’re smart, and witty, you’re deep, and yeah you’re prickly and mean but underneath all that you’re sweet and I like that you make me work for that, it makes it ten times better when you smile at me, sometimes you do this thing when you think I’m not looking, it’s like a smile but you look confused and it fucking makes me melt,” Damen said unaware or uncaring of the fact Laurent was having difficulty breathing “you make me think, you make me do things I didn’t know I needed and being around you is all I want, so you know, there’s a lot of reasons, how much time do you have?”

Laurent swallowed, heat rushing his cheeks and dragged Damen down, heedless of the people around them as he kissed him soundly, pushing his tongue into his mouth with desperate eagerness. Damen opened to him easily, hands like anchors at the small of his back as he let Laurent kiss him like they were filming porn and not standing in the middle of the street.

When Laurent pulled back he frowned, hitting Damen lightly in the chest, grinning at the amusement flickering over Damen’s face.

“Don’t say things like that when you can’t immediately take care of the consequences,”

Damen laughed “I’ll make it up to you when we get home,”

“What if you change your mind about me?”

“Why would I do that? I’ve had two years to change my mind and I haven’t, so whilst I do still care about him, it’s not like this, it was never like this, okay?”

Damen cupped his face, fingers feather light and still branding as he tipped Laurent’s head up, made him meet his gaze.

There was something in Damen’s expression. Something swirling that made Laurent’s heart pound, had him willing Damen silently to let it loose, begging with his gaze to have the words that were thrashing a hard harsh rhythm in Laurent’s chest and probably had been for a long time.

Damen didn’t say it. Instead he leaned down again, kissing him softly, too brief for Laurent’s liking. When he pulled back he was smiling, his mouth as soft as his kiss had been. As the feeling in Laurent’s chest was.

“Okay?”

Laurent nodded, let Damen draw him back under his arm as they continued down the street.

Maybe it was okay. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way it didn’t really matter, did it? Laurent was going to trust him, because Damen was putting much, much more faith in Laurent than was true in reverse and he didn’t even have all of the relevant information. Didn’t know half of it. How broken and fucked up and disgusting he’d been.

He doubted Damen would feel the same if he did know.

It was already something of a losing battle, he really didn’t need to make it worse for himself ruminating on Erasmus and everything he had shared with Damen. Laurent had seen glimpses, caught snippets of it from Damen or Erasmus, or even once in a fucking video he wished he could scrub from his mind.

He thought about it sometimes. About the way Damen had held him, the way they’d moved together. He thought about Damen telling him how insatiable Erasmus was, or how he was game for pretty much anything. Damen was too, Laurent knew that and even if he didn’t Auguste had told him several times.

But he still didn’t know him the way he wanted to. He’d had a lot of sex with Damen. A lot of sex but he couldn’t honestly, hand on heart, say he knew what Damen’s favourite things were. He knew some, obviously, he knew which positions he liked, how he liked to talk, exactly how he liked his dick sucked or what ideas got him hot but he kept going back to what Auguste said.

Because it was true. Damen tended to go with whatever Laurent wanted. Laurent set the pace, every time. Was that why sex with Damen had always been different?

Damen had always read him, picked up on his mood, followed Laurent’s wants when he voiced them. Damen had always made sex feel like it was about Laurent. Laurent had asked him once before, what he had needed, he hadn’t been given an answer.

Beside him Damen was chattering on, idle as they strolled down the street, some story about Kastor forgetting his mothers birthday when they were younger and before he could stop himself Laurent was interrupting.

“What’s your thing?” Laurent asked “in bed?”

Damen’s eyebrows went up, concern on his face

Laurent batted the air with an idle hand “no, I know, but like, you’ve never said and I have my erm- punishment, thing,” he coughed “and you always just give me what I want,”

Damen shrugged “that is my thing,”

Of course it was. Laurent had his own experience and the testimony of both Erasmus and Auguste to prove it. Damen liked to give pleasure. It made him feel good to make his partner feel good.

“How very adaptable of you,”

“Oh yeah, a total sex chameleon,”

Laurent snorted, shaking his head at the too-pleased smirk on Damen’s face. There was something seriously wrong with him that even a phrase like that was enough to make him half hard.

“So you really would have gone with the piss thing?”

Damen laughed, shrugged “probably yeah, I like to please sure, but I have my own kinks,”

“Like water sports?”

Damen laughed again, drew Laurent tighter to his side “no, just, you know, the stuff that’s implied in it, I guess?”

Implied in pissing on someone. A quiet little voice in the back of Laurent’s mind said possessive but he refused to think about it because he might do something stupid like get curious about it.

Before Laurent could think of an apt response, they were running straight into the last person Laurent wanted to see whilst he was with Damen in public. Or maybe just ever. He saw enough of him at work.

Erasmus’ eyes flared wide, flitting from one to the other of them before his face closed off of all readable emotion.

“Oh, lovely,” he said

Damen dropped his arm from around Laurent’s shoulder but his hand didn’t go far, only to his waist. If Laurent fit himself against him tighter it was for no particular reason.

“Hi,”

Laurent watched Damen shrewdly, worrying his bottom lip

“Are you two together now then?” Erasmus asked

Laurent held his breath. Expected the lie.

“Yes,” Damen said and every inch of tension rushed out of Laurent’s body “I’m sorry, for everything, I really am but-“ he shrugged helplessly and turned to Laurent for a brief moment before directing his words back at Erasmus “I never meant for you to get hurt,”

Erasmus nodded, looking between them, all of his tension leaving him when Kallias popped up beside him, midway through a sentence that he cut off quick when he saw Damen. And Laurent.

“You,” Kallias hissed at Damen “are the biggest fucking prick on planet earth,” he turned back to Erasmus “what did he say to you? Are you alright?”

Erasmus shook his head, putting his hand on Kallias’ forearm “it’s okay, really, they were just leaving,”

Kallias was not appeased but Erasmus lifted his chin and spoke directly to Damen, as if Laurent wasn’t even there.

Erasmus breathed out “does it make it better or worse that it was never just sex between you?”

“I’m sorry you got caught in the middle,” Damen said, valiantly not rising to it.

“I hope he breaks your heart,” Erasmus said “I hope he makes you feel the way you made me feel, which was like shit, if you were wondering,”

“God willing,” Kallias added under his breath, flipping Laurent a scowl that would have him keeling over if eyes alone had the power to kill.

“I hope you find someone who can be the man I wasn’t for you,” Damen said and Laurent wanted to jump in to defend him but really, what could he say?

Damen had treated Erasmus badly, no matter which way it was cut.

Erasmus nodded, finding Laurent “see you on Monday,” he said with the kind of long-suffering tone Laurent had come to expect from him.

It was better than he could hope for, all things considered.

Kallias sneered at Damen as they passed, arm going around Erasmus’ waist as they went.

“Do you think Erasmus knows Kallias is into him?” Laurent asked once they were out of hearing range.

Damen sighed “I don’t think he does,”

Laurent turned his eyes up “did it never bother you?”

Damen looked at him pointedly “part of me thought if anything did happen between them it would be better because then I wouldn’t feel so guilty,”

Laurent rolled his eyes, fit himself back into Damen’s side “are you alright?” he asked as they continued walking

Damen tugged him closer, pressing a kiss to the top of his head “I already told you, I’m exactly where I want to be, so I’m more than alright, it sucks and I can’t change that I hurt him, but for this?” Damen shrugged “it probably makes me a horrible person but I can’t regret it,”

Laurent knew exactly what he meant.

~*~

No-one’s ideal week started with a HIV test, but for anyone who’s week did start that way, Laurent was fairly fucking certain receiving a neat little letter in the post with a bunch of indecipherable numbers on it that confirmed there was no HIV was the ideal way to end it. And Laurent may have cried. Hard.

Chapter Text

Erasmus’ two weeks were finally up and Damen had spent the morning helping him move his stuff out of the house and into the new apartment he was sharing with Kallias.

Laurent’s mind was his enemy.

This was not new information to him, his brain often found new and fun ways to torture him, led him into bad decisions and down terrible paths. It was no better than his body in that regard. But this was a new kind of torture, one he had strayed away from for a very long time. There was no holding it back now.

He lay on his bed, staring at the familiar water stains on his ceiling, smoking the third cigarette in a row as he fretted. Usually in times gone by when Damen was with Erasmus there was a certain amount of comfort in the surety and the knowing. In the expectation that they were, very likely, having sex. He didn’t have to wonder and get upset, it was expected. But now?

Now it was a little bit different and he couldn’t help but wonder if this worry was familiar to Damen? The not knowing, if and when and what. The thought of anyone else’s hands on Damen made him nauseous. The thought of Erasmus’ hands back on Damen made him want to fucking scream, scratching at his heart and beneath his skin.

It was a familiar cloying sensation. A whirring in the back of his head telling him he needed it, had his mind replaying images of himself on his knees or bent over in an alleyway, some stranger behind him, or in front of him, driving into him.

It was an itch. A sickening kind of lurch tangling around his thoughts even when the images took a turn, a flash in a pan, a lightning bolt illuminating the horror in the back of his head. Those images came with a deep insidious laugh, the scratch of facial hair on delicate skin, the curl of shame and stab of fear, the brand that made him want to rip his own skin off, made him want to hurt, made him want to justify any of the horrible, horrible things he’d seen or done or felt.

He could do it.

Take a handful of pills, re-download Grindr. Go out cruising. He could be back and showered before Damen even called to say he was done with Erasmus. He’d never have to know.

Laurent put his cigarette out and rolled over, burying his face in his pillows and screamed, muffling the sound enough not to make the neighbours think he was being murdered. Even if he might welcome the relief of it at that moment.

He was buzzing, drowning with it, unmoored and desperate in a way he hadn’t been for a long time. Gone was the repulsion, the acidic flashes that had prevented him from his favourite method of self-destruction, the feelings that had plagued him between Damen walking out of his door after they broke up and his return. He craved the numbness like an addict needing a fix.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this now. Not now.

He didn’t want anyone else. He didn’t. So why couldn’t he stop thinking about it?

Laurent groaned, stalking to his bathroom and turning the shower on, twisting the dial until it was as hot as it could go and stepped in, heedless of his clothes.

It was a burn. An instant terrible lash of pain that had him squeezing his eyes closed, counting the seconds as he pressed his palms to the tile and let it rain over him until he couldn’t physically stand it anymore. Until he was twisting the dial to something more bearable and sinking down to his knees, face tipped up to the spray like the water could wash the mess away.

He only got out again when the wet sensation of his clothes sticking to his skin became too much, felt like hands, or worse. He stripped quickly, not bothering to even dry himself as he went back to his room, flung open the toy box and found the black silicone dildo that best replicated Damen’s length if not his width.

He pushed it in dry, let it hurt, forced himself to take it. His body didn’t respond but the dry stinging itch and the pound of the dildo was enough to make his mind switch over. It didn’t go anywhere, didn’t do anything except get him half hard and when his wrist ached, he stopped.

Breathed.

Clenched down on the dildo still stuck inside him and reminded himself it wasn’t him. He didn’t want anyone else. He would never betray Damen.

So then why did it even cross his mind? What was wrong with him? An addiction? Compulsion?

Whore.

The whispered word in the back of his head made him flinch, breathing out a shuddering exhale that made his skin tight, dirty, unclean and stained, something he was unable to ever scrub out. He tore the dildo away, threw it across the room and pressed his hands to his face.

Damen hadn’t fucked him.

He had been trying, desperately, not to think about it. At first he figured Damen hadn’t wanted to because of the HIV scare. It was safer not to, before they knew if Laurent had it or not. Regardless of medication or risk or condoms, it was still safer. It might even have been a turn off for Damen, thinking about it. About the horrible implication behind it.

But now?

It had been two weeks since Laurent got the all clear, since the weight on his shoulders had been lifted, and Damen still hadn’t fucked him. Laurent didn’t want it to mean anything. They still did everything but fuck. They were still having sex, just not- not that.

Why?

He didn’t want the answer as much as he did want the answer.

His maudlin thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his phone and he fished it from beneath his pillow, relief hitting him when he saw it was Damen.

“You done?” Laurent asked

“I’m done, heading over to you, is that okay?” Damen asked the sound of the car a distinct hum in the background, the click of his indicator, the rush of traffic.

Something unspooled in his shoulders “more than,”

They said their goodbyes and Laurent forced himself up, got dressed, ignoring his reflection where the guilt of his earlier thoughts might make him want to smash it.

“Fancy a change of scenery?” Damen asked the second Laurent opened the door to him.

“Absolutely,”

It was better than being in his own flat, where his thoughts ricocheted and reminded him of what he was.

“You alright?” Damen asked as they got into his car, his concern splashed all over his face

“Tired,” Laurent lied “how did it go?”

Damen stared at him for another beat before pulling out onto the road “it was okay, Kallias bitched me out for a solid 10 minutes, Erasmus was upset but, it’s done now, and I feel better for it, you know? Like I can close the door properly, nothing else hanging over me,”

No. Not that he knew of. Just Laurent’s little black cloud from which could spring a hurricane.

It took Laurent way too long to realise they weren’t heading to Damen’s house and when he realised where they were going he stiffened.

“He’s not going to be home, is he?”

Damen’s tight-lipped smile did not appease him “I’ll be in and out,” he said instead

Perfect.

When they pulled up outside Nikandros’ house it did not escape Laurent’s notice that Damen didn’t invite him in. Neither did it escape his notice Nikandros did not look happy when he realised Laurent was in Damen’s car.

Damen hadn’t said much about Nikandros but he had said enough for Laurent to be aware Nikandros wasn’t pleased they were together now, and had been letting Damen know it, in increasingly blunt lectures.

They hadn’t talked about it. About Nikandros. About what Laurent had nearly done.

Laurent was too afraid to bring up it and Damen had failed to mention it since the argument that essentially saw them break up. It was a pretty glaring sign something was wrong.

Obviously, because it probably wasn’t an easy thing to confront or digest. Nikandros was his best friend. Laurent had very nearly had sex with him.

True to his word Damen was only gone for a few minutes, appearing back in the doorway with two suitcase and a duffle bag. He hugged Nikandros goodbye and Laurent pretended not to watch Nikandros continue to glare at him through the window as Damen moved to put his things in the boot.

Every instinct told him to wave, to sneer, to do something -anything- to piss him off. He held still, turned his face away and forced the instinct back. Damen listened to Nikandros. Laurent couldn’t afford to add any more fuel to the fire lest it light him up on another pyre of his own making.

~*~

Damen’s sigh of relief when he put his bags down in the hallway of his house made Laurent smile. If for no other reason than the way the tension seemed to melt from Damen’s frame as he leaned back against the door.

“Home sweet home?” Laurent grinned

Damen nodded “I love Nik but I was about two more days away from punching him, I don’t think a roommate is for me,” he said leading the way down to the kitchen.

Laurent followed him, snorting at his back “you lived with Erasmus for what? 6 months? And my brother for how long?”

Damen shrugged, going straight to the coffee machine and switching it on, busying himself with making them drinks as Laurent hopped up onto the counter.

“Yeah, but it’s different,” he said, back to Laurent

Yes. He supposed it was. Laurent wouldn’t know. He’d lived with his stifling parents until he was eighteen, then he’d fled to his flat and lived alone since.

“Do you like living alone?” Laurent asked, taking the warm mug from Damen, and following him into the living room.

The ugly throw pillows were gone. There were gaps on the shelves, no photos on the side table. The rug had gone too. Damen still grinned as he sat down on the sofa, glancing around with the kind of smile on his face that screamed pleased. Laurent could imagine. There was no place like home and all that.

His flat might be a shithole but it was still his, even if lately it had felt more and more like a cage.

“I guess I do,” Damen shrugged “do you?”

Laurent took a seat in the middle of the sofa, close to his side, grinned into his sip when Damen’s hand came down idly on his thigh, fingers stroking a random pattern. Damen was much more tactile than he’d been before. Now that he had permission. Laurent wasn’t even sure Damen was aware of it but Laurent certainly was. And he loved it.

“I don’t know anything different, but I think so, I can’t imagine having someone in my space all the time,”

Damen turned a grin on him, shifting to face him more as his arm went up behind Laurent across the back of the sofa. His fingers dancing against the over-long hair at Laurent’s nape. Still touching. Laurent smiled despite himself.

“So that’s a no on ever living together then?”

Laurent’s heart jumped, a full spasm in his chest that made him suck in a breath as he flicked startled eyes to Damen and gaped at him.

“Oh, I see, move him out, move me straight in, is that how it is? Tell me again you like living alone,”

Damen’s eye roll was expected but the soft smile he sent him afterwards made Laurent melt. Had him inching forward, drawn into the warmth of him.

“I don’t mean now, not yet and not here,” Damen said flicking his fingers out to encompass the room “I mean one day, some place that’s ours,”

“You don’t want to stay in this house?”

Damen’s fingers slid against his nape, thumb stroking absently at Laurent’s skin “if we were going to live together, I’d want it to be some place we both chose, not the house where my ex lived, you know?”

Laurent was too busy getting caught up on the idea Damen wanted to live with him to really hear what he meant but when it did, finally, break through, he realised Damen knew him. Intrinsically. It wasn’t that Damen didn’t want the house. He loved the house. It was that he knew Laurent wouldn’t want to feel like he was simply occupying the convenient space left behind by someone else.

He huffed, putting his mug down on the coffee table and leaned into Damen, stealing a kiss.

“If I was going to have someone in my space all the time, you’re the only person I’d ever want it to be, so yes, one day,” he said

Damen tugged him back in, kissed him languidly, sweetly, the kind of kiss that was quickly becoming Laurent’s favourite. Not just for how soft it was, or how it made his heart flutter, but for the familiarity of it, the intimacy of kissing for the sake of kissing. Entirely without intent.

Sex was a biological function. Kissing wasn’t. It served no real purpose and made little sense except as a small declaration. A little inconsequential thing that meant far too much to him, he was coming to realise.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Damen said, playing with the hair at the back of Laurent’s neck again.

“Please do,” he said “but first there’s something I think we should talk about,”

Damen canted his head attentively, fingers still toying gently against Laurent’s nape as he nodded back at him waiting for him to speak.

He took a deep breath.

“I want to talk about the Nikandros thing,”

Damen stiffened, something ticking in his jaw and Laurent didn’t want to say any of this, but he had to. If they were going to have a chance, it all needed to be out there, didn’t it? Damen withdrew his arm and Laurent tried not to read anything into the absence of it. Or the way he felt bereft just from that simple gesture.

“I’d rather we didn’t,” Damen said not looking at him as he said it.

Laurent swallowed, chewing on the inside of his cheek for a beat.

“Do you resent me for it? Are you still mad at me?”

“A little, uncomfortable I think is the word I’d use, if I think about it too deeply,” Damen said plainly

Laurent tried not to wince. He wasn’t successful, the word drove his gaze away from Damen, had his shoulders hitching up as though bracing for impact. He shouldn’t have said anything.

Not for the first time Laurent hated himself for it. Wished he could go back to that moment and not go through with it. His head had been screaming at him, hadn’t it? So why hadn’t he listened?

His foot had been pressing on the pedal, straight into self-sabotage and he had never figured out how to slam the brakes.

“Damen we’re not going anywhere unless you can forgive me, you see that right?” he said “and I know what you said, before, about forgiveness, but this is about forgiving me, you know?”

Laurent didn’t know much but he did know that. He knew what it was to have the same thing pop up over and over again, every argument, every passive aggressive slap, every time there was a need to twist the knife. His family taught him that.

“Maybe you’re right,” Damen said meeting his gaze.

His expression was closed off, something rippling in his features that Laurent was responsible for and he hated it. He hated it and he didn’t know how to make it go away. How to make it right.

“Can I say what I wanted to say? Then you can decide if you’re willing to forgive me or if it’s best we call this now because if you’re going to resent me for it, if it’s going to come between us eventually then I’d rather it was sooner than later,”

Because the longer Damen let him bask in the fairytale the worse it would be if it was snatched away.

Damen nodded, tentative. He crossed his arms over his chest, did the same with his legs, couldn’t have closed off anymore if he tried.

He could do this. He had to do this. If this wasn’t going anywhere, he’d rather know now. Before he got in deeper than he already was. Before he started to rely on this too much. Plan with it and for it and around it.

“I heard you tell Erasmus that you loved him and it made me want to die,” Laurent said

Damen blinked, looking at him sharply. Laurent focused on his expression, on the surprise in his gaze, as though it were entirely new information to him that it had hurt Laurent. Stabbed at him.

Had Laurent not been plain enough?

But it was terrifying, wasn’t it? To render himself for the inspection of someone he cared about, knowing there was a very real possibility he might not like what he saw, might not agree, might not want the meagre scraps of something that Laurent had to offer him.

Not when he didn’t even know the whole truth and just how fucking broken Laurent really was.

“I was right there when you said it and I was- jealous, mad, sad, all of it,” he breathed out, clenching his hands together to feel the bite of his fingernails “I think I was trying to hurt you or trying to prove to myself that I didn’t deserve you, that I wasn’t good enough for you,” he blinked, his eyes stinging “I didn’t want to do it, even when I was saying it, I didn’t want him and I- god, I flinched when I thought he was going to actually touch me but I’m… I’m sorry,”

Damen stared at him, crease between his brow as his mouth opened and closed several times without any words coming out. He didn’t uncross his arms or unfold his legs. The tension sat in his shoulders like it was taking all of his effort not to move.

There was something in Damen’s expression, something swirling there that felt far too close to something awful. Something like understanding. Circling something as the cogs in his head whirred and Laurent turned his face away, rather than read it into it any deeper.

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way,” Damen said “it was- shitty for everyone, but can you promise me you don’t want him like that? I can’t do that again,”

Laurent made a distressed noise in his throat and curled closer, tugging on Damen’s chin to get him to look at him, to meet his eyes.

“I don’t want him now and I didn’t want him then,” Laurent said “I was drunk, I was hurting, I wanted to hurt you because it was too much, and I wanted you but you- you said you loved him, and I realised you would never be mine so it was like I was trying to make sure of it, to justify it, give you a real reason not to want me because it was better than you just not wanting me for me,”

At the time he hadn’t thought those things exactly. But he’d known exactly what he was doing. Exactly why. Because it hurt. He was hurting, in a bad place.

Damen nodded, soaking it in, his arms unfolding as he ran his palms over his denim clad thighs and breathed out.

“Nikandros said he didn’t think you were serious,” Damen said “that you were really drunk and… acting weird,”

“I was drunk and having a moment and spiralling,”

“And would it be like that if you spiralled again?”

Would it?

Laurent feared the answer. Earlier that day he’d been spiralling, and he’d considered those things. He had stopped himself. Hadn’t even taken the pills. The spirals would come, always. Laurent had no way of knowing how he’d react except to say he’d try. He had tried earlier and he had succeeded. He was capable, he just had to keep trying.

“No, I don’t want it to be, I want you, I only want you and if- if I’m being honest, I’m not sure that I’ve ever wanted anyone else,”

It was painfully obvious to him now. That he hadn’t. He’d never felt for anyone else the same desperate rush of want that he felt for Damen. The high was the sex, the release, the relief or the pain or the punishment. It was never about the person. It was always a means to an end.

Not desire.

Until Damen.

Damen met his gaze, studying him, his eyes flashing across Laurent’s face and he had no idea what his expression was saying, what it was doing, or what Damen was reading. But Damen nodded, breathing out and easing the tension in his shoulders.

“Okay,”

Laurent blinked, scanning him, searching Damen’s expression carefully. Damen only smiled at him, soft and quiet.

“Okay? That’s it?” Laurent asked

Damen breathed out a laugh, held his hand out. Laurent took it, let Damen pull him close, guiding Laurent into his lap. Laurent went, curling one tentative arm around Damen’s neck, holding his breath.

“Yes, if that’s how you say it was then okay, I trust you, if you say you don’t-“

“I really fucking don’t,”

Damen snorted, soothed a hand down Laurent’s thigh “I know and thank you, for telling me,”

“Are we okay?”

“Of course we are,” Damen said, pressing a kiss to Laurent’s temple like he was sealing the matter closed.

“You do trust me, don’t you?” Laurent asked, voice an embarrassing tremble.

“I do, I know you wouldn’t do that now, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,”

“Are you sure? I’m-  sometimes I’m not sure I trust myself,”

“I do, I am,” Damen said cupping a hand at his jaw “I don’t want to live in the past, I don’t want to dwell, I don’t want to go over everything we’ve ever said and done, all that matters to me is that somehow, we found a way through it and we want to be together, I want to be better, you want to be better, if it’s something we’re committed to then why relive it all? It won’t change anything, we have no control over the past, we only get to control what happens next… we can choose to dwell or choose to be happy and I’ve made my choice,”

Laurent swallowed, tangling his fingers in the back of Damen’s hair and took him in. Those words were there again, beating in his heart, and his head, and every single inch of his skin. The kind of surge Laurent usually pushed down, ignored, bit back.

He breathed it out.

“I love you,”

The words had seemed difficult on the way up, too big in his mouth, but the second they were out they rolled off his tongue with the kind of ease that shocked him, had him feeling lighter. Damen deserved those words from him.

It was the only truth Laurent had that didn’t scare him. Not really. Not anymore. It felt right. It was right.

Damen’s expression morphed instantly, a brief flash of surprise and then it was Laurent’s turn to be surprised when Damen went, impossibly, shy. It was so painfully endearing, the smile so private it might not even be for Laurent’s eyes, but for himself, a flustered little thing that had him biting his lip as he stared back at Laurent.

“You do?” he asked, something like awe on his face as though hearing it from Laurent was somehow unbelievable to him.

Laurent stroked his fingers through the back of Damen’s hair, meeting his gaze unwaveringly.

“So much Damen, for so long, I love you and I should have said it before now, I loved you when you told me you were falling for me, I loved you when you told me about Erasmus, I loved you when you showed up at my parents house and every single day in-between,”

Damen stared back at him, gaze dancing across Laurent’s features as though he were soaking it in. As though he couldn’t quite believe it. He opened and closed his mouth, a surprised half smile on his face that Laurent committed to memory as he stroked his hair.

“And if you were wondering I’ve never said that to anyone before,” Laurent added when Damen didn’t say anything.

“You mean it?”

Laurent leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together as Damen’s hand slid up Laurent’s ribs and settled near his heart.

“I should never have let you believe otherwise,”

Damen breathed out, a rush of an exhale that Laurent felt in his bones and when Damen tipped his head up he could already see the answer in Damen’s expression. In his eyes. All over his face. In his body.

“I love you too, more than you’ll ever know or believe,” Damen said lighting Laurent up in a way that made him want to simultaneously explode and melt.

His worry seemed stupid now. Blinded. Too scared to see it. But Damen did love him, didn’t he? He’d said it a year ago, that he was falling for him. His feelings hadn’t gone anywhere and by his own admission he’d always thought of Laurent first.

Damen loved him and it was, perhaps, the easiest thing Laurent had ever believed. Trusted. Because Damen had been showing him for a long time and it was only hindsight that let him give it a name. Only the words from Damen’s mouth that allowed to see it clearly.

Laurent couldn’t imagine being any happier.

~*~

It was nearly midnight when the calls started. An incessant flashing on his phone screen that had his blood running cold. Damen was still in the shower, washing away the evidence of their evening as Laurent waited for him with damp hair and no clothes curled up in the bed Damen no longer shared.

He froze when the first call came in, the name on his screen enough to have him dizzy. By call five he knew he wouldn’t stop. Not until Laurent answered.

With a glance at the open doorway and with the sound of the shower still running Laurent hit answer.

“What do you want?” Laurent asked, keeping his voice low.

“You owe me, and if you fuck this up I will make sure that man you’re whispering for knows exactly what manner of creature he’s been deceived into claiming, do you understand? He can claim you all he wants, but we both know you belong to me,”

Laurent’s stomach churned, his throat constricting, the air too thick and his lungs too weak to inhale right. Laurent didn’t speak, wasn’t sure any words would come even if he tried.

“Be at mine at 7 next Friday night, I mean it nephew, if you’re not there then I will ruin your life, do you understand?” he said, voice hard and harsh “oh and wax, make sure you’re hairless everywhere,”

Everywhere.

“Yes,” he croaked, blinking furiously as the reality settled in.

“Good boy,” came the mocking reply.

Laurent hung up, gripping his phone hard as he stared at the open doorway as the rushing water from the shower stopped and Damen appeared a few moments later, gloriously naked and still damp. Laurent couldn’t swallow around the lump in his throat. Couldn’t think past the buzz of white noise.

“Are you alright?” Damen asked, freezing, head canting

Laurent rearranged his face on instinct, dropping his phone and holding his hand out “come kiss me,”

He could let Damen chase away the anxiety and the fear the pain. Could get lost in him and his touch. Hold him closer and tighter and harder.

One week.

It was going to be bad. He could hear it in his voice. Whatever awaited him, he knew, not all of him would come back.

~*~

Laurent had shown up five minutes early at his uncle’s house, was ushered straight into his car and now, at precisely half 7, he was being escorted up the garden path of a large detached house, all sleek modern lines in greys and beige.

The man who opened the door was younger than Laurent expected, maybe late 30s, wearing a sophisticated pair of dark rimmed glasses, his svelte form covered only by a satin dressing gown.

Laurent was steered into the house, through to a lavish living room. His uncle took the man aside, no doubt exchanging a thick envelope of cash for the service. Laurent’s service. He really was a whore.

There were voices. Several of them, a rumble of noise and laughter close by. His palms began to sweat as he refused to look at his uncle even when his gaze was a burn on Laurent’s face. He trained his gaze on the far wall, on the abstract art canvas hanging there in shades of yellow and black.

His uncle had refused to tell him a thing. Not a single thing about who, or what, or any expectations. Beyond the standard, of course.

“I’ll be back for you in the morning Laurent,” his uncle called

Laurent didn’t let his surprise show. Kept his expression locked down as he nodded tightly, watching his uncle leave and taking all the air in Laurent’s lungs with him. All night. He’d be here all night.

Fuck. He really wasn’t going to come back from this. Not all of him. He thought again about last chances, about doors. Wondered if there was even a chance there was anything but a black void waiting on the other side of this.

He doubted it.

“I’m Evan,” The man said, giving him a once over and a benign smile.

“Laurent,” he responded, his eyes unable to settle on him.

“Everyone is waiting in the playroom,”

Playroom.

Laurent was led by a hand at the small of his back, as much of a brand as his uncle’s ever was. When the door swung open Laurent’s steps faltered as the reality of his punishment opened up before him.

There were at least fifteen men, all of them barely dressed or entirely naked and they all swung around to look at him as Laurent was led inside. He tried not to count. Tried not to feel. Tried not to let his eyes linger in any one place.

But that was impossible. Laurent’s gaze was glued to the centre of the room. To what was hanging from the ceiling. The swing was all leather straps and cuffs and the sweat on the back of his neck and his palms was the cold kind. A shiver of it starting in his stomach.

Sex swing.

There were other things. Other apparatus. A cabinet on the wall with intimidating things inside. Ropes. Cuffs. An array of dildos bigger and longer than anything Laurent had ever taken.

The buzz started in his ears, a ringing of static and a piercing whistle that had him nearly swaying.

“You can get prepared in there,”

He was taken to the other side of the room, the door pushed open on a stylish spacious bathroom. As soon as the door clicked closed behind him Laurent flicked the lock and swallowed, stepping back and staring at the door.

He couldn’t find the numbness. He hadn’t been able to find it in weeks. He’d feel all of this. Whatever they were going to do. He had no doubt it would be bad, would be at his uncle’s explicit behest.

This was his punishment. For defying him. For existing maybe.

Damen voice was in his head. Telling him no one deserved anything and if he wanted to be punished Damen would do it for him. Safely. With him.

This wasn’t that. Because he felt those words. He felt them like they were beating in his chest. He might, in any other circumstance, say he even believed them.

Believing them now was too little too late. He was getting a punishment, whether he wanted it or not. He was only now realising he didn’t want it. Any of it. He didn’t want to be punished, what he did with Damen wasn’t that at all, was it? If it ever had been.

It was something else entirely. Something screaming with intimacy, making demands of him that made him feel alive. It was cathartic and made him feel safe. Less broken. Filled him with pleasure. It helped him let go. Switch off. Even if it was just for a little while and maybe that was what he’d been chasing the whole time.

He didn’t want to be punished; he wanted to be known. For Damen to split him open and see the worst most depraved parts of him and stay to put him back together. He wanted Damen to know him and all his wicked wants and needs, bleed him dry and kiss it better, hold him in the aftermath of that destruction and give him space to realign. It wasn’t punishment it was revival. It was scary and vulnerable and intimate and good.

But this? All the times he hurt himself? He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to justify the insults in his head, he didn’t want to hate himself, he didn’t want to be punished, he didn’t-

Fuck. He didn’t deserve it. He never had, had he?

The same way he had never deserved what his uncle did to him. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d been groomed and raped and-

It wasn’t his fucking fault. None of it was. He was just a child. He hadn’t invited it. He hadn’t asked for it. He hadn’t done anything wrong and even when he’d known, he’d fucking known it was wrong and it was hurting him, he hadn’t been able to stop it. Pinned in place with words and drugs and a voice in his head whispering poison to him. Keeping him contained. Controlled.

And everything, this whole time, everything he’d done, everything he’d let himself do-

It was just some kind of messed up endeavour to prove his body didn’t matter, that sex didn’t matter. As if being broken and being shattered were the same thing; as if large precarious cracks were somehow more unbearable to him than a million tiny pieces. When they were only cracks, there was hope, but shattered? Broken beyond repair had no hope and embracing the destruction was easier than trying for a futile fix.

Because that way, maybe, just maybe, if he gathered all the parts back up and put them back together he might have lost a few. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with them.

And not dealing with those pieces had sounded just fucking fine to him. Because nothing could be as bad as the first time. If he let it happen again and again and again maybe one day it would stop hurting and then the memories wouldn’t ache anymore. Then he could hold it up for his own inspection and say see it’s not that bad.

It was a pretend at control, like he could trick himself into believing he’d had a choice, that he’d liked it as much as he’d been told he did. If he did it over and over then he could make himself believe he had wanted it, needed it, deserved it.

But he didn’t deserve it. And it mattered. It always had. He mattered.

And it hurt because here he was now beyond repair, with all of the things he had willingly done haunting him, things he could never take back. He could never get back what he’d lost and no matter how hard he tried to glue his fractured pieces back together there would always be chips and bits that didn’t fit right anymore.

Like a fucking nursery rhyme about the perils of falling. Because once the fall had taken place there was nothing and no one that could fix what was left in the aftermath.

Laurent had done it to himself. Willingly. A broken man’s attempt to pretend it was his own choice to fall apart. Maybe it wasn’t rape if he kept going and he kept doing it. A pretend at the control he’d never had. Like his body was his. Like he had made those choices. Had not been driven to them in a misguided attempt to pretend everything was fine.

It wasn’t fine. He wasn’t fine. He couldn’t do this anymore.

He wouldn’t do this.

There would be hell to pay if he left. He knew it, sorely, his uncle would tell Damen everything. He’d probably even find a way to do it without mentioning the incest. The kid stuff. Fuck.

Abruptly and all at once he knew. He knew exactly what would happen. Because Laurent had only recently given him the main fucking ammunition. The video with Nicaise and Aimeric.

Nicaise. Who was so clearly a child.

A few frames, a small clip, it would look bad. Even if he’d never touched him, never done a single thing to Nicaise, the insinuation was enough. Laurent was still there. And it was incriminating.

Let alone any of the other videos his uncle had of him.

He would send it. Set the timer, wait for the bomb to go off, never be near the blast. That was what he would do. If Laurent left, Damen would find out. Some if not all and too much all at once.

If he left…

Laurent would have to tell Damen everything. Himself. First. Before his uncle did.

If he left he was basically saying goodbye to Damen. But he couldn’t live with himself if he stayed. Whatever tiny shred of self-preservation Laurent had managed to claw back was screaming. At war with his heart and his want of Damen but, he couldn’t. He couldn’t do this because he’d still have to look Damen in the eye after this anyway and then what?

Go to him used and shattered, a wreckage of a man who had taken a knife to his own throat.

No, he couldn’t do that even if there was a chance he’d make it through it just fine, he didn’t want to do this. He wouldn’t sacrifice the parts of him that were left just to keep Damen. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

He had to leave and he had to tell Damen.

Decision made he realised he probably couldn’t just walk out the front door. They might let him leave, but then again they might not and it wasn’t a chance he was willing to take.

His eyes got caught on the window and he reached for it, heart scrambling in his chest, a beating in his neck and his wrists and his fucking brain as it pounded with the scream of it. Get out. Get out. Get out.

The breath he released when it opened was nothing short of a gasp and he shoved it open as far as he could, clambered over the bath, and climbed out.

~*~

The second Laurent made it home he called Damen, leaning back against his front door with his eyes squeezed closed. Was it too late already?

“Hey you, how’s Aimeric?”

“Not feeling great, he cancelled,” Laurent lied, the words tasting bitter on his tongue “can you come over? I miss you,”

“Of course, be there in 20,”

Laurent only breathed out when he had Damen’s assurance he’d be over soon and his mind settled on the cavernous void opening up before him. He was going to lose Damen. It was over. Done.

Unless… unless he didn’t lose him.

The thought was quick and fleeting, a small whisper in the back of his head trying to remind him Damen loved him. But Damen loved a lie. Laurent believed it, he believed Damen loved him. But no one wanted a broken toy. Not when it was entirely used and as filthy as Laurent had been made.

Why would he?

Damen said he didn’t care about everything Laurent had put him through the past two years, the things they’d done were in the past and Damen wanted to leave them there. But he didn’t know the iceberg was deep and looming beneath the surface and that he had only seen the tip of it.

No, as much as Laurent wanted to cling to that voice, let himself hope, deep down he knew there would be no coming back from what he had to tell Damen. So if it was goodbye, Laurent intended not to waste a second. Just one more day. Two more nights. He’d tell him on Sunday, let him go.

Before then he wanted to be with him. The way he never would again.

When Damen arrived Laurent had changed into something comfier and the tight ball of tension wrapped around his heart loosened when Damen smiled at him, warm and bright and everything Laurent loved.

The kiss he pressed to Laurent’s instinctively upturned mouth was brief, sliding past him, taking his jacket off and kicking his shoes off as he wandered off into the living room. Entirely at ease in Laurent’s space, in his home, with him.

Laurent swallowed past the lump in his throat. There would be time enough to mourn it. Him. Them. The rest of his life, no doubt. He wouldn’t let the pain infringe here. Not yet. It would spoil it.

Damen was on the sofa, phone in his hand and Laurent’s stomach sank, until he was climbing over the back of the sofa and settling beside him and realised Damen was ordering food.

“What do you fancy? Let me guess, pizza?”

Laurent grinned, giving Damen his best pout, laughing when Damen relented. His thumb had already been hovering over Laurent’s favourite pizza place anyway.

“Are you joining me this time? Are you sure you won’t pass out from the grease and carbs?” Laurent prodded his bicep “will this turn straight to fat?”

Damen batted him away, making a sound when Laurent prodded him directly between his ribs and he pointed a warning finger in Laurent’s face “don’t start that,” he grinned

Laurent wiggled his fingers at him, threatening to attack his ribs again to hear the squeak and the amusing high pitched whine Damen would give him if Laurent managed it just right.

“I won’t, you’re safe,” Laurent chuckled, settling closer to him “for now,” he added

Damen tutted, still threw an arm around him “shall I run downstairs and gets drinks?”

“Do not disparage my boxed wine,” Laurent said “there’s beer in the fridge too though, can we watch the next episode of our show?”

They’d been binging a series and Laurent was always impatient. He was the kind of person who could sit and watch an entire series in one sitting because he just had to know how it ended.

“Are you sure you waited? Or did you google the ending already?”

“I didn’t, no cheating at all, I have stayed away from spoilers,” Laurent said, accepting the phone from Damen so he could add what he wanted to the order.

He didn’t even bother flicking through the menu, he always got the same thing, added it to the basket and pressed order.

They were two episodes deep, three beers down, and full of pizza when Laurent worked up the courage to ask him what he wanted.

“What are your plans this weekend?” Laurent asked

“Nothing I can’t cancel, if a better offer came along,” Damen said taking a swig of his beer.

“Spend it with me?” Laurent said “I want time, I want us, no phones, no fucking internet or social media, I want you and me and to block out the rest of the world,”

“Okay,” Damen agreed easily, as though spending the entire weekend locked in Laurent’s flat wasn’t a weird request “what’s this about exactly?”

“I’ve never had time with you, not really, I’ve always felt like we’re waiting for the hourglass and it’s never in our favour and I just-“ he swallowed “I just want to be with you,”

Damen softened immediately and leant down to kiss him.

Laurent snaked his hand across Damen’s chest, grabbed his phone from the arm of the sofa whilst he was preoccupied with Laurent’s mouth. Laurent tore his mouth away, brandishing it at him.

“I’m turning this off, and mine, and I’m putting them in the draw, from now until Sunday the world doesn’t exist, alright? Just us,”

“Sounds perfect,”

Yes, it did. It sounded like the kind of thing Laurent wanted forever. He was lucky Damen didn’t think the phone thing was weird because he absolutely was not risking his uncle contacting Damen and interrupting Laurent’s plans. He wasn’t giving Damen’s phone back until he was ready to tell him everything.

Sunday. He had until Sunday.

~*~

A few months ago if anyone would have asked him what he thought a weekend locked away in his flat with Damen would entail he would have thought it would be endless amounts of sex.

And whilst last night Damen had made Laurent come twice, he still hadn’t fucked him, Laurent still hadn’t asked, and they’d actually gotten out of bed in the morning after another spectacular orgasm.

Or two.

Laurent had gotten on his knees in the shower too, once Damen had made them a very late breakfast and they’d wasted an hour or two talking on the sofa whilst their fingers tangled and linked and played.

It was amazing, of course. But he wanted more.

By the evening it was a pressing want. A need greater than anything he’d ever experienced. It had been two months, since Damen had last fucked him. Which, in the grand scheme of things, meant it had been two months since Laurent had last been fucked at all.

Aimeric had asked him once, how long he’d gone without sex. Laurent couldn’t remember but he did know the answer was not long. Measured in days not weeks. Certainly not months. From the moment he’d lost his virginity he hadn’t gone without sex for more than a matter of days. His body was primed for it, used to it. It was what he was made for. What he’d been made for.

It was strange that he hadn’t missed it much, even if he’d noticed it, clocked it, worked silicone inside himself to feel the burn. He had missed Damen specifically. The sex alone? He hadn’t missed that, not really.

His current emotions had nothing to do with those thoughts though. It wasn’t about an itch he couldn’t scratch. He just wanted him. To be close to him. Viscerally.

Laurent was at his shitty dining table, wiping it down because Damen was fastidious. He turned around, leaning back against it, eyes on Damen at the sink, in nothing but his boxers. Washing up.

“I really want you to fuck me,”

The words were out and Laurent watched the muscles in Damen’s back shift, saw him freeze, turn to face him slowly as he dried his hands on the tea towel.

Damen contemplated him for a moment, giving nothing away.

“Want or need?”

Laurent let the breath out, this he understood.

“Want,” Laurent reiterated “it’s been months,”

“Since we last fucked?”

“I told you there’s been no one else since the first time you came inside me, there will be no one else, even if you don’t want-“

“I do want you, don’t even think it, of course I want you,”

“Then why?”

“Because you needed it,”

Laurent frowned “what?”

“To take it slow,”

The words shocked him, choked him, made him blink at Damen like he was a mirage in the middle of the desert. Damen saw him, didn’t he? Right down to the heart of him, even when he didn’t know exactly what he was looking at, didn’t know the detail or the why, Damen was aware of him. He saw him. Understood him on a level Laurent could barely fathom.

“What?” he choked out

“Laurent everything we’ve done has been what you’ve asked for, you haven’t told me whatever it is you keep hidden away but you’ve told me enough, I want you, of course I do, but I wasn’t going to let it happen until you asked for it explicitly, I wasn’t going to risk hurting you,”

Laurent hadn’t asked for it. When he’d asked for something Damen had given, but Damen hadn’t made a move to take anything further. Every single time it had been Laurent’s pace. His direction. Damen had let him set it. Hadn’t even mentioned it. No pressure, no advances, just love and patience and waiting.

Laurent couldn’t fucking breathe.

Damen moved toward him, warm palms cupping his jaw, his body so close Laurent could feel him, his eyes so soft Laurent could see it all, right there for him to lap up.

“Are you going to let me make love to you?”

Laurent made a sound, something pathetic and desperate, a whine perhaps, a choke of emotion dislodging in his throat and falling from his tongue. He squeezed his eyes closed, mortified by the rise of the tears and the blur of his vision.

Damen wanted to make love to him. It should be silly, something reserved for romance novels or tv shows Laurent had no business partaking in. But it wasn’t silly. It wasn’t at all and though Laurent had no idea what it entailed beyond movies he wanted it.

Damen held him, stroking his thumbs at Laurent’s cheeks as he waited, patiently, for Laurent to open his eyes. When he did, all he could see was Damen.

“Please,” he managed, gripping Damen’s wrists “but I’m not sure I know how,”

With a soft smile Damen took his hand, led him through to his bedroom. Laurent’s pulse was frantic, nerves alive in his belly as though he’d never done this before.

Damen dropped his boxers, kicking them away and gave himself a few slow strokes. Laurent stared, saliva flooding his mouth as he contemplated dropping to his knees. Instead he moved to take his own underwear off but Damen stopped him, drawing him close and leaning down.

Damen’s kiss was light, his gaze weighted, his hands seeking as they slid down Laurent’s flanks curving around the small of his back until he was gripping his ass. Laurent went up on his tiptoes, arms around Damen’s neck, his tongue begging for an entrance Damen willingly gave him, lips parting, breathing his want into Laurent’s lungs until Laurent was full of it. Shaking with it, anticipation glowing in every part of him as Damen walked Laurent backward to the bed.

 With a hand at the small of Laurent’s back and one planted on the bed Damen lowered them, not leaving any space between them, using his ridiculous strength to keep Laurent close and prevent him from falling.

They didn’t stop kissing as they moved up the bed, didn’t stop touching even for a moment, Laurent curled a leg over Damen’s hip, his hands up in Damen’s hair, letting himself be devoured and giving Damen everything he had in turn.

When he pulled his head back it was with a gasp, a shudder of sound as Damen hummed, kissing down his neck, stopping to pull the blood to the surface and marking him the way Laurent liked. Damen didn’t stop, down over his chest, paying attention to both nipples, each rib, each divot and line in his abdomen until he was running his tongue over his hip bone, fingers curling into the waistband of his underwear.

Laurent lifted his hips, let Damen strip them off him and blinked down at him, panting erratically as Damen paused, licking his lips, hands reverent as they slid against his thighs.

“God, I could stare at you all day,” Damen said his voice gruff as he made a feast of Laurent with his gaze.

Barely breathing Laurent watched him, squirming beneath his stare. It was as if Damen was seeing right to the heart of him, carving him open, splitting him apart and Laurent was powerless beneath it. Powerless in the best way, helpless in the draw of him, in the wanting of him. In loving him.

And Damen loved him back. It wasn’t just words, it was a physical thing, a feeling that reverberated in every inch of him. Damen made him aware of it in every space. Maybe he’d always done it. Maybe that was the thing about him that had terrified Laurent so thoroughly he’d tried desperately to keep him at arm’s length. He’d always known, hadn’t he? If he fell into Damen then he would drown, open his mouth and let the water in and it would be irrevocable.

Loving Damen was never meant to be part of the plan, but it was, without doubt, the easiest thing he’d ever done. So easy he hadn’t even realised he was falling until he’d already pitched himself off that cliff.

“I love you, you’re mine Laurent,” Damen said voice low and rough “you’ll always be mine and I’ll always be yours, do you understand? This is it for me, I don’t ever want to go back to a life without you in it,”

Laurent whimpered, curling his fingers into the bedding and Damen’s mouth, when it came again, started at his ankle bone, his fingers, and lips, and tongue tracing patterns up Laurent’s calves, over his knees and behind them, to the inside of his thighs. The scrape of Damen’s stubble was a rough counterpoint to the silk of his tongue, the reverential hands that bid him to spread his legs wider a delicious kind of friction amidst the gentle tease of his mouth.

He was everywhere, tracing Laurent’s skin like it was his mission to learn every last single inch, as if he hadn’t long ago had access to all of Laurent’s body, as if he hadn’t already touched him everywhere there was to touch, hadn’t fucked him in every single way imaginable, hadn’t done all manner of wicked sexy things to him and with him.

With Laurent’s arms up on the pillows beside his head Damen travelled higher, pushing his nose into his armpit, dragging his tongue over the skin there, recently waxed, per someone else’s request. But they didn’t matter here. Nothing mattered, just Damen tracing his skin, feeling him out, a devotion Laurent could scarce imagine or comprehend and one he was determined to memorise. Every second. Every kiss. Every caress.

Damen didn’t stop, flipped Laurent over, devoted the same attention to his back, bit down lightly on each cheek, pressed his thumbs into the meat of him but didn’t put his mouth where Laurent wanted him, even when he flexed his hips back, whimpering, on edge and so turned on he could combust with it.

When he was rolled over to his back once more, he was trembling, panting, coming apart at the seams with desire. If Damen kept going Laurent might come from this. From Damen’s attention alone, from his mouth and his hands and his words. He was shaking, balls pulling tight as his throbbing cock flexed and twitched on his belly, leaking all over his skin.

“Damen,”

A gasp, plaintive and raw and desperate. Not an entreaty. Not a demand. He said his name like it was driven from his chest and out of his throat. Necessary.

Damen hummed, prowling back toward him, tongue a hot lap up the underside of his cock and Laurent cried out, arcing upward, urging him on even as he trembled.

“I can’t take anymore,” Laurent panted once Damen was back at eye level, his hands still roaming, caressing, like he couldn’t get enough of him.

“Tell me what you want,”

“I want to feel you, please, inside me, I don’t want to come until you’re in me,”

Damen snatched the lube from the bedside table, coating his fingers and Laurent steadied himself with a breath as he shifted his legs further apart, drew his knees back and stared at Damen framed between them. So fucking beautiful.

And his. If only for a few more hours.

“You want me here?”

Damen’s voice was a tease, dark and deep and roughened by lust as he circled his finger around Laurent’s hole. A gentle tease, a touch that made Laurent shiver, had him feeling empty and desperate for him.

“Please,”

“So good for me,” Damen said, sliding his finger all the way inside.

Laurent hummed his approval, willing his eyes to stay open as he swallowed thickly, blinking back at Damen. Damen wasn’t looking at him, had his gaze glued to where his finger was slowly sliding in and out of Laurent’s body. As though he’d never seen it before. Like it was the first time.

“Kiss me,” Laurent asked

Damen didn’t hesitate, didn’t even break his rhythm, he shifted over him, lying on his side, the line of his cock rigid and hot against Laurent’s skin as his mouth came down on his. Laurent moaned into it, hands wandering, touching any part of him he could reach as he parted his lips for the deep, slow kiss Damen was determined to take him apart with.

When he was two fingers deep, still taking his time, Damen shifted his attention to his prostate, brushing in maddening strokes that had Laurent tearing his mouth away and shaking his head.

“Don’t do that, I’ll come, it’s too good,”

The smile Damen gave him was divine, amusement and warmth and pleasure as he did as he was told, adding a third finger and avoiding his prostate as he stretched him out but Laurent had had enough. They both knew he didn’t strictly need it, Damen just liked doing it.

“Fuck, I’m ready, please, just get inside me,”

Damen grinned, shifting back and withdrawing his fingers, pausing to lean down and press a kiss to Laurent’s cock. It twitched on his belly, wet and wanting.

Laurent hissed, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip and narrowed his eyes at Damen. Damen only smirked and reached across him, throwing open the nightstand drawer and Laurent blinked, watching him as he pulled out a condom. Inexplicably, his heart sank.

“Do we-“ he began

His words had Damen pausing, face open and attentive as he met his gaze, free hand falling to run unconsciously up Laurent’s flank.

“Do we what baby?”

Laurent swallowed, attention flickering to the condom “nothing, it doesn’t matter,”

Damen shook his head, leaned back over him to kiss him slowly, his tongue a hot coaxing probe.

“Tell me, please?”

Laurent swallowed, would never be able to say no to that word on Damen’s lips

“Do we need a condom?” he asked “it’s okay if you want one, don’t feel like you have to, I just- we’ve both been tested and there’s been no one else so…” he petered off awkwardly.

He understood if Damen wanted to wear it, but it was important to him. It felt big. A statement somehow. When Laurent peered back at him the only words beating in his chest were please trust me, on an unending repeat. Trust me. Say you trust me. If Damen insisted of course Laurent would go with it, but it was still important to him. Damen had called him a liar when they spoke about it last time. The worst part was, Laurent had lied. Not outright, but he had insinuated there had been no one else.

This time there really hadn’t been anyone else and he desperately wanted Damen to believe him.

Laurent held his breath, trying to decipher Damen’s expression. It was warm but careful. Laurent braced himself for the rejection. The telling implication when Damen said he’d rather not despite how much he liked it.

He hadn’t used them with Erasmus. He liked fucking Laurent that way, he’d said so. If he said no now it would crush him.

“I want whatever you want,” Damen said “if you want it off then okay, I just didn’t want to assume when you said you didn’t really like it,”

Laurent breathed out in a rush, swallowing thickly. He absolutely was not going to fucking cry.

“I want to feel all of you,” he whispered “when I said I don’t like it, I didn’t mean you, you’re the only person I’ll ever want like this,”

Damen’s breath hitched, blinking dark eyes at him.

“So we leave it off?”

“Leave it off,”

Damen threw it over his shoulder and Laurent laughed, relief and love flooding him and he opened his arms as Damen lay back over him, finding his mouth.

Instead Damen coated himself and Laurent hitched his legs up, breathing erratically as Damen reached between them, positioning the slick bare head of his cock at Laurent’s hole.

“Are you sure?”

“So sure,” Laurent said, swallowing thickly as Damen leaned close to kiss at his upturned mouth

“If you change your mind, tell me,”

He nodded, blinking away the tears that sprang up unbidden as Damen looked down at him. No one had ever looked at him like that. No one had ever seen him the way Damen did. No one had ever even tried to know him except Damen. And he was looking at him like he was precious, like he mattered. Like this mattered. Like he loved him.

When he pushed in Laurent sucked in a gasp and he let himself feel it. Feel the stretch, the burn. Damen sank inside him slowly and Laurent cried out, throwing his head back further into the pillows as Damen filled him.

It felt like the first time. It felt like they’d been doing this for eternity. In every life. In every way. Like Damen was familiar to his very soul and this was inevitable. Irrevocable.

“Tell me how you feel,” Damen breathed, pausing to kiss him, to let him adjust

“Full,” Laurent said, his throat constricting as he fought to get himself under control “perfect,”

The first thrust made him moan, clenching around Damen’s length as he pushed into him, steady, careful. Like he could break if he didn’t. It was the kind of pace that would make this last, a pace meant to savour and enjoy, not about the ending at all, about the journey.

Damen kept it slow but deep, every thrust ending with a deep grind that set Laurent on fire and had his toes curling, driving moans from his mouth at the full possessed feeling. Damen didn’t stop kissing him, didn’t stop talking, didn’t stop looking into his eyes like nothing else existed beyond the bed, like the world could burn and it wouldn’t matter so long as this remained.

Laurent wrapped his legs around him, using the grip as leverage to meet Damen thrust for maddening thrust. It was humid, warm with their body heat and the closeness of it all, had his skin slick with it and his face heated. So fucking good, like nothing Laurent could compare it to. Damen was over him, his gaze never once wavering from Laurent’s, mouth moving with sweet words and endless praise that Laurent clung to as eagerly as he clung to Damen’s back.

It was always good with Damen but this was different. He wanted this. Always. This. He wanted the softness and the gentle touches and the slow drawn out thrust of Damen inside him, like they had all the time in the world. He wanted to trace Damen’s muscles, his skin giving as Laurent scraped his nails desperately down his back, their bodies moving in sync, the easy give and take, the unnameable emotion that was searing hot and impossibly intense.

This is what it was supposed to be like. This is what it felt like when someone loved you, when they wanted to use their body to show you, to make you feel good, to feel connected. He understood, perhaps for the first time, that every single time he’d ever had sex with someone who wasn’t Damen it was mechanical at best.

It was different. That was empty. It was momentary. But this? This felt like forever. Damen made him want to believe in forever even when the timer was ticking down.

“Are you close?” Laurent gasped, nudging his face against Damen’s

Their mouths met, a breathy pant of a kiss as Damen nodded.

“So close baby, you gonna come with me?”

Laurent nodded and finally, finally let himself reach down, take hold of his cock, hissing at how hard and sensitive and needy he was the second he started to move his hand.

“Fuck, Damen, I’m right there, right there,” he moaned

Damen picked up the pace, pressing their foreheads together, fucking into him harder, faster, driving them both to the edge.

“Fuck, I’m coming,” Laurent gasped

“Yes, now, do it, come with me,”

It barrelled into him, exploding behind his eyes, ripping out of him with a loud moan of Damen’s name as Damen above him groaned, his rhythm faltering as he let out a low sexy groan, his body tensing even as Laurent’s shuddered, shook, came in waves between them as Damen came deep inside him.

Laurent was boneless, panting as Damen shifted inside him, collapsed against him, a hot heavy weight Laurent curled toward, panting out his release, catching his breath, relishing the aftershocks and the gentle slow thrusts Damen didn’t stop.

“I love you,” he whispered against Damen’s hair

Damen pushed himself up, reaching down to pull out carefully as he moved to Laurent’s side. He was gathered close in Damen’s arms, held tight against his chest as Damen stroked a gentle hand down his back.

“I love you too, so fucking much,” Damen said

“I think I like it better like that,”

 “I know,”

“I might still want… or need it the other way sometimes though,”

“I know that too,”

“And is that okay?”

“Of course, we’ll talk about it properly before we do anything like that though, alright?”

Laurent nodded, buried his face back in Damen’s’ neck and soaked in the scent of him as Damen’s hand slid down his back, curling around his hip where he squeezed.

~*~

Laurent was running out of time. When he woke on Sunday it was to a column of soft sunlight illuminating Damen’s sleeping face.

They were still tangled close, still bearing all the marks of last night and Laurent didn’t want to move. Instead he lay beside Damen, sharing a pillow, traced Damen’s features with his gaze like he could memorise them more than he already had.

Damen shifted as though he felt his gaze, one hand reaching for him, sliding against his skin even before he peeled his eyes open. When he did he smiled, bright and far too much. Too honest. Too beautiful.

“Good morning,” Damen said

He leaned forward as he said it, kissing Laurent awake.

Just a few more hours. He’d tell him in a few more hours. First he wanted him again. As many times as he could until night fell. He gave Damen a light shove, slid himself onto Damen’s lap and undulated against him, against his morning hardness as he fed Damen his tongue.

“I want you,”

Damen breathed him in, hands settling on his hips, nodding into his kiss.

Laurent sat back, scrambling for the lube and wasted no time, coating Damen’s cock for him and tossing it onto the bed beside them. He steadied himself, reached down and pressed Damen’s cock to his hole, sank down slowly, throwing his head back and closing his eyes the better to feel every single inch of him.

“Fuck, I love the way you look like this,” Damen said

He snaked his hand out, stroking Laurent’s cock, squeezing a little around the head, licking his lips when Laurent dripped into his palm.

“I want this to last,” Laurent said, batting his hand away

Damen huffed, amused as he gripped Laurent’s hips, gestured him down and kissed him.

He’d make it last hours. He had to. Just until the sun went down.

Just a few more hours.

~*~

By nightfall he was pleasantly exhausted and beyond sated. He had a line of hickeys on his throat, finger bruises on his hips, and stubble burn between his cheeks. Damen was fucking glowing with it, with a sex sated warmth that made his hair chaotic and his eyes heavy and his skin bright with exertion and satisfaction.

Damen looked happy, sitting beside Laurent, back in his clothes because Laurent had insisted. If Damen was naked, he’d never be able to tell him. He wouldn’t get it out. Plus Damen was probably going to want to make a speedy retreat and there was no way Laurent would hold it together whilst he waited for Damen to get dressed.

They were on the sofa, half watching a movie and Damen was happy. Laurent tried to memorise it. Afraid of how badly he was about to shatter it. He had his own phone on the table, no important notifications glaring on his screen. Damen had his, though he hadn’t bothered to turn it on yet, content it seemed, to just exist with Laurent a little longer.

But it wouldn’t last forever and the timer had officially run out. The hourglass was empty.

“I really need to tell you something,”

“Okay,” Damen said, turning toward him, his expression light and easy and open.

“You-“ Laurent swallowed and reached for the remote, turned the TV off “I need you to promise to let me talk first, to get it all out and then- then you can shout at me, or leave or- just let me get it all out first, please?”

The way Damen’s expression closed down made Laurent’s stomach roll over. His heart sinking. Damen fidgeted, brow creasing as he compressed his lips.

“Should I be scared?” he asked, trying to inject a laugh into his words and failing

Laurent nodded.

Damen sucked in a breath, tearing his gaze away for a beat before he nodded, steeling himself as he shifted to face him more fully.

Laurent refused to look at him, tipped his chin down instead, buffing at his cuticles, fighting the urge to rip at them and tear the skin.

“Remember I told you about the hospital? When I was sixteen?” Laurent said, his voice audibly shaking “and you asked me, before, if what I said about going bare has anything to do with that?”

When he chanced a peak at Damen his expression had shifted, the blank guarded look giving way to something much too soft. Laurent soaked it in whilst he could, because he’d soon change his mind.

“I remember,” Damen said, voice so very quiet

Laurent swallowed, thick like tar, his throat having to strain to remember how to work when all he wanted was to throw up. He was about to lose him. It was a pain he’d have to live with for the rest of his life. It was still better than letting him hear it off his uncle. Better than being a slave to his uncle’s wishes when Laurent couldn’t do it anymore.

He wanted Damen, he wanted to keep him, but not, it would seem, at the expense of the scraps of himself he’d managed in recent weeks to claw back.

“It did, it does, I-“ Laurent exhaled, a shudder that wracked his entire frame “I was thirteen when it started,”

Laurent told him everything. He told him about his uncle, about how he really lost his virginity. He told him about the videos and about being shared. He told him about the drugs. About the fear and the confusion and the hurt. All of it. He told him about Aimeric, about what had happened with Nicaise and what Laurent had done afterwards, the club, the pain- he spared him the detail but he forced the words out all the same. He told him about how he couldn’t help himself, how sex was his punishment and his familiarity, his validation, and his condemnation. How most of the time he didn’t even like it and he used it solely to hurt himself. He told him everything.

It was as if once he’d started talking, he couldn’t stop. Like the words had been building and building for so long that once the flow had started there was no holding it back. Like a river bursting its banks, a tsunami that had nowhere else to go except inland.

He pulled his defences tight and he tried to keep a distance from what he was saying. It was impossible to maintain it. He slipped, his voice cracking, his stomach churning, his hands shaking as he forced the words out, aware he was about to lose the one thing he wanted most.

When it was done. When it was over. Once he’d spilled his soul and emptied himself of the poison that had lived inside him for so long, he was drained. Empty in the truest sense. He couldn’t look at Damen as the silence descended. He couldn’t bear to see something on his face that would haunt him.

The silence was thick, heavy with the words still ringing in the air between them where they could never be taken back. Laurent’s heart wasn’t pounding, but he was trembling, an adrenaline crash as he swiped at some errant tears on his face and bit down hard on his bottom lip.

“Laurent,” Damen’s voice was scratchy and Laurent pressed his eyes closed, shook his head “please look at me,”

He steeled himself, drawing in a ragged breath and peeped at him, flicking his gaze toward him without turning his head. As if there was still a place to hide if he didn’t see it head on. Like peering through fingers during a horror film.

Damen was staring at him intently, his expression as cracked open and raw as Laurent felt.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said “for trusting me,”

Damen reached out, as if to take his hand but hesitated, retracting it before he made contact. Laurent tried not to feel it, tried not to let it hurt. Even though it did. Of course Damen wouldn’t want to touch him now. Why would he? He was tainted and disgusting and Damen had unknowingly touched him for too long already and-

“Can I hug you?”

Despite everything, despite himself, despite how much it would hurt when Damen let go he nodded, sank into Damen’s arms, folded himself into Damen’s side and revelled in the momentary safety of his embrace.

Damen held him close, wrapping his arms around him as though it didn’t hurt them both, pressing his face into Laurent’s hair and letting Laurent press his damp face into his neck.

When Damen let him go Laurent scooted away, swallowing thickly and staring down at his lap. Damen didn’t immediately get up to leave and Laurent waited for it, counted the seconds and his heartbeats until it occurred to him.

“You don’t- you can leave,” Laurent said down to his lap “I understand, you don’t have to stay, I- it would be better, if you went now, I can’t- I get it so please just leave, I know you don’t want to stay now that you know what I am, I- can you do it quickly please?”

“Laurent would you look at me, please?”

Laurent shook his head.

“Laurent I’m not going anywhere unless you want me to,”

Laurent snapped his head up, scowling at him “don’t do that, we both know you’re going to leave and I really don’t blame you, don’t put it on me, don’t make me ask you to, just go Damen,”

Damen moved and Laurent tucked his chin into his chest so he didn’t have to watch him go. But Damen didn’t retreat, instead he sank down to his knees in front of him, surprising Laurent enough to have him look up, to meet Damen’s deep eyes even if it meant losing himself in them.

“Laurent, do you want me to go?”

Laurent shook his head “but I’ll understand, I’m- you deserve better than this, now that you know what I am, no one would want this Damen, I get it you-“

“Laurent I don’t want to leave, I’m not leaving,”

“Why?”

Damen knelt up, leaning closer and pressed a soft kiss to Laurent’s temple “I’m right where I want to be, why would I leave?”

Laurent’s breath left him in a whoosh “promise?”

Damen sat back, reached up to cup his face “I think you’re the strongest and bravest person I know, I promise, I’m not going anywhere, if you want me here then there is nowhere else I’d rather be, do you understand?”

“No,” Laurent shook his head “you deserve-“

“I told you, we make our own choices about that, don’t we? And I want you, I want this, I want us, if you think anything you just said changes that then you’re wrong, I love you sweetheart, you haven’t done anything wrong, you’re not at fault Laurent, don’t- whatever you think baby I promise you’re wrong, of course I’m not going anywhere,”

Laurent’s breath left him on a sob and he launched himself forward, scrambling to wrap himself around Damen. Damen caught him, settling back on his knees as Laurent fit himself in his lap and sobbed against him.

“I love you Laurent, I love you so fucking much, never think, even for a second that any of what you just said could make me stop, or change it. It doesn’t, I love you and you’ve done nothing wrong sweetheart, okay? Absolutely fucking nothing and I’m so fucking sorry you had to go through all of that, you’re so brave baby, so fucking incredible,”

Laurent sobbed harder, the relief impossible to define, to feel all at once. It was like a great weight had been lifted, as though Laurent had been shackled to it for so long and now he was free of it. Somehow, despite everything, Damen still wanted him.

He wasn’t sure how or why, wasn’t sure he should settle into the belief yet. But Damen had never lied to him and the way he was rocking him, soothing him, mumbling words of love and promises of always, Laurent didn’t know how he could doubt it.

Laurent had even told him to leave, he’d offered him the out. Damen hadn’t taken it.

“Is this real?”

Damen made a noise, something sad, a catch in his throat as he guided Laurent’s face from his neck and met his gaze.

“He is a monster and you’ve done nothing wrong, I love you, this is real, this changes nothing between us, I will say it every single day, every hour, until you believe me, okay? I’m not leaving you and there is nothing wrong with you, you’re incredible,”

Laurent nodded, let Damen wipe his tears away, settle them back on the sofa, tangled together and close. They sat in silence for a long while, absorbing it, like a bomb had gone off and they were watching the dust settle.

“I do have questions,” Damen said, eventually.

Laurent stiffened even as Damen soothed a hand down his back “you said you don’t like sex,”

Laurent shook his head, turning into him “no, I- it’s complicated for me, I didn’t realise until very recently that I don’t do it because I want it, that all the times I-“ he had to pause, breath deep “I didn’t know there was a difference between my body reacting and actually wanting, I didn’t realise I was just trying to hurt myself,”

Damen nodded, swallowing just as thick as Laurent “we don’t ever have to-“

Laurent saw his mistake at once and he laughed before he could stop himself. Damen’s face went hard and Laurent shook his head at him.

“Damen you’re the reason I do know the difference, I’ve never once checked out whilst we’re having sex, I’m always present, I always want to be present, I want you, I’ve always wanted you, when I talk about sex like that I don’t mean with you,”

“Not even the first time?”

Laurent smiled sadly “I was testing my boundaries, because you were Auguste’s ex, it was entertaining because I thought you’d tell me to fuck off, but I- the second you kissed me I felt it everywhere, I still started to check out but you- do you know what you did?”

Damen shook his head.

“You started talking and it wasn’t what I was used to, you weren’t mean or degrading, you told me to tell you how you feel inside me, made me tell you everything, and it made me concentrate, focus, you made me talk and it kept me right there and I wanted to be right there, I didn’t want to check out, I didn’t need to and I’d never felt like that before, you were focused on me and I stayed right there with you, I fucking loved it,”

“But I’ve been degrading with you,”

“When I needed it,”

“Laurent you can’t look me in the eye and tell me you that you haven’t used me to punish yourself,”

He didn’t say it like an accusation. He said it with concern. As though he might have done something wrong.

“I have,” Laurent frowned “I didn’t always know that was what I was doing but- I have and I’m sorry but it was different. I wanted you, you made me feel safe, I wanted those things Damen, I- I liked it, when it was you, I could let go and I knew you’d catch me, that nothing bad would happen because you wouldn’t let it, because you get me, you know what I need even when I don’t and you always give it to me and its cathartic, but I’d never do that with anyone else,“

“Just promise me, promise me you’ll talk to me in future, if there’s something you need like that, you have to tell me, I can’t ever be the reason you’re hurting, I can’t be responsible for any of that validation you mentioned, alright?”

Laurent nodded “I like it when you’re gentle,” he said, embarrassed twice over by how fucking easily he blushed at those words “I want it like that, but maybe, sometimes I’ll- I’ll ask for it the other way because it helps, it doesn’t make sense but I don’t feel dirty afterwards, I just feel relieved,”

“If there are any things or words or if there’s anything I shouldn’t do I need you to tell me,”

“I don’t know if there are things,” Laurent said “we haven’t- like that, since I’ve been getting flash backs,” he admitted “so I won’t know until-“

“That’s okay, as long as you tell me,”

Laurent nodded, bit his lip and stared at him, still in shock and awe at the man in front of him and how dedicated he could possibly be to making Laurent feel safe. Known. Loved.

“You’re really not going anywhere?”

“Never,” Damen affirmed, squeezing his hand.

“And you’re not mad,”

It wasn’t a question. Damen wasn’t angry with him. He wasn’t disgusted. Laurent didn’t understand and he couldn’t fathom why but he believed it.

“Fucking furious but not with you, you didn’t do anything wrong, you know that, right?”

“I’ve done plenty wrong Damen,”

“You were doing the best you could,”

“I want to do better,”

Damen kissed his temple, tugging him close again “I’m here for whatever you need,”

“Thank you, and I’m so sorry, about last night, what I almost did, what I-“

“No, don’t do that, it’s not your fault, you’re so fucking brave for leaving like that, do you hear me?”

Laurent eyes welled again and he pressed himself closer, hiding his face in Damen’s chest.

“He will contact you,” Laurent said “whatever he says, please know, it’s a lie, it won’t be… he’ll want to make it seem like something it wasn’t,”

“I know that, it doesn’t matter what he says Laurent, it won’t change the facts or what I think, you were a kid Laurent that is the bottom fucking line, it cancels out literally any fucking thing he could say afterwards,” he said hugging him close “on Friday, when you went to him, did you take a taxi?”

Laurent frowned, tipping his face up “I did, why?”

“I don’t know, just wondering if he came here? Ever picked you up?”

“No, he’s never come here, not even to pick me up, that would be too much work,”

Damen was clearly thinking something through but Laurent let it go, happy to wait for any further questions, safe and secure in Damen’s arms.

When nothing was forthcoming for a long few moment he ventured “you really mean it, don’t you?”

“I’ve never meant anything more, I love you,”

“I love you too,” he sniffed, hard and wiped his face on his arm, let out a sigh that dislodged something deep in chest, had him beyond exhausted. He needed a minute.

“I’m just gonna,” he pointed to the bathroom

Damen nodded “take as long as you need,” he said

Laurent clicked the door closed behind him and steadied himself, waiting for the expected sirens in his head, the anxiety, the cloying slimy lash of disgust or shame. And though they were present, though he did feel those things, the relief was too strong to let it take over.

It felt, not good exactly, but cathartic to have it out there. No more secrets. Nothing left to hide. And Damen wanted him still. Damen loved him enough to stay. He wasn’t disgusted. Not with him. He didn’t blame him.

Was it even possible? Was it possible for Laurent to ever believe the same?

Pushing away from the door he went to the sink, met his own bloodshot eyes in the mirror and grimaced at how red and blotchy he was. He splashed water on his face until his skin was less tight, took several deep breaths and almost convinced himself it was okay.

Until he heard the front door closing. Immediately, he stiffened and his heart beat sky rocketed. Did Damen leave? He wouldn’t do that, surely? Laurent had given him the chance and he’d stayed so why?

Laurent went back into the living room, frowning at the emptiness of his flat, at the quiet. One look at the hall showed him Damen’s jacket and shoes were gone. He’d left. Gone.

No. He wouldn’t. Laurent believed him. He wouldn’t.

He went back to the living room, to see if he’d left a note or anything, something to explain what was happening. There was nothing, just Laurent’s phone unlocked on the coffee table. With his heart pounding Laurent picked it up, blinked in confusion at what he was seeing. It was his taxi app, open to show his trips, showing him where and what fares.

And all at once he knew.

The incoming text from Damen on the top of the screen only confirmed it.

I’ll be back soon, there’s something I need to do. I’ll be back, I’m not leaving you. I love you.

He knew exactly what address Damen had been after and exactly where he was going.

Oh fuck.

Chapter Text

Laurent bolted from the room, ordering a taxi with one hand whilst he shoved his feet into his shoes. He knew where Damen was going and he needed to stop him before he did something stupid.

The taxi was a blessed 2 minutes away but it still felt like forever, standing on the street outside his door, heart thundering in his chest, imagining just how far ahead Damen was and how long it would take him to catch up.

Anything could happen. If his uncle hurt Damen… Laurent didn’t know what he’d do but he’d find a way to make him regret it, even if it was the last thing he ever fucking did. He could hurt Laurent all he fucking wanted but not Damen.

He could hardly breathe, the fear a writhing entity in the spaces around him as he inhaled, sucking in deep lungsful of it, a toxic cloud of poisonous fumes making him dizzy as his mind went wild with all the horrible things his uncle could be saying to Damen or worse: doing to him.

He could drug him, have someone come in- would he do it himself? Would he just hurt him or worse?

Laurent felt sick.

When the car pulled up he threw himself into the back, demanding the driver hurry. His leg bounced, he bit his nails, he willed the distance away and glanced down at his phone every two seconds as though he were expecting something, anything, to tell him what was happening.

It seemed to take forever, the universe against him as every traffic light went red on their approach and there was traffic he never would have expected so late in the evening. Laurent couldn’t concentrate on anything except Damen, wondering frantically what the fuck was happening, if he was okay, what the fuck his uncle would be saying and all the horrible details Damen could very really hear from him.

The nausea was a constant, threatening him, grazing at his throat until he could taste the bile as strongly as he could feel the icy sweat on his palms. When they finally arrived, Laurent had his hand on the door before the car even slowed to a stop. The street was dark but his uncle’s front door was open enough for light to be spilling out, acting as some kind of fucked up beacon.

He raced up the path, taking the steps to the front door two at a time, his ears ringing in alarm as he shouldered the front door the rest of the way open. And froze.

Everything slowed down and Laurent was panting, staring, mouth open in shock. He had no idea what he’d expected but nothing could have prepared him for the reality.

His uncle was on the ground, position awkward, and Damen was doubled over him, looming, fisting the front of his shirt, their faces inches apart as Damen seethed. Large and indomitable and furious.

There was blood. Swelling.

Past the scratchy thud of his own pulse in his ears the rumble of Damen’s voice was a distinct thrum. His words registered, heavy and final and Laurent felt them, drank them down as he stared at his back, arm still pulled back in threat, his fist bloody.

“You even look at him again and I’ll kill you. Do. You. Understand?” Damen said voice low and deadly.

Laurent lost his balance, off kilter as if the ground beneath him was swaying, like the world had fallen from its axis or he was on a boat navigating choppy waters. He sagged against the wall, exhaling out in a whoosh.

From his crumpled position at Damen’s feet his uncle’s gaze flit to Laurent, and Laurent was wide eyed, startled by the bloodshot gaze from the one visible eye. The other had swelled shut.

Damen’s fist came down hard, the noise it made a sickening mix of crunching and squelching as his uncle’s head snapped back and straight into the wall.

The groan was more a whimper, something pathetic and pained and it couldn’t possibly have come from his uncle. This couldn’t be happening. Laurent had never seen anyone naysay him let alone make him look-

Human.

“I understand,”

His voice was a croak, blood staining his lips and trickling out of his mouth as he spoke.

It was inconceivable. Seeing him so powerless. It was barely the same person. Couldn’t possibly be the same person.

And yet it was. Laurent would know his face anyway, even battered and swelling and bruising. It had haunted him. It did haunt him. Stalking his waking moments as if he were a monster in a nightmare and Laurent was his plaything.

Here, like this, he didn’t look like a monster. He looked, perhaps for the first time, exactly as he really was.

Just a man.

Not a monster, not an imposing presence, not extraordinary at all. Just a man in his fifties, covered in blood with his face swelling and absolutely no power. None. Snatched by hands that only several hours ago had been impossibly gentle on Laurent’s body. Safe. Loving.

And Damen was here for him. For Laurent. For everything he’d heard.

He really meant it, didn’t he? Laurent didn’t disgust him. He didn’t blame him. Damen really believed Laurent had done nothing wrong. Where Laurent had been given kind words and a promise of always, his uncle had been given blood.

It wasn’t a possessive thing. Laurent well knew. Damen’s jealousy was quiet, tense, but this? This was rage. Fury. For Laurent. On his behalf.

Because it wasn’t sex. What had happened. It had never been sex. It was rape. It was coercion and manipulation and nothing else mattered beyond that. Laurent let it settle in his head like something he’d always known but had somehow forgotten.

The twisting insecurity in Laurent’s stomach, in his chest, the niggle in the back of his head he hadn’t been paying attention to was only apparent in its absence. It bled out of him, rushed away on a breath as he blinked at the scene before him. At his uncle trembling beneath Damen and Damen-

Damen really did love him. Enough to come here. Enough to face him.

“You make me fucking sick, pathetic little man, if I ever see you again, I’ll put you in the fucking ground,” Damen said, pulling his arm back further

Laurent sprang forward, laying his hands on Damen’s back, curling his fingers into his shirt. He was surprised when he said Damen’s name that it didn’t come out as a shout. It was quiet. Gentle.

It still had Damen turning his head, face set in an expression Laurent had never seen on him before. It was beyond fury. Primal almost. 

Laurent shook his head, coaxed Damen away “he’s not worth it, we need to go before someone calls the police, please?”

Damen’s jaw flexed and it was a long tense few moments before he uncurled his fingers one by one from his uncle’s shirt and held his hands up, stepping back, turning to sneer at the prone form beaten on the floor at his feet.

Laurent thought that was it, that Damen was done, but Damen snarled, aimed a kick at his stomach that had his uncle gasping and doubling over, hands going around his middle as he cried out.

Then Damen spat on him, cursing him one last time before tearing himself away and storming out, leaving Laurent blinking down at his uncle in shock.

Somehow it was the spitting that shocked Laurent most. It was-

Degrading. Demeaning.

Despite himself he let out a snort of laughter, hysteria bubbling up inside him as his uncle squirmed, trying to right himself as he clutched at his middle. Laurent hoped he’d broken some ribs.

He looked pathetic. Beaten. It wasn’t victory or justice, it wasn’t enough. But it did feel good.

Laurent turned, heading back out but of course, his uncle didn’t let him. The splutter of his voice had Laurent spinning back, taking him in as he tried to muster some sense of anger or power through his pain. Tried to claw the chessboard back.

“I’ll make you regret this, if you walk out that door-“

It was too late. Damen had already taken the king.

“No you won’t,” Laurent said “you have no power here, not anymore,”

His uncle glared through his one good eye and Laurent grinned at the sight “look at you,” Laurent said “what are you going to do? What can you do?”

“I’ll-“

“No, you won’t, you know why? Because if you come near me again, if you call the police on Damen, if you harass him in anyway, I’ll tell the police everything, you think I wasn’t smart enough to keep evidence? All these years?”

Bullshit. Complete bullshit but he didn’t need to know it. The way his uncle stiffened, blinking furiously at him even as he grimaced and tried to scramble into a more dignified position- it was desperate. Panicked.

He hadn’t expected Laurent to tell Damen. He hadn’t expected any of this. And now he was concerned. Good.

“You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone, understood?”

Reluctantly, his uncle nodded, short and sharp and Laurent left, slamming the door closed behind him.

The night was calmer on his way out than it had been on his way in. The air was cooler, his steps lighter, the fucking stars brighter. It didn’t change anything. Not really.

Except it did.

Damen had the car idling and as soon as Laurent was inside they were off, speeding down the street like they were fleeing a crime scene.

Laurent leaned his head back, holding onto the image of his uncle bleeding, trying to emblazon it in his memory for when his days got bad, something good to cling to, to remind him what he really was.

Not a monster. Just a man.

From behind the wheel Damen was tense, silent, throwing careful glances Laurent’s way as if expecting him to shout. Laurent didn’t much feel like talking yet, so instead he reached across, splayed his hand over Damen’s thigh and squeezed, flashing him a tired smile.

Instantly the tension went out of Damen’s frame and he breathed out heavily, reaching down to cover Laurent’s hand with his own, squeezing his fingers before he tugged Laurent’s palm to his mouth and laid a kiss there.

Neither of them said a word until they were back at Laurent’s flat.

“You go sit,” Laurent said arcing one eyebrow and pointing at the sofa.

Damen kicked off his shoes and did as he was told, folding himself down onto the sofa whilst Laurent filled a bowl with warm water and got the cotton pads and soap from the bathroom. He kicked the coffee table closer and took a seat, holding his hand out for Damen’s bloodied one. Damen gave it to him wordlessly, watching Laurent closely as he set about wiping away the blood and bathing the split in one of his knuckles.

When he was satisfied nothing was broken and it was relatively clean he set the bowl aside and laid Damen’s hand down on his thigh, examining the knuckles still.

“Did you punch a wall?”

“Doorframe,” Damen said with a shrug “he was trying to slither away,”

Laurent held back his grin and tipped his gaze up, giving Damen a pointed stare. Damen’s shoulders drew up, chastised as he dipped his head.

“I know, I know, but someone needed to do it,” he mumbled, petulant almost.

Laurent sighed, scooted forward.

“Did he hit you?” Laurent asked “is there anywhere else I need to see?”

Damen snorted, gave him a lazy cocky grin “not a single hit,” he said

Laurent’s lips twitched despite himself and for a second, he blinked, staring at him like he was a revelation. One part wonder ten parts love. He had to clear his throat, shut his expression down so Damen knew he was being serious.

Because as good as it felt, this was serious.

“Whilst I appreciate it, you can’t just do that Damen, you don’t know him, he has contacts, he knows people, he can do anything at any time-“

“No, he can’t,” Damen interrupted him “I’m not scared of him Laurent, and men like him? He will always put himself first and he will always lie to make himself feel more powerful, he might have friends, he might know dangerous people, I don’t care, he’s always had more at stake than you Laurent, he’ll never put himself at risk, no matter what he’s said,”

And it was true, wasn’t it?

Logically Laurent understood, but part of him was still that frightened boy who was told no one would believe him or care, the one who’d been shamed into silence when he started to push back, reminded people would judge him, hate him for it. Or that sixteen-year-old boy who tried to tell someone and was met by disbelief and uncaring coldness, all the shame he had been promised. The eighteen-year-old who was promised a ceaseless miserable existence in some foreign country, shackled to a wall and living on his back doped up to his eyeballs if he ever said a word.

He still believed it, even when he knew, logically, those had just been words to scare him into submission.

Damen was right. His uncle had more to lose. He had always had more to lose and not letting Laurent see that had always been part of it. The aura, the terror, the power.

Laurent had thought it himself once, hadn’t he? When he thought about the likelihood of his uncle ever abusing Auguste. His uncle only went after boys where he could flex his power, it was all about power and the second it was threatened, the second he might not have it anymore, it changed the game completely.

“Thank you,” Laurent said “no one’s ever done anything like that for me before,”

Damen leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together as he reached out to tangle both of their hands.

“Don’t thank me, I’m sorry I flipped, I am, but fuck I just had to, I had to let him know it was done and that I was deadly fucking serious about him ever contacting you again,”

Laurent swallowed, worrying at his lip “what if he does?”

“Then you tell me, I don’t care what bullshit he spews, block his number and if he finds another way or he has the fucking audacity to come here then you call me, you let me know, we’ll deal with it together, okay?”

Laurent nodded and gave Damen a gentle shove backward, climbed up into his lap to wrap his arms around his neck and bury his face against his hair, breathe him in. Damen’s bloodied hands were gentle as they caressed him, soothing up and down his back rhythmically as the silence enveloped them and their hearts settled into a calm, even rhythm. Together.

Laurent giggling broke the silence and Damen urged him back, half smiling as Laurent grinned back at him.

“Do I want to know?”

“It was really hot you know,” Laurent said

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, do I have a thing for you punching people?”

Damen shrugged “oh we can find out, I’ll totally punch anyone in the face, you just tell me who,”

Laurent laughed, settled into his lap “thank you,”

“For being an asshole? No problem,”

“For caring enough to do it,”

Damen hummed, eyebrows going up as mischief shone in his gaze “does this mean I get a reward?”

Laurent laughed; the lightness of his being so entirely foreign to him he didn’t know what to do with it. Damen knew everything. Damen knew exactly what he was and everything he’d done. Damen had beat the shit out of his uncle. Damen was teasing him. Like nothing was wrong. Like nothing had changed.

He still wanted him. He wasn’t disgusted. He really fucking wasn’t.

Laurent, a few days ago, would have said he couldn’t believe it. But now? He believed it. Him. A faith he doubted he’d ever had in anything else in his life. Ever.

Now he had Damen. He had them.

Tangling his fingers in Damen’s hair he gave it a little tug, smirked when Damen blinked back at him, tongue flickering across his bottom lip.

“But Damen,” he said “bad boys don’t get rewarded, they get punished,” he teased

Damen groaned, hands finding Laurent’s hips and pushing him down as he ground himself up. Laurent let out a loose breath, not sure why he was surprised by Damen’s reaction. More surprised, perhaps, by his own.

“Yeah? You’d let me spank you Damen? Tell you how bad you’ve been?”

Damen bit his lip, flexing his hips beneath Laurent “if you wanted to try it that way I wouldn’t say no, it would only be fair, right?”

His grin was divine and Laurent’s cock thickened at the sight alone, the insinuation. That Damen would willingly put himself into Laurent’s hands even if it wasn’t his thing, just because Laurent might want it. It was heady. Shocking. Erotic.

“Fuck that’s hot,” Laurent said, undulating against him, riding the hardening line of Damen’s cock under his ass and grinding back on it “but I don’t think so, we both know it’s not what I want,”

“What do you want baby? Tell me and I’ll give it to you,”

“Hard and fast and dirty,” Laurent said against his mouth “own me Damen, fuck me like you mean it,”

Damen reared up, biting a kiss to his mouth, his grin growing against Laurent’s lips as he plucked at his jeans.

“Then these need to come off. Now,”

Laurent laughed, scrambled to do as he was told, ripping them off and tugging his shirt over his head. Damen on the sofa lifted his hips enough to pull his jeans down his thighs, reached behind himself to yank his shirt off and balled it up, threw it past Laurent with a smile. Laurent grabbed the errant bottle of lube from their vigorous weekend and threw it at him, standing between the spread of Damen’s thighs, watching him coat himself as Laurent stroked his own cock.

Their gazes were locked and Laurent’s smile was foreign, amusement on his face as Damen stared up at him, all mischief and desire. When he was done he snatched at Laurent’s arms, yanking him down, toppling him into his lap and Laurent went, breathing his amusement into Damen’s hair as warm lube sticky fingers settled on his ass.

Laurent tipped his face down, licking at Damen’s smile until he coaxed him into a kiss. A kiss that was deep and had Laurent dizzy with a need for air by the time he threw his head back.

He was hard between them, leaking across Damen’s stomach and Damen’s cock was a hot line against his ass as he thrust up against him in slow undulations.

“You want me to own you?” Damen asked, kissing the words into Laurent’s mouth

Laurent hummed, fingers tangling in Damen’s hair “please,”

“I already do though, don’t I? This is mine, isn’t it?” Damen said cupping his ass and squeezing hard “so is this,”

His hands drifted to Laurent’s cock, giving it a slow delicious squeeze, stroking from the base to the tip as Laurent gasped against his mouth.

“Yours, all yours,”

“Yes, mine, and fuck, look at you, how did I get so lucky?”

Impossibly, heat rose in his cheeks, rosy and warm and he knew from Damen’s smirk alone he was blushing furiously. Damen pressed a kiss to his cheek, his tongue a hot lap all the way to his ear.

“You going shy on me baby? So fucking sweet for me, it’s the same shade your chest goes when you come,” Laurent’s skin erupted in goosebumps, a shiver sliding down his spine “it’s my favourite colour,”

Squirming in his lap, Laurent tugged hard at Damen’s hair “you keep talking like that and I’ll come before you get inside me,”

Laurent could and had taken many things from Damen, but those words were the sweetest bliss, new to him entirely now he knew it wasn’t just talk and Damen meant them. He had no way to counter, no experience with which to hold onto them without letting them overwhelm him.

“No you won’t,” Damen said against his jaw, lube slick fingers teasing over Laurent’s rim “it’s mine remember? You won’t come until I tell you to,”

Laurent breathed out a yes to his words, to the way Damen sank two fingers inside him to the knuckle, twisting and stretching him, doing nothing to avoid his prostate, toying with him instead, regarding Laurent with dark eyes when he twitched in his lap, breathing out in hitches and gasps as his hips moved of their own volition.

“Put me inside you,” Damen said as he withdrew his fingers.

Damen’s hands went to his cheeks, holding him open as Laurent shifted, reaching around to line them up, meeting Damen’s gaze as he started to sink down. He groaned, throwing his head back as he bottomed out, pausing to let his body adjust, to clench and throb around Damen who breathed out harshly, licking his lips as his hands spanned Laurent’s hips.

“So fucking beautiful, you take me so well baby, you were fucking made for me,”

Laurent liked that thought. He liked it so much he whimpered, rising up almost all the way and slamming back down, hard and fast, feeling Damen’s entire length all over again.

It was a bouncing frantic ride, his skin slapping against Damen’s thighs, sticking to him, the noise obscene and melodic all at the same time as his cock bobbed with each slam down, slapping at Damen’s stomach. Damen watched him, praised him, fingers digging in at Laurent’s hips, hard enough to bruise and he thrilled to it, responded with nails into Damen’s shoulder’s, mark for mark.

The way they both wanted it.

It wasn’t a pace Laurent could maintain, his thighs started shaking, his body desperate and reaching and he sank all the way down, pressed his palms to Damen’s chest and panted back at him.

Damen arced one eyebrow, reaching for his wrists “my turn?”

His grin was smouldering and Laurent swallowed, nodded eagerly.

Damen collected his wrists and with one hand held them both behind Laurent’s back, the other he anchored to the nape of his neck, and took over, thrusting up into him, fucking him harder. Relentlessly. Laurent saw stars, mouth dropping open on loud moans, forehead to Damen’s temple, squeezing his eyes closed against the brutal piston of his hips, the deep fuck of him inside where Laurent felt it like shocks, electric and sparking behind his eyes.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come,”

And he was, he was right there, right on the edge, if he reached for his cock now it would all be fucking over.

“Not yet,” Damen groaned, not relenting in the slightest, still slamming up into him as Laurent’s entire body tensed.

Laurent whimpered, eyes squeezing closed, chest moving frantic and choppy as he tensed his stomach, ignoring the twitching of his muscles and the throb of his cock, the way Damen was lighting him up from the inside.

“Please, god, please Damen, let me come, I need to come,”

Damen hissed, releasing his wrists and his hand came down hard and stinging on his ass instead, still thrusting up into him and Laurent howled, hands sliding to Damen’s shoulders, his hips helplessly and desperately following Damen’s rhythm

“Touch yourself for me Laurent, come all over me,”

Laurent’s hand was wrapped around his cock before Damen had even finished speaking, stroking himself hard and fast, pushing back on Damen’s cock as his orgasm tore through him, spraying come all over Damen’s stomach.

“Fuck the sounds you make when you come,” Damen said

His hands were vices, pulling Laurent down on his cock as he thrust his hips, harder, faster, relentless as he fucked Laurent through it, chasing his own release.

“Come inside me,”

The words did to Damen exactly what they did to Laurent and as Laurent shuddered on top of him, basking in the drawn-out pleasure, Damen held himself deep and came with a groan of his name.

Laurent sagged into him, panting against his skin as Damen’s hands slid up and down his back, breathing harshly as his head hit the back of the sofa.

“Thank you,” Laurent said against his skin, Damen still inside him and more than little bit hard.

“For?” Damen asked, tipping his head up, mouthing a semblance of a kiss at Laurent’s jaw.

“Not treating me like I’m made of glass, or broken,”

“Why would I treat you like you’re broken when you’re not?” Damen asked, crease marring his forehead when he pulled back to look at him.

If it was possible Laurent fell even more in love with him.

~*~

The coffee shop was a quaint little hole in the wall with dark low hanging industrial lighting and the worst kind of benches and long tables taking up the space in the middle of the room. It wasn’t Laurent’s first choice for a coffee, it was all a little bit too pretentious for him but Aimeric liked it.

Laurent had grabbed them a table in the window, one with actual chairs, so he could watch the rain and the people rushing past whilst he waited for Aimeric to arrive. He was coming straight from a therapy session and Laurent wasn’t sure what kind of mood to expect from him when he arrived.

When Laurent finally spotted him he eyed him critically, staring surreptitiously over the rim of his mug to gauge him. Apart from being rain wet, he didn’t look too bad. His face wasn’t blotchy or puffy at least.

“How’s it going?” Laurent asked

The early October chill had Aimeric’s cheeks glowing rosy red, his light jacket and huge scarf not enough to block the wind coming in off the bay.

Aimeric pulled a face as he threw his bag down on the chair Laurent kicked out for him.

“Fuck me it’s long,” he said “hold that thought,”

Laurent snorted, watching Aimeric as he went to order and came back with the biggest coffee they could produce. It came with wafts of pumpkin or cinnamon or something seasonal reminding Laurent of fireplaces.

“So, therapy?” Laurent grinned at him over his mug

Aimeric shrugged out of his jacket and Laurent’s gaze went down to his wrists without meaning to. Since he’d gotten out of the hospital Aimeric had only worn long sleeves. Laurent could only imagine what it was like having to see the scars every day, he couldn’t blame him for wanting to cover them.

Aimeric blew out a breath, tipping his head back as he cupped his hands around his mug.

“Harder than I thought, it’s fucking exhausting, I feel like I could sleep for a week every time I get out,”

It sounded awful and when Laurent pulled a face Aimeric tipped his head, hiking one shoulder up.

“And there’s homework, I thought it would be like one hour a week where we talk a bit but turns out healing mentally is a full-time job, who the fuck knew?”

“Is it working?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think so, but they want to medicate me so maybe it’ll be better after that,” Aimeric shook his head “did I tell you he text me when I was in the hospital? He said to keep my mouth shut but has said nothing since,”

Yeah, sounded about right. Aimeric was trouble now, wasn’t he?

A liability.

“I told Damen,”

Aimeric nearly spat his drink out, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and blinked at him.

“You told him what?”

“Everything,”

Aimeric fish mouthed at him, shaking his head, blinking several times before he puffed out his cheeks and sat back, stunned into stillness as Laurent recounted the story.

Aimeric gasped, covering his mouth with both hands the very image of a scandalised Victorian, replete with wide eyes and a gaping mouth “so what happens now?”

Laurent shrugged “nothing, I told him I’d tell the police if he didn’t leave me alone so, I’m done, I’m out, I’m never going back and neither are you, do you hear me?”

Aimeric bit his lip “maybe we should,”

Laurent scowled “we’re not going back to him Aimeric,”

“No, I meant the police… maybe we should,”

“And say what?” Laurent lowered his voice “we both know there’s no point, he’ll twist it around and all we’d have is us against him, it’s not worth it Aimeric,”

Aimeric chewed on the inside of his cheek, fingers tapping against his mug as he nodded slowly, and dropped his gaze. Laurent stared as Aimeric pulled himself together, shaking it off visibly before looking back up at him.

“So, going well with Damen now then?”

Laurent smiled and tucked his chin to his chest to hide it, aware of Aimeric watching him all the whilst.

“God, you’re fucking blushing,” Aimeric laughed

Laurent’s hands went up to his face, hiding his burning cheeks beneath his palms and cringed “it’s wildly annoying,”

Aimeric’s smile was as wide as his gaze “you’re practically swooning,”

“Oh my god shut the fuck up,”

Aimeric spent a good few minutes teasing him and giving him shit before his expression softened.

“I’m so happy for you Laurent, you deserve it, I’m glad he’s been there for you, that you could trust him enough to tell him,”

Laurent shrugged “sometimes it doesn’t feel real, and some days I’m scared I’ll wake up and it’ll have all been some drug induced dream,” he sighed crossing his legs beneath the table “but if it is a dream I really don’t want to wake up because it’s amazing,”

“Jord spent the night last weekend,”

Laurent’s eyebrows shot up, mouth opening as a smile pulled at the corners Aimeric noticed, and was quick to shake his head.

“No, no not like that, he just- we were just hanging out and he insisted on sleeping on the sofa,”

“Would you be ready if it was like that?”

Aimeric shrugged “if I think about it too long then no, probably not, but that is not what my body is saying when I’m with him,”

Laurent definitely understood that at least.

They spent over an hour chatting back and forth and it was, perhaps, the first time in a long time where Laurent felt anything like normal. A real person with a real life. Like there might actually be a light at the end of the tunnel.

In times gone by Laurent had never even seen the tunnel. He had been buried alive, the doorways non-existent, taken out by a landslide and there was nothing but darkness.

He hadn’t known how freeing it would be to have someone believe him. To look him in the eye and tell him it wasn’t his fault.

It was all he needed to start finding the courage to really believe it himself.

Knowing it deep down and contending with it were very different things. It was a strange disconnect, two opposing thoughts existing inside his brain each with equal weight. One relied on logic, the other on the evidence his brain could spew at him that sounded, always, like his uncle.

Hearing a different voice, a voice he cared about and whose opinions he valued disagree with that monstrous growl… it helped more than Laurent could ever have known.

Did Aimeric have that?

When they eventually left the air outside the café was damp, the clouds overhead were grey and the drizzle in the air was a pending downpour. Aimeric was complaining about how frizzy it was going to make his hair and how he wanted to get the bus back before the clouds burst but Laurent stopped him.

“You know none of what happened is your fault, right?”

Aimeric’s breath hitched, surprise apparent in the flare of his eyes and the way his mouth popped open, a sliced inhale pulling at his chest.

“I-“

Laurent stepped into him, arms going around him. Aimeric didn’t hesitate, his arms went around Laurent’s shoulders, hugging him tight and close.

“We’ll believe it one day, we just have to keep remembering it first,”

Arms tightened around him and Laurent held on, waited patiently until Aimeric was ready to let go. When he did he huffed, turning away swiftly and puffing his cheeks out, wiping quickly at his eyes.

“Oh you bastard,”

There was a smile on his face as he spoke, cheeks tinting with embarrassment.

“Well, you know me,”

Aimeric rolled his eyes “I’m going now before you make me cry for real,”

“Don’t go, Damen will drop you home,”

“Personal taxi now?”

“Taxi service, boyfriend, same difference,”

“But he knows, about me, right?”

“He won’t say anything, he’s on our side Aimeric, there’s no judgement I promise,”

Aimeric agreed somewhat reluctantly and when Damen pulled up and Laurent announced they were taking Aimeric home Damen didn’t even blink. He greeted him with a smile and pulled off like it had always been the plan.

“So Laurent said you fancy Jord,” Damen said

Laurent tutted, smacking his hand against Damen’s bicep and craned his neck to Aimeric in the back seat.

“Ignore him, I didn’t mean to tell him that-“

“No, no,” Damen said flashing Aimeric a smile in the rearview “package deal, and besides I’m invested,”

Aimeric laughed, didn’t even look embarrassed “it’s fine, yes I like Jord, though I have no idea if he likes me back,”

Damen snorted “oh he does, trust me,”

Aimeric slid forward in his seat, gaze glued to Damen “spill it,”

Damen laughed and started talking and Laurent sat back in his seat, half turned against the window so he could see them both and the warmth glowing in his chest was as foreign as it was welcome.

When they dropped Aimeric at his place he was smiling, pleased as he waved goodbye and sent Laurent a pointed smirk. Yeah, Damen really was great.

“Thanks for that,” Laurent said when they were halfway back to Damen’s

Damen’s perplexed expression was comical, eyes sliding around like he was actually looking for a clue.

“For being so nice to Aimeric,” he added

Damen tutted “I just told him what I knew, I wasn’t being nice,”

“No, I know, but he needed that and you know, to be treated like he’s normal,”

“He is normal,” Damen said “I mean aside from the fact that he thinks Jord is a gentleman, he will one day be swiftly disabused of that notion, I promise you,”

At Damen’s house Laurent smoked from his spot on the sofa, watching amusedly as Damen tried to set up the overly complex lamp he’d brought for the living room. Laurent recounted his conversation with Aimeric, grinning amusedly as Damen struggled, until he got to the part about the police.

Damen put everything down, turned to face him, scrutinising him.

“Maybe you should go to the police,”

“What?” Laurent blinked, surprised

“Laurent… he needs locking up, I didn’t want to mention it but now Aimeric’s put it out there… I think you should go to the police,”

“There’s no point Damen, I can’t do that,”

“Why not?”

“Because I grew up and I stayed,”

At Damen’s blank stare Laurent sighed, scrubbed a hard hand down his face.

“Do you think a court will look favourably on the fact that ten years later I go to him willingly? Do those things willingly, that I never told anyone, that I carried on doing whatever he told me to do and-“

“No, bullshit that’s different it was coercion and gaslighting and Jesus fucking Christ Laurent he’s made you d- he’s groomed you for so long you can’t break the cycle,”

He swallowed “I know that,” Laurent said “but a good defence lawyer will spin a different tale because the truth is only what you can prove and they can’t prove how I felt or the things he said when we were alone, the evidence is that I stayed and they’ll argue I was some kind of Lolita who knew what he wanted and did it and there was no violence when I was a child Damen, nothing outright that I can point to and say it was a threat, again it was all just whispered words and it’s my account versus his and he is a doctor, a respected pillar of the community with a legacy of hefty donations to numerous causes and I -at least on paper- am a drug addict who fucks a lot of different men and who occasionally turns to prostitution to fund that habit,”

“You said you were never-“

“I was never paid in cash but that doesn’t mean I didn’t do it for him as an exchange for the drugs, trust me Damen, I would not win that case,”

“But-“

“I said no Damen, I don’t live in your fantasy world where the truth and good will prevail, I live in the real world where powerful men write the narrative,”

Damen’s face was tense but he nodded “it’s entirely up to you, I’ll support you either way,”

Laurent tried to put it out of his head for the rest of the night. Tried to pay attention to the ending of the show they were watching, tucked into Damen’s side with a full stomach and his silly water bottle resting on his lap.

The thoughts were relentless. He should have asked Aimeric why he wanted to go to the police. It sounded fucking awful. Sitting in interview rooms for hours and telling strangers everything over and over? Having it picked apart and inspected and judged?

Hard fucking pass.

His own father hadn’t wanted to listen, why would the police? He’d meant everything he’d said to Damen, but he wished he’d asked Aimeric why he thought they should. Maybe it was better if he didn’t know his reasons.

He didn’t want to make them his.

But then, maybe it was the right thing to do?

Laurent hadn’t thought Damen would believe him but he did. All that power his uncle had, he was slowly learning, was all a fucking illusion.

Could Laurent, do it?

He didn’t have the courage for it.

~*~

To say Laurent’s libido had been high was a vast understatement. He couldn’t get enough and he was very aware it was an awful lot like he was falling back into his old routine.

It was different, certainly, his sex life now consisted of one-person, incredible orgasms, insatiable desire, and he was present every single time. However, it did not negate the fact that he was, maybe, using sex as a crutch again.

And Damen, because he was a prick, was very well aware of it.

“Well what am I supposed to think when you won’t fuck me?” Laurent snapped, glaring at the back of Damen’s head

Damen was not perturbed in the slightest, carried on brushing his teeth over his bathroom sink as though Laurent wasn’t even there. Frustration burned low, simmering as he waited impatiently for Damen to finish up, patting his mouth dry and even washing his fucking hands before turning to look at him.

Laurent tried to keep his eyes up, he did, but Damen was only in tight white underwear the outline of his cock a tantalising tease beneath the thin material and Laurent’s gaze got stuck there all the same.

“I’m starting to feel like you only want me for my body,” Damen said

And though he said it lightly, playfully even, there was a flash in his expression that threw some ice on all of Laurent’s heat. His desire. His annoyance.

“That isn’t true,” Laurent said “I just need-“

Damen smirked, pointing a finger and Laurent growled his frustration out.

“Fuck you, if you don’t want me anymore then fucking say so, I think sex with your partner is a perfectly reasonable thing to want,”

“It is,” Damen agreed, annoyingly unbothered by Laurent’s anger.

“So it’s either you don’t want me, or you think it’s too much and I’m a whore after all,” Laurent hissed

Damen didn’t even flinch, his voice remained perfectly even.

“And when did I say that exactly?” he asked

It was on the tip of Laurent’s tongue to remind him of all the times Damen had said something very similar. But that was before and certainly before he knew.

“You’re thinking it,” he hissed

Damen blinked “wow that mind reading power you have will come in handy, what am I thinking now? It’s a number between-“

“Oh fuck off,” Laurent snapped storming from the bathroom and barrelling down the stairs.

He didn’t strictly need to go into Damen’s back garden to smoke, Damen let him smoke inside wherever he wanted but he needed some fucking air.

In the past two weeks since Damen had been made aware of Laurent’s past in all its horrifying glory, he’d been nothing short of a saint. Logically, Laurent knew it. Laurent was also aware his mood had been on a pendulum, swinging back and forth between happy and anxious and the latter had come out quite often as anger.

He knew it and yet he couldn’t make it stop.

It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. For something to go wrong. And the longer it went without anything going wrong the more on edge he was and the harder he fought against the helpless floundering in his chest.

And the more sex he demanded.

Damen had been good, his libido was high, he was happy to do it, even if they were out in public, to find a quiet spot for them. If he wasn’t home and Laurent was alone he was happy to send him orders, tell him what to do, and it was enough to keep Laurent off the ledge until he was there with him.

In the spaces between Laurent fantasised or fretted, worrying about his uncle, or Aimeric, or Auguste, or his own unhealthy way of viewing the world. He hated every god forsaken second of it.

In a fit of annoyance he’d googled sex addiction, spent hours reading about it, fell down a dark rabbit hole about trauma and addiction that made him dry heave.

It wasn’t an addiction like other addictions, not really. It was a compulsion. Policing himself got difficult when he stopped recognising what was healthy and what wasn’t. Or why he was doing something in the first place.

He just wanted to be fucking normal. He wanted to click his fingers and have it figured out already. He wanted one day to be today.

But it wasn’t. All he’d done today was start the morning off with an argument when Damen wouldn’t fuck him the second he woke up.

When he stubbed his cigarette out it was to find Damen watching him from the doorway, fully dressed now as he crooked a finger at him. Laurent went, eying him warily. Instead of saying anything Damen went to the dining table and rapped his knuckles on it.

“You’ve been using sex as a distraction,” Damen said blunt and to the point as Laurent followed him to the table.

Laurent winced, grimacing at the way it sounded. Instead of apologising, like he should, he shrugged.

“You weren’t complaining,”

“You weren’t being honest with me,” Damen said “and that deserves a punishment,”

Laurent snapped his head up, eyeing Damen critically. They hadn’t done anything remotely like that since he’d told Damen everything. They’d had a discussion. About safe words and boundaries but that was pretty much it. He probably wasn’t supposed to be eager for it, or aroused by the idea. Damen’s face didn’t betray anything but Laurent hoped for a spanking.

Instead Damen handed him a sheet of paper with instructions written on it and Laurent’s eyes bugged wide when he realised what it was.

“Literally anything else, I’ll-“

“You need to work off some energy and quieten your mind, so this is what you’re going to do, is there a problem?”

Laurent hated exercise. He would walk for miles if he had to, take the stairs without complaint, he’d climb a seven-foot wall to escape a sex party of strangers and an accusing sex swing, but he drew the line at a treadmill. At reps.

It sounded like torture. The point, he supposed. It also happened to be conveniently in line with Damen’s insistence on making sure Laurent took care of himself. Despite himself Laurent threw a glance over his shoulder to the converted garage at the back of Damen’s garden where he housed his gym equipment. Laurent didn’t even know what half of the stuff in there was let alone how the fuck to use it.

Laurent took the paper, pouting down at it, thankfully it was mostly stuff like sit ups and stretches and fucking jumping jacks. He purposefully did not think about the number of minutes Damen wanted him on the treadmill for.

“If I do it, does this mean we can have sex again? Or are you still intending to deprive me for a week?”

Damen tipped his face up with two fingers beneath Laurent’s chin “if I think you’ve learned your lesson, so, before that punishment, you have another one,”

Laurent groaned “what for?”

“Trying so hard to start an argument earlier,” Damen said knowingly and pushed gently on Laurent’s shoulders until he was sat at the dining table.

“I don’t need it,” Damen said “6 full pages, normal handwriting, and then the reps, understood?”

Laurent huffed, turning a pout on Damen which only made him smile.

“Is this okay?” Damen asked “I wasn’t sure-“

Laurent snagged Damen’s t-shirt, gave it a tug until Damen leaned down, their faces close enough for Laurent to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“It’s what I need right now,” Laurent said

Because it was. Before, the few times he’d begged Damen to do something like this for him, Laurent had waited until he was on the brink. And before that he’d numbed himself and hurt himself all the fucking time. This was new, sure, but it didn’t feel precarious or dangerous or desperate.

It was better.

Damen breathed out, pressing their faces close “I’ll be back around 2, alright?” he murmured

Laurent closed his eyes, leaned against him for a moment, soaking up the closeness despite their earlier argument. Or rather, Laurent’s.

“Have fun, don’t break anyone,”

Damen huffed a laugh, pressed a kiss to his temple before collecting his gym bag and leaving, off to play football with his friends. Laurent had been invited but it was cold and he didn’t really feel like standing around in the cold whilst Damen played.

At least now he had something to do instead of harassing Aimeric with his woes.

He stared at the paper for a long time before he gave in, scowling as he wrote the first sentence. He was half way down the page, mind numbing from sheer boredom when he realised he didn’t really have a reason to ever hand write anything ever. His handwriting was shocking and by the end of the second page his hand was actually starting to hurt. His gaze was stuck on the mundane pattern of the same sentence over and over.

I don’t need it.

He considered it despite himself. About Damen’s response to the word. A response he’d had well before he was aware of Laurent’s past.

Damen saw right down to the heart of him, didn’t he?

By the time he was done scribbling the last sentence his fingers were cramped and it was as if the words had been emblazoned in his mind. An annoying beat. I don’t need it.

Damen was both annoyingly and endearingly attuned to him.

Any warm and fuzzy feelings Laurent was nursing fizzled out immediately the second he pulled open the door to the old garage at the back of Damen’s garden. He had converted it into a studio, complete with one entire wall of mirrors, hard wood flooring, and a bunch of fancy gym equipment.

The actual garage door opened onto the gravel alley behind Damen’s house and was sealed closed. Along the entire wall there were weights and things Laurent wouldn’t even begin to know how to use.

Maybe he’d watch Damen work out some time. Damen getting all sweaty and grunting whilst he lifted? Yeah, why hadn’t he before now?

Laurent bitched and whinged and whined his way through the various reps Damen had given him to do. Embarrassingly he was out of breath after the first set and by five he was sure his lungs were actually burning. Plus he was sweating. His clothes were sticking to him, he was bright red and glistening with it and his muscles were present in a way they rarely were.

Except after sex, he supposed.

Dragging himself over to the treadmill he drank in great heaving gulps from his water bottle and turned the machine on.

Damen had said he wasn’t allowed to walk on the treadmill but anything he was comfortable with above a stroll was fine. So Laurent pressed the button and pressed it again until he was barely jogging.

He had never felt so unfit in his entire life. He had never needed a cigarette this badly either. He made a mental note never to let Damen watch him do any form of physical activity that wasn’t sex.

The first few minutes were torture, and much like the time with the pens Laurent leaned into it, into the burn and the focus and drifted. He let his body move on autopilot, focused on the scene beyond the window of Damen’s garden and let his mind go.

Much like the pens, it got easier the minute he decided to push, to give in to it. When he eyed the clock and realised -somehow- he only had 5 minutes left, for some reason, possessed by the spirit of Damen, he figured it was a good idea to up the speed for the last five.

And regretted it the second he switched the machine off five minutes later, lungs burning, legs shaking, dripping sweat still, and exhausted. It was a pleasant kind of ache. All of his muscles were tired. His heart was pounding. He was sweaty and lethargic and if not for the absence of pleasure and the relief of an orgasm fresh beneath his skin, he could almost imagine he’d been fucking.

Which, he supposed, had been Damen’s point.

The absolute bastard.

Laurent peeled his panting exhausted body up off the ground and was midway through a shower before it occurred to him: he hadn’t even considered Grindr. Or Cruising. Or any other person at all.

It hadn’t crossed his mind to actively go out at all. He’d been pissed because Damen cutting him off had been cutting him off entirely. And he’d not even considered an alternative even when he was at his worst.

Even when he had been at his most pushy or frantic all week.

It wasn’t a lot but it was a victory all the same. Even if just a very small one because loyalty shouldn’t be a victory.

But it wasn’t like that. He didn’t want anyone else. He would never hurt Damen that way ever again, so whilst he wouldn’t have actually done it, the fact it hadn’t even crossed his mind told him it really wasn’t the same anymore.

And if it could change once -for the better- it could change again. He could get better. He supposed it just needed time.

He would rather drown himself in the shower than admit the exercise had any positive effect on him though. When he was dressed and had wasted some time drying his hair, he was calmer, more grounded, and when he went to curl up in the living room with one of Damen’s books it was the first time in a while he wasn’t on the edge of his seat waiting for his phone to ring to find his uncle’s name flashing there.

The door clicking open had Laurent lighting up, closing his book and half rising before a voice called out Damen’s name and Laurent froze, sinking back onto the sofa and clutching his book tighter. As if he could sink right into the pages and disappear so he wouldn’t have to deal with this.

The second Nikandros came into the living room his expression dropped comically, the smile not so much faltering as sliding straight from his features into something blank and hard all at once.

“Where’s Damen?”

“He went to play football with Pallas and whoever,” Laurent said

Nikandros grimaced “forgot about that,”

In all honesty Laurent would have assumed Nikandros would be with them, not standing awkwardly in complete silence in Damen’s living room whilst Laurent tried his best to merge with the sofa.

“He’s due back any minute,” he offered and wanted to slam the book against his own head the second it was out of his mouth.

Nikandros shifted, eyes settling literally anywhere except for Laurent.

“I’ll wait in the kitchen,”

Nikandros didn’t wait for a response. He left and a few moments later Laurent heard the kettle boiling and he let his head drop back against the sofa. The strain in the air was a reflection of the wobbly uncomfortable sensation in his stomach, all tension and resentment and, on Laurent’s part at least, mortification.

Every instinct said not to engage, to wait it out and ignore him and never look him in the eye again. Or worse, go prod and poke until Nikandros got sick of it and shouted at him or left, or both.

Unfortunately, there was also a niggle in the back of his head that sounded an awful lot like either Damen or his conscious telling him he already knew the right thing to do.

And he fucking loathed the idea.

Rendering himself for Nikandros’ ire was not something he ever wanted to do. And yet.

Covering his face with his hands he scrubbed frantically, muffling his groan in his palms before he rose determinedly to his feet. Padding into the kitchen with his giant water bottle as a makeshift shield, he found Nikandros at the dining table, cup of tea beside him as he scrolled through his phone. The second he caught sight of Laurent he stiffened, something clicking in his jaw.

Laurent heaved a martyred sigh and took a seat at the dining table, the furthest one away from where Nikandros was sitting so he didn’t have to sit opposite him or beside him. He was sure neither of them wanted that.

“Go on, just get it out,” Laurent said

Nikandros’ eyes swivelled to him, incredulity apparent in the set of his jaw and the crease of his brow.

“What are you on about?”

Laurent sighed, slouching in his seat. He wished he was wearing his hoody so he could put his hood up for some sort of barrier between him and whatever vitriol Nikandros was inevitably going to spew.

He fiddled with the flip up straw on his bottle, not looking at him as he spoke.

“All the things you want to say but don’t because you don’t want Damen to hear it,” Laurent said “just say it,”

“Everything I have to say I have said to Damen, he has heard it, I’m not the kind of person who would go behind his back,” Nikandros said

And there. The first slap.

Laurent pressed his lips together, stiffening despite himself.

It probably shouldn’t surprise him. Nikandros had never been shy with his opinions before. Damen had not, however, really even mentioned Nikandros much in the past 3 months. He had in passing, he’d implied, but he hadn’t said it outright.

“What did you say?”

Nikandros huffed “is there a point repeating it when he hasn’t listened? You’re together now, all I can do is wait to be able to say I told you so,” he said and under his breath added “again,”

Laurent swallowed, nodding, lips pursed as he stared determinedly at his bottle, at the little lines declaring there was only 250ml to go before he’d drank 2 litres today.

“Yet, you mean,”

“What?”

Clearing his throat Laurent turned to Nikandros, lifting his chin “he hasn’t listened, yet,”

Nikandros contemplated him, nodding slowly “yet,” he agreed

Laurent breathed out “look, I know it’s…” he grimaced, the right word evading him “uncomfortable for you,” he settled on

When Nikandros’ eyebrows went up Laurent huffed, continued.

“I mean it must be difficult given how you… you know,” he said, fidgeting in his seat as Nikandros continued to stare blankly at him.

“Well, I don’t like you,”

The frown on Nikandros’ face as he spoke let Laurent know he wasn’t following at all, he had no idea what Laurent was trying to say and even less interest in figuring it out. Nikandros had a very loud face.

“That isn’t what I meant,”

“Well what then?”

Laurent rolled his eyes “I meant your feelings for him, I meant it can’t be easy watching me with him when you hate me and you have feelings for him,”

Nikandros stared at him for a long tense moment and Laurent fiddled with the straw, flicking it up and down, even as his gaze was glued to Nikandros and whatever his face was doing. He didn’t respond for a moment, expression utterly blank.

And then he laughed.

Startled, Laurent blinked, Nikandros was actually smiling, laughing as he pressed a hand to his chest like somehow this was the most hilarious thing Laurent had ever said. He laughed for so long Laurent was slightly concerned he was having a bit of a break down.

“Jesus, you actually think that? I thought you were just giving me shit this whole time but you actually think-“

Nikandros shook his head, cutting himself off and leaning forward, meeting Laurent’s confused gaze.

“Listen, I love him, he’s one of the most important people in the world to me, I’d want to kill anyone who hurt him and I’ll do whatever I can to protect him, but I’m not in love with him for fucks sake, he’s like my brother,”

Laurent didn’t comprehend. He couldn’t. He’d seen the way Nikandros looked at Damen. Like he’d hung the fucking moon. Laurent couldn’t be that wrong. Nikandros and Damen were all over each other, always. They were so close and Nikandros was always meddling. Always. Was it platonic? It’s not like Laurent had any friendships like it to compare.

“But- but you never like his partners and you look at him like- like,” Laurent waved his hand vaguely in Nikandros’ direction, annoyed when Nikandros raised one amused eyebrow “and you check him out all the time,”

“God forbid I look at my friend occasionally, some of us don’t want to fuck every attractive person in their general vicinity you know,” Nikandros rolled his eyes “and I don’t like you because I don’t think you’re good enough for him, I think despite trying you will inevitably hurt him, so why would I like you?”

Laurent flinched because honestly, it was his worry too.

“I didn’t like Jokaste because she was using him and because I didn’t like the way Kastor looked at her, and the way she let him flirt,” he said “and your brother… your brother treated Damen like shit and broke his heart, I liked Erasmus, I really liked him, I won’t lie I was praying for Damen to choose him because Erasmus loved him, he was good to him, there was no drama that wasn’t entirely Damen’s fault and it was easy between them,”

Laurent bit his lip, fresh shame washing through him as he nodded his head. He wanted to apologise. He knew he should, but the words refused to come. Not just about Erasmus, but what he’d said to Nikandros over the years, the way he’d behaved the night that everything went to shit. Honestly? In Nik’s position Laurent might have done the exact same thing.

Nikandros let out a sigh that sounded more like a groan.

“Look, I don’t like you, I don’t trust you, you’ve fucked him up so many fucking times, I wish more than anything he’d drop you and move on, find someone who’s good for him, because you? You’re not good for him, I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to watch his heart break because of you, the number of drunken rants or upset conversations I’ve endured the past two odd years… I want to believe it will be different this time, I don’t want to see him hurt like that again because of you but I’m a realist and I think it’s inevitable,”

Laurent’s shoulders curled forward, his chin dropping as he nodded, the twist in his stomach was a loud agreement. He knew that, he knew all of that.

“But Damen says there is a lot I don’t know, about you, stuff he won’t tell me and I don’t know why that makes a difference to him but apparently whatever shit you told him is enough to make him forgive the shitty way you treated him,”

Laurent snapped his head up, he’d assumed Damen would tell Nikandros everything. If not everything enough for Nikandros to get the gist. Had he not?

“But it is your last chance, you get that right?” Nikandros asked “one more, hurt him one more time and I will make sure he forgets your name and fucks every person between here and Ios, understood?”

Laurent nodded, throat clogging.

“I won’t,” he said before meeting Nikandros’ stern stare “I mean, I don’t want to hurt him, all I can do is try, I love him, I really love him and I want to be better for him… and for me too,”

Nikandros nodded “good well, I don’t want us to be friends but I won’t give you shit as long as you’re good to him, Damen’s a big boy and he’s made his mind up, I’ll be at his wedding regardless of whether you are or not,”

Laurent bit down on the inside of his cheek, trying desperately not to let the thick swell of resentment show on his face.

“Thank you,”

It was better than he’d hoped for and he was not about to rock the boat. Nikandros could and would make things difficult if he did. He needed them to be civil at least, for Damen.

“And I’m sorry about- before,” Laurent said desperately trying to stave off the heat waiting to flame his face “I was drunk, I was upset, I didn’t- I didn’t mean it, and I hope you know I’d never-“

Nikandros grimaced, shaking his head “nope, as far as I’m concerned it never happened but you best believe it will rear its ugly head again the second you so much as make him sniffle, yeah?”

Laurent nodded, opening his mouth to say so when the front door opened again and Nikandros swivelled in his seat toward the kitchen doorway in preparation for Damen’s appearance.

“Thank fucking god,” Nikandros said

Loud enough for Damen to hear so when he appeared on the threshold, he was wary, gaze flashing between them. Laurent was ready to stiffen at the implication but he realised Damen was wearing his are you okay eyebrows not his what the fuck eyebrows.

Laurent smiled, soft and careful and Damen relaxed, turned to Nikandros.

“Everything alright?”

Nikandros heaved a sigh as he pushed to his feet, tossing Laurent a glance before settling his gaze on Damen “we’re okay,” he said

Laurent let the relief loosen the tension in his spine and he nodded at Damen when he met his eyes over Nikandros’ shoulder.

Damen’s smile was well worth the awkward conversation.

“Great, and you’re here because?”

“Because your fucking exercise bike was taking up too much space and I gave up on you and brought it over myself,”

“So where is it?”

“You think I’m dragging that thing through here you have another thing coming,” Nikandros said

Damen’s eyebrows went up “it’ll be quicker with us both though,”

Laurent didn’t need to know Nikandros very well to know he was going to do it anyway. Laurent didn’t bother going to watch that shit show, he went back to his book on the sofa, content in his muscle’s lethargy, to listen to the noise and the banter and Damen’s laugh as they dragged it out back to the studio.

Nikandros didn’t stay though he did call a general loud goodbye that Laurent assumed was half meant for him too before leaving again. As soon as he was gone Damen flopped down onto the sofa beside him, staring at him softly. Laurent assumed he’d heard the summation of the conversation from Nikandros.

So Laurent didn’t bother bringing it up, he closed his book, turning to face Damen properly.

“I’m so fucking sorry for this week,” Laurent said “I didn’t realise I was doing it and then when I did, I didn’t know how to stop,”

Damen nodded, held his arms out. Laurent crawled to him, fit himself into his side and snaked an arm around Damen’s waist.

“I’m also sorry for making you feel bad,”

Damen tightened his arms “don’t, it’s okay, the important thing is you did realise it, so that’s amazing, all on its own, you know that right? I’m really proud of you for it,”

Laurent breathed him in, blinking slow against his chest. Shit, he really was fucking exhausted.

“I also don’t think therapy is a bad idea,” Damen said

“I know,” he groaned “it’s just scary,”

The thought of telling anyone or having them poke around in his head? Hardly his idea of a good time. Though as Aimeric kept pointing out, it wasn’t supposed to be a good time.

Damen hugged him “I know, difficult things always are, but don’t apologise, we’re both learning and we’re both figuring it out, together,”

Laurent breathed out turned in Damen’s arms “the exercise really helped by the way, it was very irritating and I hated every second but it worked,”

Damen snorted stroked his hair back “good to know,”

Laurent leaned forward for a kiss but Damen stopped him.

“For the record I don’t mind however much you want to have sex, all I ask is that you’re having sex with me because you want to be with me, not using my dick as a means to an end,”

Laurent dropped his chin, shame welling forcefully and the regret swamping him made his stomach roll.

“I do always want you,“

And he did. He really fucking did, it wasn’t the same as it had been before when he was using strangers. He did want Damen and maybe it made the itch worse because he was chasing Damen’s closeness, the rush, and the escape all at once.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,”

Yeah. He knew that too.

Laurent nodded, chastised “god, I’m sorry,”

“Don’t apologise, I just thought you should know how I was feeling about it, you know, communicate and stuff,” Damen said and Laurent absolutely did not miss how pointed it was.

He smiled, huffing in exaggerated exasperation.

“Well I’m feeling guilty and desperate to reiterate that I really love having sex with you, just as much as I love you away from the sex,” he said prodding Damen’s side

Damen laughed, rolled his eyes “duly noted,”

Laurent nodded, bit his lip “right now I don’t want to fuck though, I just really want you to kiss me and maybe smother me like a weighted blanket whilst I nap?”

Damen snorted, drew Laurent close “that I can do,”

~*~

Receiving a text from Auguste was a once in a blue moon kind of event. Receiving a text from him asking to meet up at a pub was rarer still. Laurent deliberated for days before agreeing to meet him and Damen told him repeatedly, he didn’t have to and that he was under no obligation.

But Auguste had reached out and Laurent was willing to hear him. If it was just going to be another argument, he would leave immediately but he understood, on a level he didn’t want to think about, that he had hurt Auguste. Auguste had hurt him too. It had to end somewhere.

Damen dropped him off at Auguste’s pub of choice with a promise to come pick him up after and it took everything in him not to ask him to stay, even as he watched Damen drive away. With a deep determined breath he went inside, overcome by the instant perfume of stale beer, and stopped dead in his tracks, surprise and wariness grappling for control.

Auguste was not alone. Steadying himself, Laurent went over, taking a seat opposite his brother.

Eyes firmly on his mother on the other side of the table.

“Is dad here?”

If he was Laurent would walk out.

His mother shook her head, pushing her greying blonde hair behind her ear, her eyes -Laurent’s eyes- straying to Auguste in some kind of unspoken concession.

“I told mom I’d asked you to meet me and she asked if she could come, Dad thinks she’s helping me pick out new patio furniture,”

Laurent breathed out, tension bleeding out. It was no surprise to hear they’d lied to Aleron. Even when Laurent was little, before all the shit, they’d all always had to be careful what they said and what they did. It would only cause an argument otherwise.

His mother wanted to see her sister? No, she couldn’t, Aleron didn’t like her so she was “going to meet some women from the club” or “to get her nails done” or “to get her car detailed.” At least until Aleron had started to want to see receipts for the things she brought, always suspicious. Always on the brink of an argument or something dismissively hurtful.

Until his mother didn’t see her family at all. Aleron was always too busy, didn’t like them, they weren’t good for her, or “the boys”- there was always something.

Auguste and Laurent had done it too, had to lie about where they were going, or who with but it wasn’t the same for them. Laurent was largely ignored, his father blind to him, a disappointment from the moment he was born. In comparison Auguste was met with praise and excuses for his shit at school, an altogether different kind of blindness. Of all of them Auguste had gotten away with the most. The eldest son. The child Aleron had wanted.

“Is that okay? That I’m here?” she asked

Laurent shrugged, fidgeting in his seat “I guess, unless you want to lecture me, in which case I’ll just save you the trouble and leave now,”

“No,” she hurried to say, one hand half reaching across the table toward him before she promptly pulled it back “we’re not, Auguste had something he wanted to tell you,”

Laurent’s gaze swivelled to his brother, found him rolling his eyes, a familiar half smile on his face as their gazes snagged, something nostalgic and unspoken passing between them. A joke about their mother’s tone. Laurent had almost forgotten he’d ever had that with Auguste.

“I wanted to apologise, I was going to come see you but mom said it was best to go somewhere neutral,”

Apologise and Auguste in the same sentence? Laurent was tempted to pinch himself to make sure he was really awake. Auguste had been to Laurent’s flat maybe 4 times in the 5 years he’d been living there. If he had shown up Laurent might have assumed it was to tell him one of their parents was dead. And even then, Auguste was more likely to call.

“Seriously?”

The rueful duck of Auguste’s head and the way he slouched further into his seat made Laurent’s leg bounce, eyes glued to the beer mat Auguste began to fiddle with.

“I’m sorry,” Auguste said “I was such a dick, I was lashing out and I’m so sorry, I just needed you to know that,”

Laurent’s gaze flew to his mother, as though to make sure he was hearing Auguste correctly but she was only smiling at him softly, giving him an encouraging nod.

“I-“ he had no idea what to say “you’re my brother,” he settled on

His mother rose to her feet then, patting Auguste’s shoulder and giving him a meaningful look “I’ll give you boys a minute,” she said, before making her way across to the bar.

Laurent watched her go, blinking at her retreating figure before resettling on Auguste. Auguste was fidgety, ripping the beer mat to shreds, leg bouncing beneath the table just like Laurent’s was.

As a distraction Laurent reached for the drink on the table in front of him. A vodka and coke. It was funny really, Auguste didn’t know much about him but he sure as fuck knew Laurent’s drink order. Just like Laurent knew Auguste would take a pint if it was casual and a whiskey if it wasn’t. He had a pint on the table in front of him. Guess it really was casual.

“God, say something I’m no good at this shit,” Auguste groaned, flicking some of the torn-up beer mat across the table toward him.

“Are you really sorry? Or saying it for her sake?”

Auguste’s sigh was loud, a whoosh of noise as he sat back in his seat “I mean it, I just asked her if she thought you’d listen,”

“And she said?”

“That you deserved to hear it even if you didn’t want to accept it,” Auguste sighed “so I’m sorry, for being a dick and for all the shit I said,”

“You really came to apologise all on your own?”

“Well, no, mom may have told me what an asshole I was being,”

Blinking, Laurent gaped “mom swore?”

Auguste snorted “no, worse, she said I reminded her of dad,” he met Laurent’s eyes meaningfully “and from her that’s basically swearing,”

“Jesus, that is bad,”

“Yeah well if there’s one thing I never want to be it’s him, but she was right, I freaked out, I lashed out, I didn’t- fuck I can’t be like him,”

“You’re not, dad never would have apologised, even if he was wrong,”

Laurent knew that first hand. Auguste was a lot of things but like their father? No. Not yet at least.

Auguste scratched idly at the varnish on the table and the silence that descended had Laurent fidgeting, the spaces between them stuffy with words unsaid, an intrusive buzzing kind of silence broken only by Auguste’s huff. He puffed his cheeks out, visibly shaking his head and tossing his hair from his eyes.

“So,” Auguste said drawing the word out “you’re dating my ex,” the half-smile on his face offset by the air of awkward unease on the rest of his face.

“Yeah,” Laurent blew out, playing with the bits of frayed beer mat Auguste had flicked toward him.

“It’s a bit weird,”

Laurent lifted his gaze, blinking at the teasing edge to his brother’s expression, the scrunch of his nose and the patented mischievous grin waiting in the wings. He wasn’t wrong, it was weird. Or had been.

“A bit,” Laurent conceded “in the beginning anyway,”

At the start Laurent had thought about it more. Wondered whether he and Auguste liked the same things, whether Damen thought of Auguste when he was with him, whether they felt the same. Who was better.

He didn’t think of it much anymore, though it crossed his mind once or twice when he was having a rough day. It didn’t matter anyway. Damen was his now and if Laurent had any say in it he always would be.

“So you’re really still dating then? Like actually and properly? You are in a relationship?”

The incredulity shouldn’t feel as much like a slap as it did. Auguste wasn’t wrong exactly; it was new for Laurent. Different. It didn’t make him any less ashamed. Or Regretful.

“I’m in love with him Auguste,”

Auguste breathed out, sitting back in his chair. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, only reached for his pint and took a generous swallow. He stared down at it, even as he put it back on the table, finger tracing through the condensation on his glass.

“Yeah,” Auguste sighed “yeah it’s impossible not to fall for him, I think,”

For once, Laurent agreed with him. Damen was impossible. Immoveable. Irrevocable. Maybe some people were just like that.

“I didn’t do it to hurt you, the first time we were really drunk, it was meant to be just one night, no strings,”

Shaking his head and grinning conspiratorially, Auguste met his eyes again “well that was your first mistake, I could have told you that, there is no such thing as having him once,”

Laurent ignored the stab of irritation because this was Auguste trying. The least Laurent could do was be gracious about it. It was just the way Auguste was. It was uncomfortable, but it was still true. And Auguste was smiling as he said it. Trying.

Maybe it was a difficult word for both of them.

“Yes, I couldn’t let him go, even when I wanted to, I just fell in love with him, it wasn’t about you,” Laurent met his brother’s gaze “he’s it for me Auguste, I mean it,”

Auguste groaned, slouching in his seat as he swiped a hand down his face “yeah, I know, I could see it on your face at mom’s… and on his, I don’t think he ever looked at me like that,”

“Like what?” he blurted and regretted it the second it was out of his mouth when Auguste flashed him a thin smile.

“Like you were necessary,” Auguste said “like he’d give everything up just to see you smile,”

Laurent blinked, turning his eyes down, his chest warm with it even as his spine pulled tight “I’m sorry,”

“Don’t be, it is what it is,”

“Then why were you so mad?”

“I guess, in my head, I’d always kind of imagined a one day, you know?”

Laurent understood it, he had felt something like it once, when he thought he’d lost Damen for good. Damen would have haunted him forever. The one that got away. Seeing Damen with Laurent probably killed that and buried it and then covered it in concrete for good measure for Auguste.

“Did you ever think about properly getting back with him?”

Auguste snorted, half shrugging “it’s hard to explain, not like, actively, just in a nostalgic kind of way I guess, like maybe one day it would happen and I could fix my mistakes, I don’t know, but I’m aware it was naïve and stupid and I reacted like a kid and I’m sorry,”

“And now you’re cool with it?” Laurent asked, eyeing his brother carefully

“Look, you little bro, can do as you please, and Damen is a grown up so he can do what he wants too, do I think it’s tacky and weird and kind of gives me the ick that the something he wants to do is my brother? Yes, absolutely, but you’re right, we’ve been over for a long time so like, have at it? I guess? I don’t fucking know I’m no good at this,”

Laurent snorted and opened his mouth to respond but the approach of their mother had him snapping it closed. It’s not that he didn’t want her to hear their conversation, but she was wary, unsure as she came back toward the table, hovering near her chair as she laid a tentative hand on the back of it.

“Is it okay if I sit?”

Laurent nodded even as Auguste rolled his eyes and called her silly, shoving the chair out for her.

“You seem different,” Auguste said, eyes on Laurent as their mother took her seat “you look different,”

Before Laurent could even begin to ask what that was supposed to mean his mother cut in.

“Happier,” she supplied “you look happier and less… frail,”

Laurent sighed, cheeks heating not from the pending admission but from the realisation they’d both gotten used to seeing him miserable and drunk or high, or defensive. Bratty even he supposed, still that teenage persona he could never drop around his family.

“Damen has me eating properly and he’s making me drink water,”

Auguste snorted “oh god he’s gonna make you work out,”

“I know,” Laurent sighed “I can see it coming and the worst part is I think he’ll probably be able to talk me into it,”

He already had, hadn’t he? A few days ago in fact. And though Laurent had hated it, he also hadn’t hated the way it had made him feel afterwards. There was a good chance Damen was going to get him to do it again.

Auguste grinned “I am glad you’re happy though, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you happy, you’ve always been-”

“Miserable?” Laurent offered

Auguste shook his head but it was their mother who answered

“Lost, I think,”

Lost. The description was probably apt. Though it was less like he’d been stumbling blindly through a maze, searching for a way out, or trapped in the woods all turned around and panicked. It’s more that he’d given up. Hadn’t wanted to save himself or think of rescue when those things had felt far away.

Maybe it was seeing the reality of his choices, or lack thereof, bleeding out on Aimeric’s floor, maybe it was the realisation that if he wanted something he had to go for it. Maybe it was all of those things or none of them. Maybe he’d just hit rock bottom and the only two options left were to lay down and die or fight his way back.

“Well,” Auguste said slapping both hands down on the table “I need to smoke,”

He rose to his feet, giving Laurent a salute as he went and he was left alone with his mother. For a long few silent seconds they just stared at each other. Laurent got caught on all the aspects of her features he saw in the mirror every day. He should be grateful really, he looked nothing like his father.

“You look good sweetheart,” she said, drawing Laurent’s attention “usually you look like you haven’t slept much,”

“I wasn’t sleeping much, lost, remember?” Laurent said giving her a tight smile

“And you’re not now?”

“I won’t lie and say Damen saved me but loving him has helped, or maybe him loving me,”

“I’m glad, I’m really glad, and I hope you don’t think I’m interfering,” she said “I know you don’t- I know how much you hate me overstepping and I know you said you didn’t want to see me but I just-“

“What?” Laurent interrupted “What makes you think I don’t want to see you?”

She frowned, dropping her gaze to her left hand and the dull gleam of her wedding band, twisting it with the fingers of her other hand. Laurent sat up a little straighter.

“Mom?”

“Your father told me what you said, about why you left, about- about me,” she said, her voice shaking “I was only worried, I’m not interfering or-“

“What did he say?” Laurent asked “about me leaving? What did he say?”

His tone must have been too hard because her head snapped up, gaze flickering as she took him in.

“He said you were tired of me nagging you, that I was overbearing, that I tried to coddle you too much and you- you were always my baby, and then… then you weren’t… and I know we struggled when you were a teenager I just didn’t know it was that bad, that I was that bad, that I-“

“No, stop,” Laurent choked out “it wasn’t you, it was never you,”

He had wondered, in years gone by, why she’d never called. His father hated him, he understood, but he hadn’t thought his mother did until he moved out.

Laurent saw it all at once. The explanations his father gave for Laurent’s behaviour, for how difficult and withdrawn he had been as a teenager. When he was being abused. Aleron had blamed it on his mother, to stop the questions surely. And to stop her reaching out.

The anger was a crackle, a flint sparking in his chest. He knew. It wouldn’t have been difficult. His mother always did what his father said. Even when she didn’t want to. Laurent had never thought too much about it, but it made something slick burn in his stomach. A rapid fire of overlaid memories in his head, of his father and his uncle and how similar they were. It was probably why Laurent had been blinded: already too used to the same strategies played in a different game by his father.

Bile churned in his stomach staring back at his mother, realisation threatening him, pain for all the things he’d lost and lived through. All the things she might have lost and lived through.

He didn’t know how to ask how bad things were for her behind closed doors. If she was walking on eggshells too, a stranger in her own skin. How long it had been. How much of herself she’d lost. Because what if she didn’t know it? He couldn’t stomach her making excuses for him the way she’d always had to. Not with this.

How could he fix something he was only now seeing? It’s not like he could just blurt leave him at her and hope for the best.

Not now at least. Not yet.

Laurent shook his head “I never said that, it was never like that,”

She frowned, blinking at him, mouth compressing into a thin line.

“I was a moody stupid teenager but I didn’t leave because of you I left because of him,” to get away from the glares and the disgust, to get clean across town from his uncle and father both “you weren’t overbearing, I never said anything about you interfering, I just- you never called, you never came to see me, I thought you hated me,”

She shook her head, eyes glassy and this time when she reached out across the table she didn’t stop, she covered Laurent’s hand with her own, squeezing hard.

“Your father told me you hated me, that I’d make it worse if I did and he said… well you know how he gets, he said he’d prefer I left you alone,“ she swallowed thickly, expression going hard and torn open all at once “I should have done better, I should have-“

“Don’t, stop, don’t do that,” Laurent said turning his hand over to grip her fingers just as tight “it’s him, it’s always him, I lived with him too, I know what he’s like,”

He just hadn’t really understood what it must have been like for her until now.

“I love you Laurent,” she said sniffling as answering tears burned at the back of Laurent’s eyes “I’m so sorry, I’m your mother and I-“

“I love you too,” he cut across her

He couldn’t listen to her berate herself. His father, clearly, did enough of that.

“Are you happy sweetheart? With Damen? He’s good to you, isn’t he?”

“I am, I’m really happy and you know Damen, of course he is,”

She smiled, shaky and small as her hand tightened around his “you’ve looked so sad for so long darling, it’s so nice to see you smile again,”

“You thought I looked sad?”

“Or angry,” she nodded “when you were a teenager… I know it’s normal, I do, but I went to your uncle, I thought if anyone would know it’s a doctor, right? He told me you were just in a phase and not to push you, and your father told me the same, to leave you be, but I wish I hadn’t,”

“You shouldn’t listen to uncle,”

“He’s been good to us,” she said “he offered, once, to take you in for a while, when you were younger, when things were difficult,”

Laurent went cold, stiffening as though the threat was real and present and not one that had belonged to his past. Even if he hadn’t known anything about such an offer.

“What?”

She nodded “I told him no, obviously, I wanted you at home with me, in case you needed me,”

“When was this?”

“Oh, I don’t know, you were about fifteen? Maybe? When things were bad,”

His uncle had tried to get him away from them. His very own live in pet. Laurent felt fucking sick. Bad. The height of his abuse and she didn’t know. She thought he was just acting out and his uncle had offered to take him.

He squeezed her fingers. “thank you for saying no,”

“We both did, your father said over his dead body, which- a little strong, but you know your father, he’s… always so angry,”

Laurent’s ears were ringing. Fifteen was before the STI hospital visit. Before Laurent tried to tell Aleron the truth. Had Aleron known even then? Or suspected? Or did he only know of his uncle’s preferences and had refused based on that? Over his dead body was strong, too strong for how his father usually spoke to his brother. Did it mean something?

He supposed it didn’t matter. It didn’t change anything.

“If you don’t hate me, maybe we can meet up more? I’ve told your father I’m joining a church group, he’ll never have to know,”

It confirmed everything he had already guessed over the span of their conversation. His father had explicitly forbidden his mother from contacting Laurent, under the ruse that Laurent hated her and probably that he’d stop coming to dinner every other month if she did. Why? Probably worry for himself. That Laurent might tell her everything. Might tell her that he’d told Aleron too, back when something could still have been done about it.

“I’d like that,” he choked out

The smile she gave him was watery and warm “and I’d like to see Damen again, he was always such a lovely boy, he was never right for your brother and… it’s not ideal, granted, but after what he said last month… who wouldn’t want that for their baby?”

“Who’s having a baby?” Auguste asked, breezing back over, puzzled frown on his face as he retook his seat and mock-gasped “did Damen knock you up already?”

“Auguste,” his mother hissed, withdrawing her hand from Laurent’s in her apparent shock.

Laurent’s face flamed “please shut up,”

“Yeah, yeah,” Auguste dismissed pushing his sleeves up and revealing a tight wrist support.

“What happened there?” he asked, prodding his straw at the melting ice cubes in his drink.

Auguste flashed him a wry smile, slouching back in his seat as he held his arm up, the wrist support stark against his pale skin.

“You really don’t want to know what I did,” Auguste wagged his eyebrows

Laurent snorted despite himself, meeting his brother’s gaze. It was the exact thing he’d expect from his brother.

“Some sex acrobatics?” Laurent asked

“Boys,” their mother tried to interject but Auguste didn’t heed her.

“Something like that, guess I’m getting old… or the guy was slightly bigger than me and I shouldn’t have been picking him up in the first place,”

Laurent laughed, shaking his head and when he met his brother’s gaze again he could see the familiar flash of mischief in them.

“Not the kind of problem you have though, I know Damen could throw you around in his sleep,”

Laurent snorted despite himself, aiming a kick at him beneath the table when their mother groaned in mortification.

“If we’re going to not be shit to each other I’m going to need you to never reference the fact you’ve slept with Damen, ever again, okay?”

“I wasn’t talking about me, I was talking about you fucking Damen,”

It was on the tip of his tongue to quip that he didn’t fuck Damen at all actually, but he got stuck on the flash of quick images that settled behind his eyes: Damen on his back, his cock against his stomach, Damen with his knees pulled back and his legs spread, Laurent between them, the noises he might make…

Laurent had never done that and it was the first time he’d ever consciously thought about it. Before he could say anything embarrassing their mother was grousing.

“Stop now, I need both of you to not mention it in my presence, thank you very much,”

Despite himself Laurent met Auguste’s gaze again and the both of them laughed.

~*~

“So it was really okay?” Damen asked, his worried expression having decreased only slightly since he’d first picked Laurent up from the pub.

“I think so,” Laurent said “Auguste said we should hang out with him and his partner of the week sometime, so, I think that’s his way of saying we have his blessing,”

“We didn’t need his blessing,” Damen grumbled as he pulled up outside Laurent’s flat.

“Also my mom wants to meet you?” Laurent said, climbing out of the car and waiting for Damen to meet him on the pavement.

“She’s met me, just the other week in fact,”

“Yeah but not as my boyfriend, she’s trying, let her try, please,”

Damen rolled his eyes, throwing his arm around Laurent and steering him to the doorway “as if I would say no to you,”

Laurent grinned “you should be careful how many times you-“

Movement in his peripheral vision startled him, the body too close, too intent, his awareness narrowing to the sharp shift. His body knew before his mind. Before he found his face.

Laurent froze, taking a sharp step back as Damen’s arm dropped from around him and his body shifted in front of him. Not completely, but enough to position himself as a shield for Laurent without blocking him from view.

Laurent didn’t look but he knew Damen was standing straighter, he was vibrating with it, body coiled and tense even before Laurent met his uncle’s gaze, soaking in the absolute state of his face.

It had been two weeks and though his face was no longer puffy with it and his eye was no longer swollen the evidence of Damen’s fists were still present. The bruises at his jaw and across a cheek bone were yellow, green tinged, almost gone. The eye that had been swollen shut when last Laurent saw him was still purple underneath. There was a pucker above his eyebrow: a line of stitches.

He looked like hell.

Laurent tore his gaze away, settling on the familiar sleek black car before they bounced to the door of his building. He’d been waiting for him.

“Call your guard dog off,”

Laurent ignored him “What the fuck are you doing here?”

His uncle canted his head, eyeing Damen, his expression stern and cold as always.

“That’s between us I think,”

“No,” Damen said immediate, a growl of a noise.

“What part of leave me the fuck alone are you not getting?” Laurent hissed

“Don’t talk to me like that, you might actually want to listen for once nephew,”

“I think you’re the one who needs to listen old man,” Damen said his voice low and calm and all the more intimidating for it “he said fuck off, if you make him say it twice I don’t mind going for round two in the middle of the street, heard a couple ribs crack last time and you’re favouring your right, I know all the places that are tender so you might want to get back in your car and leave because if you thought last time was bad I need to tell you… I was holding back,”

Laurent swallowed, hand straying, fingers finding Damen’s and linking them together. Damen squeezed, a grounding sensation that had Laurent drawing a breath and lifting his chin.

“What could you even-“

Laurent did not expect the sudden movement, his instincts churning up a warning as his uncle’s hand reached for Damen. It took him a few precious seconds to realise his uncle had slapped something to the centre of Damen’s chest. Damen caught it, barely sparing it a glance as he passed it to Laurent, eyes still firmly on his uncle even as Laurent took it from him.

It was an envelope.

His uncle backed up, not even looking at him properly, hands up and expression dripping with condescension as Laurent turned the manilla envelope over in his hands. It was thick. Blank.

“What the fuck is this?” he asked

“The price of silence,”

Laurent reeled, choking on air and the fucking audacity. He threw it on the ground at his feet.

“I don’t want your fucking money,” Laurent hissed

Buying him off? With cash? Absolutely the fuck not. It was dirty money. It was just one more way to control him.

“Should I have printed dozens of prescriptions instead?” his uncle said, picking up the envelope and coming back toward him.

Laurent winced, laughing out loud as Damen lifted his arm, taking a single step forward that had his uncle stumbling several steps back, flinching as though he expected to be hit. Laurent hoped he remembered what it felt like. He hoped any sudden movement for the rest of his life would remind him of Damen barrelling through his front door and breaking his nose before he even had a chance to blink.

“I warned you-“ Damen began

His uncle cut across him “I’ve made your silence worthwhile,” he said shoving the envelope back at Damen “we’re done here, nothing happened, the world spins on,”

Before Laurent could say anything else his uncle got back into his car and drove off without so much as a backward glance. Damen handed the envelope over and Laurent’s hands were shaking as he took it. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, even as Damen steered him through the door and up the stairs to his flat.

Damen let them in, guided Laurent to the sofa and sat beside him, both of them staring down at the envelope in Laurent’s lap like they expected it to explode.

With a deep breath he unwound the string at the top and one peek inside told him it was hundreds. Maybe thousands. The gross slickness clinging to his throat made him feel cheap. Brought. Ashamed all over again. What the fuck was he supposed to do with it?

He threw it onto the coffee table, glaring at it and reached blindly for Damen’s hand, squeezing his fingers probably too hard.

“I want to burn it,” he snapped

When Damen didn’t immediately agree Laurent swivelled to look at him, frowning at the considering expression on Damen’s face.

“You don’t think I should keep it?”

“Not to use,” Damen said “but I think yes, you should keep it, don’t touch it, don’t take it out of the envelope just… just in case you ever need it,”

He could tell from Damen’s tone alone he didn’t mean in the monetary rainy-day sense. He meant proof. Evidence. He wanted to deny it. Shake his head. Throw it out the window or give it to a random person on the street.

Something stopped him. Some awareness in the back of his head beating like a drum, throwing those same words at him.

Just in case.

He put the envelope carefully in his box, with all of the medications and pills, and the one methadone prescription he had never exchanged.

Just in case.

Chapter Text

Damen had said they weren’t having sex for one whole week as part of Laurent’s ongoing punishment. Unfortunately, he had meant one whole week. 

Considering Laurent had stayed at Damen’s house for 5 of those 7 nights, it was truly a testament to Damen’s willpower that they hadn’t had sex, or anything even remotely like it, in all that time.

Frustrating as it was, Laurent did understand it after the way he’d been behaving in recent weeks- using sex as a means to an end. He might even have learned a little something about intimacy because of it. Even though they hadn’t had sex, he had still been emotionally close to Damen. Even physically, sleeping all tangled up in him, the casual touches he was coming to adore and anticipate, showering together as an erotic experience rather than an all-out sexual one. It was a level of intimacy entirely foreign to him. One that, perhaps, he’d shared with Damen for a long time, even before he knew.

Maybe that was the part he’d been chasing with Damen the whole time.

It was a strange semblance of a lesson to learn but it was, surprisingly, just as satisfying. Maybe, possibly, more satisfying. But Laurent was not going to tell Damen. He would go thinking he was right all the time and Laurent wasn’t quite ready not to at least put up a token fight.

The ban was over as of that morning and at the start of the week Laurent had vowed to jump Damen the moment they woke up on Day Eight. But he’d forgotten.

Instead Laurent had basked in Damen’s slow kisses and had been content to lie in his arms until his bladder forced him out of bed.

When they got into the shower Damen had eyed him curiously and it had taken Laurent a few minutes to remember the ban was even over at all. And he still hadn’t made a move or mentioned it.

Now he was sitting on the side of the bath with a towel around his waist, watching Damen shave at the sink. His hands were dragging up and down his own leg which was starting to get stubbly. As was the centre of his chest, just a little prickle, right in the middle. He never let it grow. It was longer than he’d ever allowed it to get.

“I don’t think I want to shave anymore,” Laurent said

Damen switched the razor off, gaze flickering toward him in the mirror “don’t then,”

Chewing on the inside of his lip he waited for Damen to swill his face and dab it dry, inspect his skin, and turn to face him before he spoke again.

“Would you mind though?”

Damen unknotted the towel from around his waist, giving his chest another wipe “why would I mind?”

Laurent dropped his gaze, buffed at his cuticles “some people don’t like it,”

Damen was in front of him before Laurent could blink, tipping his chin up, gaze warm and soft.

 “Body hair doesn’t bother me, what you do is entirely your choice, I’ll like you any which way,”

“Even if I was a worm?” Laurent pouted, barely holding back his smile when Damen rolled his eyes.

“I’d have to be a worm too then I guess,”

Laurent snorted as Damen folded his towel and shoved it into the wash hamper, gaze getting caught on the flex of his muscles and how tight his ass was. Perfect and round and firm. Damen should be naked all the time.

“You mean it? Any which way?”

Damen flashed him a grin “I’d draw the line at one of those tongue split modifications, they freak me out, but otherwise yes, any, I’d still want you,”

“What if I said I wanted to fuck you?”

Laurent held his breath as Damen blinked back at him.

“You want to fuck me?”

Damen’s voice had dropped low and sultry, one hand making a slow trail down his naked stomach, over the tantalising planes of muscle until he was fisting his cock in slow lazy strokes.

Laurent’s answering swallow was thick, gaze snagging on the movement of Damen’s large hand wrapped around himself, very nearly distracting him.

“Yes,” he shook his head, turning his eyes up to meet Damen’s dark stare “maybe… if you-“

“Yes,”

Damen’s immediate agreement heated him even as his stomach fizzed and his heart rate kicked up.

 “I’ve never done it before, so I probably won’t be very good, and you said you’re not that into it and-“

Damen came toward him, his warm, safe hands drawing Laurent to his feet as careful fingers pushed his hair behind his ears. All the whilst Damen’s smile was soft, his expression serious.

“I said it can be good but it’s not my preference, baby if I didn’t want it I would say so, but I do, I want you,”

Laurent breathed out, lips twitching upward despite himself as Damen leaned down to breathe the ghost of a kiss against his mouth.

“So you’ll let me?”

The words were spoken with his eyes closed, a whisper against Damen’s lips. Laurent blinked his eyes open when Damen drew back already shaking his head fondly.

“If you think there’s anything I wouldn’t do with you then you haven’t been paying attention,”

It had been a long time since Laurent was a virgin. When he had been, the thoughts plaguing him as Damen led him back into the bedroom had been fundamentally absent. He had never had a chance to feel them. To think about it. It had all happened without his say so.

As Damen drew him into the circle of his arms and kissed him the way only Damen ever had, Laurent was consumed by the idea of it. Overwhelmed by the very notion. What if he did something wrong? What if Damen didn’t enjoy it? What if he wasn’t as good as-

“Stop thinking,” Damen said against his mouth

Laurent huffed, tore himself away “but what if-“

“Stop thinking,” Damen said dragging him back in with a hand at the nape of his neck.

Despite himself Laurent went, settling against Damen’s chest as his hands slid up the solid muscle of it, fingers finding their way unerringly into his hair. Kissing Damen was the easiest thing in the world, Laurent could bask, or drown, or feel, and it lit him up from the inside all the same.

Damen toppled them to the bed, pulling Laurent on top of him and his thighs instinctively spread over Damen’s lap, undulating against him, their cocks lined up snugly. With a groan Damen flipped them, going up onto his knees between Laurent’s legs as he reached for the lube.

Damen coated his fingers, blinking heavily at him, and Laurent took him in, soaking him up: from his dark stare to his jutting cock and every inch of skin between. This was really happening.

Shifting, Damen crawled over him, straddling Laurent’s chest.

“Give me your mouth,”

Laurent’s mouth fell open without a conscious thought, tongue flattened, already leaning up to suck the tip of Damen’s cock before the sentence was dead in the air. At the same time Damen reached behind himself and Laurent felt the exact moment Damen breached himself with a slick finger.

Laurent reached up, gripping the back of Damen’s thighs to pull him closer, feeding more of his cock into his mouth as his own cock twitched just at the thought of what Damen was doing. The half sight of it: Damen’s hand disappearing behind himself, his hips flexing, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip as his throat worked around low groans.

Humming and slurping around the thick length of Damen’s cock he let his hands slide, cupping Damen’s ass and spreading him open to give him better access, digging his fingers into the meat of him just because he could. Damen’s hands were moving and Laurent was entranced, tangled in what it meant, what Damen was doing to himself as Laurent gazed up the length of Damen’s body, watching his face, sucking his cock like he was being paid and driving his own hips up against air.

Laurent was familiar with wanting Damen. He was familiar with the need to feel full, the empty ache inside him begging for Damen to fill him. It was an altogether different kind of wanting, aching to be buried, to feel tight and hot and Damen in a way he didn’t usually think about.

When Damen groaned and shifted above him, his cock was pulled free from Laurent’s attentive mouth all too soon, a mess of saliva stringing between them, keeping them joined.

“How do you want me?”

Laurent swallowed, coaxed Damen off him and over onto his back so he could kneel between the spread of his thighs. Damen was a vision all laid out for him, miles of tantalising bared skin, ridges, and hard lines and soft eyes. The parting of his thighs was a whisper in the back of Laurent’s head, compelling his hands forward to glide unsteady fingers up Damen’s legs, his eyes drawn down between them, like this was a secret. One Laurent had never considered before Damen. But one he desperately wanted.

“You’re so beautiful,” Laurent said

Damen blinked back at him; his expression as awed as Laurent felt just standing on the precipice of this. This was a first for him. Probably the only first he had left. Maybe the only real first, the only one that mattered. It felt big. Important. He wanted it to be Damen. He was so fucking glad it was with Damen. The only first he’d never regret. The only one that was his choice.

Laurent breathed out, a heavy weight sitting in the middle of his chest and he dropped his chin, wry amusement forcing a smile to his face.

“Laurent?”

“I’m so fucking nervous,” he said, half a laugh, surprised at himself. With how nervous he was.

Afraid of not being good at this. Of hurting Damen. If Damen would even enjoy it. If Damen would compare him to other men he’d been with or-

“You don’t have to do this,” Damen said, voice low and soft “we don’t have to-“

“I want to,” Laurent hurried to say “I want to, I want you to be my first… and only,”

“I want that too,” Damen nodded, beckoning him closer and Laurent went, planting himself on his elbows and dipping down to find Damen’s mouth.

For a few long glorious moments there was nothing but Damen’s mouth, his clever tongue, his gentle fingers at Laurent’s back and the hard press of his body as they shifted, the spark of friction stoking the desire into something more urgent.

“What if I’m not good at this?” Laurent said against his mouth

Damen’s hands stroked at his sides, his legs coming up around Laurent, knees drawn back “it’ll be good because it’s you and I want you, nothing else matters to me except that, it’s just you and me,”

Laurent nodded, pressing his forehead against Damen’s.

“You and me,”

Always. He wanted to say. This is what forever felt like and he knew it. He knew it like he’d never known anything else, no other truth. Just this. He didn’t know one person could feel so much.

At least, not good things.

Leaning back he grabbed for the lube, coating his cock with shaking hands, discarding it beside him on the bed. Damen drew his legs back further, holding himself open by the back of his knees and Laurent swallowed thickly, making a home for himself between them and reaching down to line himself up.

He breathed out and Damen beneath him nodded encouragingly, flashing him a dimpled smile.

The first push forward was tense, too hot, too much, more forceful than he’d foreseen. Damen hissed, eyes flickering closed and Laurent froze, attention glued to his face.

“Should I stop?” he managed, barely breathing

If he did exhale, he might lose himself completely, push deeper, sink all the way in to the enticingly hot promise of Damen’s body and let go. Come before he’d had a chance to make it good for Damen.

“No, it’s just been a while, it’s good, I promise,” Damen encouraged, reaching for him, hand sliding to the small of Laurent’s back to press him closer “keep going, give it to me,”

It was the tightest, hottest sensation he could imagine. An overwhelming sensation because it was Damen. He was inside Damen.

Damen beneath him didn’t make another sound, his expression reassuring, his hand still pressing at the small of his back, drawing Laurent closer and deeper until he was flush, as deep inside Damen as he could possibly be.

Laurent’s breath unfurled on a gasp, his eyes squeezing closed, willing himself not to come too quickly as Damen beneath him and around him rippled, shifting, and clenching down on him. Laurent groaned and Damen hummed his agreement, flexing his hips up encouragingly.

“Come on baby,” Damen said, hands a warm caress over Laurent’s chest and up his neck, drawing Laurent forward into a kiss “fuck me,”

Damen fed the words to him on the tip of his tongue and Laurent gulped them down greedily, let them fill him up as he drew back and thrust forward, being careful as Damen pushed back against him. Moved with him.

He kept it slow, less for Damen’s sake and more for his own as he got used to the sensation. His body knew the rhythm even if his mind was too overwhelmed and drowning in the pleasure of it to think about what he was doing. He thrust into him, hips driving hard against Damen’s ass, panting against his mouth as Damen beneath him made a sound Laurent had never heard from him before. Laurent groaned, chasing it, driving into him harder, mesmerised by his expression and the idea there might be more he hadn’t learned about Damen yet: other new sounds to fuck out of him as Damen took his cock and fucked up to meet him thrust for thrust.

It hit him all over again.

Inside him.

Laurent was so distracted by the heat, by the feel of him, so focused on not coming, he didn’t even notice Damen re-coating his fingers. Didn’t notice until they were pressing cool and slick against his hole. He gasped, stilling, blinking at Damen’s darkened eyes and smirking mouth as he pushed two fingers inside Laurent in one hard thrust.

Choking on a moan Laurent squeezed his eyes closed, willing himself desperately to find some stamina from somewhere when the sensation was too much. Too overwhelming.

“Don’t stop, you feel so good,” Damen smirked, licking into Laurent’s pliant mouth.

Laurent shook his head, moaning as Damen scissored his fingers inside him, stretching him. It was a heady pleasure, his cock throbbing inside Damen whilst Damen’s fingers moved in him. It was tight, too much, a dual sensation ricocheting inside him with imminent promise.

“Damen,” he gasped “if you keep doing that I’m gonna come,”

Beneath him Damen grinned, gripped his own cock with his other hand, stroking it from base to tip and squeezing around the head.

“Come inside me baby,”

Laurent’s chin hit his chest as he groaned, mesmerised by the sight of his cock disappearing into Damen’s body as he fucked into him, helpless to follow the command. Damen’s hand snaked up, pulling him down as Damen curled upward, his mouth at Laurent’s ear, his words a hot ripple sliding all the way down his spine until his toes curled.

“When you come I’m gonna flip you over and fill you up, the sooner you come the sooner you get my cock,”

Laurent’s rhythm faltered, hips stuttering with the blindingly hot arousal slamming through him. It had his balls pulling tight and his cock twitching as he fucked him harder, his orgasm so close he could taste it.

Damen’s fingers in him were an added heady pleasure, sliding inside him, not nearly deep enough but too much all at once. When he was buried inside Damen the stretch of Damen’s fingers were heavier, his body more than full, entirely consumed by him, fucking into him and back on his fingers and it was heaven.

It had his eyes flickering, his chest heaving as he thrust into him and back on his fingers, pleasure a writhing alive thing inside him, too much and so good and fuck-

“Damen,”

He moaned, Damen’s name a slur of elongated noises as he came inside him, moving in short sharp thrusts, milking himself inside Damen’s hot clenching body. He was boneless, sagging over him immediately, panting into Damen’s chest as he reached down to carefully pull out. Damen smirked as he did so and let Laurent push his legs up and back as he stared greedy for the sight, at Damen’s hole.

“Damen, let me see,”

Damen didn’t need another hint, Laurent was eager as Damen’s muscles clenched and relaxed, his hole puffy and red as Damen bore down for him, pushing Laurent’s come out. The trickle prompted a heavy, feral kick of mine deep in Laurent’s chest, primal and innate and overwhelming as he watched his come leaking out of Damen. It was certainly something he’d never had before and he was surprised by the slam of renewed arousal, the pulse low down in his stomach that had him tracing his fingers through it, pushing it back inside as Damen sucked in a breath. It was enough to prompt a heavy full sensation through his groin, his cock twitching with the sight of it alone.

Mine.

“You want to play with my hole or ride me?”

Laurent groaned and pulled his fingers out, scrambling to straddle Damen as quickly as possible. He was more than half hard as he sat astride Damen’s lap and Damen was more than aware, his gaze darting down as he licked his lips and reached to stroke him.

“Look how greedy you are for me,”

Laurent shuddered, sensitive and pulsing with want, his body screaming to have Damen inside him. He swallowed, hitching himself higher so he could position Damen where he wanted him. Damen throbbing in his hand, his cock needy and begging and as wanting as Laurent was.

“Always,” Laurent said as he reached behind himself.

He sank down in one too-quick thrust, seating himself on Damen’s cock, head thrown back as he hissed at the sudden intrusion when he was still throbbing from his orgasm and barely prepped. It burned, but he didn’t care. Panting, he undulated, shifting and grinding on Damen’s cock, digging his fingernails into his chest.

“Fuck, look at you,” Damen hissed “that’s it, ride me, get me off, make me come for you,”

His hands were bruising on Laurent’s hips, guiding him, encouraging him, thrusting up to meet him, fucking him deep and hard and so fucking good Laurent’s cock throbbed, fully hard again as his body pulsed with pleasure and wanton desperation.

“I love the faces you make when I’m inside you,”

“I love having you inside me,” Laurent said biting his lip as he stared down at him, grinding back on his cock “I love being inside you,” he added, grinning at how surreal it was to be able to say it

Damen groaned “yeah? You gonna want to fuck me again baby? Fill me up some more?”

Laurent whimpered, nodding “yes, keep going, please keep-“

“You want to hear how full I felt? How fucking deep you were? How good you felt inside me?” Damen groaned “and I’m the only one who’s ever going to know how it feels to have you inside them, aren’t I? This is mine,” Damen said, reaching out to wrap his fingers around Laurent’s cock, stroking hard.

Laurent moaned, the idea lighting him up as he fucked back harder on Damen’s cock, their gazes locked as his mouth hung open around a litany of wrecked needy noises. Beneath him Damen was focused on him, still-damp curls sticking to his neck and on his forehead, eyes so dark they were nearly black, colour in his cheeks as he stared up at Laurent like he could die right there and be happy.

Laurent echoed the sentiment “yes, Damen,”

“Next time I’ll ride you, hold you down, use you until I’m done, maybe I’ll get you a cock ring so you can’t come until I let you, maybe I’ll tie you up and leave you like that, with a plug and a cock ring, squirming for whatever I decide to give you,” Damen said

Laurent whimpered, slamming down harder, leaning over Damen further until Damen got the hint and reached around, spreading Laurent wide and fucking up into him.

“Please,” Laurent whispered against his neck

Damen moaned, thrusting deep, holding himself there as he cursed and came inside him, coming in stuttered grinding thrusts. Laurent didn’t stop, writhing, slamming back, fucking himself harder and riding Damen through the throes of his orgasm, until the wet come-sticky sound of Damen’s cock driving into his hole was a rhythmic erotic soundtrack to Laurent’s whimpers.

He didn’t even reach down, his orgasm blazed through him, oozing from his cock, painting Damen’s stomach the way he’d painted his insides and Laurent went boneless, docile as he collapsed forward, clenching around Damen’s softening cock unconsciously as he panted against the sweat damp skin of his neck.

He was tumbled onto his side, Damen following him, hands roving over his skin as his mouth skimmed Laurent’s in a shaky breath of a kiss.

“That was fucking hot,”

Laurent’s said the words across Damen’s jaw and Damen’s soft laughter was a quiet rumble Laurent felt in his chest.

“You liked it then?” Damen asked wryly

Laurent leant up, propping himself on his elbow to make sure Damen saw his face.

“I like that I got to share that first with you,” he admitted.

The one thing that hadn’t been forcibly taken from him. Something he had chosen. With someone he loved. Who loved him back. He leant down, kissing Damen’s smile from his mouth.

“And only ever you,”

Damen hummed, one hand snaking up to thread into the back of Laurent’s hair, tugging him into a long, slow kiss Laurent felt all the way to his toes.

“I like that too,” Damen smiled, smoothing Laurent’s hair away from his face with gentle fingertips.

“I’m starving,” Laurent said, mostly to make Damen grin.

And he did so, rolling onto his back and rising to his feet, offering Laurent the best kind of view. His gaze went unerringly to his thighs, to the dribble of Laurent’s come still sticky between them as Damen went to the wardrobe.

“You thought anymore about the police?” Damen asked, interrupting Laurent’s quiet ogling.

Laurent sent him a glare Damen didn’t see or look back at.

“Damen,” he warned

Damen span around, pulling on his boxers and holding his hands up “alright, fancy going out for lunch?”

As quickly as Laurent had tensed he let it loose again, shaking his head at Damen who grinned back at him as though nothing else had ever been part of the conversation.

“You’re paying, to make up for the police comment,” Laurent said

Damen rolled his eyes but he didn’t kick up a fuss.

~*~

Having Aimeric on his sofa on a Saturday night with a bottle of wine open on the coffee table was weirdly nostalgic. Laurent had spent so many nights over the past few years exactly like this. Taking it for granted and sometimes even refusing to consider Aimeric as his friend. It was technically Halloween weekend, and unlike every other year, they were staying in, their night wasn’t going to end at a club, and he had a text from Damen telling him he loved him and to enjoy his night flashing on his phone screen.

When Laurent was done replying he turned his attention back to Aimeric, who had paused his soliloquy to grin at him.

“What?” he asked, nudging Aimeric with his foot.

“I know that was Damen because your whole face changed and I still cannot believe that you are in love,”

Laurent groaned, sinking down further into the corner of his sofa, brandishing his glass at Aimeric.

“Shut up, I’ll be unbearable when it’s you if you don’t,” he warned

Predictably and entirely on cue, Aimeric smothered his face with his hands and groaned, launching right back into his issues with Jord. Or rather, his complete lack of issues, save for the glaring fact Jord still hadn’t made a move.

“Have you ever thought of just, I don’t know, kissing him?” Laurent asked

The way Aimeric gaped at him made him snort into his wine glass.

“I’m not you,”

“Say it then,”

“Again, I am not you,” Aimeric said giving him a little kick “besides-“

The knock at his front door made them both pause, turning to stare at his living room doorway as though either of them would be able to tell who it was.

Aimeric smirked, eyebrows up “oh my god can you and Damen not spend like, a single night apart?”

Laurent rolled his eyes, untangling himself from the sofa. If it was Damen he was more than welcome to join them but Laurent had very much been under the impression he had a gaming date with his friends.

When he pulled the door open his stomach sank, mouth opening, unsure what he could even say. Nicaise barely looked at him, shouldering into the flat, lips compressing around the bright condemning split in the bottom one. The red mark on his face a bruise waiting to happen, flashing at Laurent like an accusation.

“Wait, Nicaise,”

The few frozen seconds cost him and he slammed the door, but Nicaise didn’t listen and Laurent didn’t have chance to properly warn him he wasn’t alone. He raced after Nicaise but it was already too late when Laurent barrelled into the room and stepped around Nicaise to see his face.

Nicaise had frozen in his living room, his shoulders pulling up, the entire line of his spine stiff as he crossed his arms over his chest and turned his face down. A cornered cat. Laurent’s gaze flit to Aimeric, watched him recoil, his expression all shock, face entirely drained of colour.

Laurent had never told him Nicaise came over sometimes. He hadn’t wanted to upset Aimeric and maybe it had been the wrong thing to do, but he couldn’t imagine a world where his name would have been a welcome one for Aimeric.

The moment Aimeric rose to his feet Nicaise’s entire demeanour changed, he took a step back, sucking in an inhale that was loud in the pin-drop silence. His face was ghostly pale.

“I’m sorry,” Aimeric breathed, before Laurent could even attempt to speak.

He held his breath, whipping his face toward Nicaise as he struggled.

Nicaise’s startling blue eyes were glassy, his swallow thick as he bunched his hands into fists in his sleeves. His bottom lip trembled and Laurent almost stepped forward, compelled by an instinct he didn’t know he had. Aimeric beat him to it, rushing toward him and dragging Nicaise close. Laurent flinched, expecting Nicaise to fight him but he didn’t. He melted against Aimeric, burying his face in his chest as his arms went around him.

Aimeric whispered to him and Nicaise responded, something fragile and painful passing between them that Laurent wasn’t privy to. He didn’t have those memories. And he was thankful. He stepped away, going back to his spot on the sofa, eyes straying toward their entwined figures even when he tried to give them privacy.

It was gentle, all whispered words and sniffles and Laurent’s throat was tight with the radiating emotion. There were tears, because Aimeric was swiping so fucking carefully at Nicaise’s face Laurent’s eyes stung in response.

Busying himself with anything other than witnessing their private moment, he wandered into his kitchen, grabbed a can of coke for Nicaise, some tissues, and some pain killers just in case.

When he went back to the living room they were both sat down. Nicaise in the middle of the sofa with Aimeric back in his previous spot, except this time he wasn’t curled up, this time he had his arm laid across Nicaise’s lap and Nicaise-

Laurent nearly dropped his bounty, shocked by the sight of Aimeric’s wrist, and Nicaise’s curious fingers as he traced the jagged scars Aimeric hadn’t even let Laurent see. He excused himself back to the kitchen, forcing his lungs to work properly, his heart to calm down, images flashing in his mind that he couldn’t stop.

Aimeric on the floor. An image that would haunt him for the rest of his life. And more. Shadows, vague notions, pale skin and dark hair, glassy eyes and hands on him. A night he didn’t want to ever remember.

Composing himself took a few long moments and when he went back in to the living room Aimeric had his sleeves pulled back down and his hands both wrapped around his wine glass, clutching it tight.

Wordlessly, Laurent handed Nicaise the coke and sat on Nicaise’s other side, studying his profile.

“Did he do that?” Laurent asked

Nicaise took a long swig of his drink, shuffling back and let his head hit the back of the sofa. His eyes closed, cheek bone bright red and glowing, the split in his lip a bloody little line.

“Yeah,” Nicaise said

Laurent swapped an uneasy glance with Aimeric who was staring back at him with a crease between his brow. His worry palpable.

“What happened?” Aimeric asked, voice softer than Laurent had ever heard it.

Even in the hospital. Even when he was sobbing or apologising or-

It had Nicaise tipping his head back up, the immediate scowl softening in turn when he met Aimeric’s concerned expression.

“There’s a boy,” Nicaise said, side eyeing Laurent as he spoke.

Laurent nodded, encouraging, and Nicaise sucked in a deep breath.

“He left a hickey, I didn’t even know- I wasn’t aware of it until, well until,” he breathed out a ragged unamused laugh “guess he doesn’t like sharing unless he’s in control,”

“Has he hit you before?” Aimeric asked

Nicaise shook his head “no but he’s been-“ he shrugged “something happened, he says he was mugged but I don’t know, he’s been different,”

Laurent stiffened despite himself and Aimeric sent him a wide-eyed glance, enough between the two of them to alert Nicaise. Hyperaware as always.

“What?” he asked, fidgeting, gaze ping-ponging between them

Laurent relented with a sigh, took a fortifying swig of his drink.

“He wasn’t mugged, it was Damen,”

“Damen, as in? Damen? Your Damen?”

Your Damen.

Laurent smiled despite himself, nodded “I told him everything and he went and beat the shit out of him,”

Nicaise snorted, soaking it in before laughing, throwing his head back. It prompted a surprised giggle from Aimeric too who watched Nicaise closely.

“He fucked him up,” Nicaise chuckled, his laughter still apparent in his voice “no wonder he’s been so fucking weird,”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know but if I didn’t know better I’d say he was paranoid or on something, he keeps looking out the window every time there’s a noise like he’s expecting someone, he’s been angrier, I guess,”

The guilt was blinding, instant, a slap to the centre of his chest.

“I’m so sorry Nicaise, I didn’t even-“

Nicaise waved a hand at him, dismissing it “it’s fine, I would have paid money to see it I think,”

“Me too,” Aimeric offered

Laurent couldn’t blame them, it was an image he himself clung to, turned over in his head over and over again. Satisfying and strange in equal measure.

“So you and Damen?” Nicaise asked

Laurent nodded but Aimeric answered

“Annoyingly in love and completely sickening,”

Nicaise cackled, hitting Laurent none-too-gently “you’re fucking welcome,”

Laurent batted his hands away, rolling his eyes. He was never going to let Laurent forget it. He already fucking knew.

“So, tonight?” Laurent prompted “are you okay? Do we need to take you to-“

Nicaise groaned, giving him such a disdainful look Laurent might, if he were anyone else, have shrank from it.

“No, it’s a bruise, I’ll be fine but I-“ he fidgeted and the change in his demeanour was not lost on either himself or Aimeric.

“You… what?” Laurent prompted.

“I stole something,” Nicaise said “insurance I’m calling it, so, would I be able to leave it here?”

“From my uncle?”

Nicaise nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out a sleek black rectangle.

It took Laurent a few moments to place it, to realise what he was looking at and when he did he sucked in a breath.

A hard drive

“He’s got a lot of them, he won’t miss one and if he does, well,” Nicaise shrugged “at least then he’ll know I’m serious,”

He put it down on the coffee table and they all stared at it

“You’re asking me to hide what is most likely child pornography in my flat,” Laurent said carefully

“Well what else am I supposed to do with it? Give it back?”

“Of course not, taking it is smart but-“

“The police should see it,”

They both turned to Aimeric. He reached for it, hand stilling midair as he hesitated before snatching his hand back.

“Aimeric-“ Laurent warned, shaking his head

“Laurent,” Aimeric hissed back at him

Nicaise between them shifted uneasily, head turning from one to the other of them, measuring.

“You think we should go to the police?” Nicaise asked, attention on Aimeric

“No,” Laurent interrupted “he’s just-“

“Laurent shut up,” Aimeric said “we should at least talk about it,”

“Why?” Laurent asked “why do you want to go to the police?”

There must have been something in his voice because Aimeric’s expression changed, morphed, slid from defensive into something careful that grated at Laurent’s senses.

“Because I don’t know another way to hurt him,”

The words slammed into him, knocking the air out of him and Laurent choked on it, on the feeling swelling in his chest that was all pain and hurt and every single flinch of shame he’d ever felt.

“I want him to feel,” Aimeric said, voice clogging with emotion “what he made me feel, even if only for a moment,”

The silence following his words was deafening, a static brutal silence that had Laurent blinking at Aimeric and swapping an uneasy glance with Nicaise.

“Do you agree?”

Nicaise bit his lip, staring at the hard drive on the table. When he turned his eyes back up his resolve was palpable.

“I think if I don’t then he’ll marry my mom and have his own kids and-“ he swallowed “I don’t know if I can watch that,”

No, no Laurent couldn’t have watched either. If he’d had younger siblings, he could never have stomached watching the same thing happen to them. Did they have an obligation? Not just as revenge, but an obligation to any children out there that would become his victims. Could they stop it? Save them?

After this moment, this one moment, any other child would be on his conscious no matter what he did. It would haunt him. If they didn’t, if they stayed quiet and kept their heads down, stayed safe, Laurent would inevitably spend hours lost in that thought.

“We’d have to tell them every last awful detail, you get that? Not just once, over and over, it’d probably be in the papers, local if not national, it’ll be on the news, if they take us seriously and it gets that far we’ll have to sit in the witness box in court and let the defence tear us apart whilst he’s sitting right there, tell a whole room everything, probably have to watch video evidence and photos and-“ Laurent cut himself off “I don’t know if I can do that,”

“Okay,” Aimeric said “but what happens if we don’t?”

“Aimeric-“

“He’ll find a way to reel me back in, I know he will,” Aimeric said “I’m tired of flinching every time there’s a knock at my door, or when my phone rings, I’m tired of feeling like I’m waiting for something all the time, I’m just tired Laurent,”

Laurent turned his gaze on Nicaise, tracking him as he swallowed and fidgeted with his hands.

“If I don’t say something it’ll never stop, I’ll end up living with him and then what? Watch myself die little by little in the mirror every day?” Nicaise frowned

“And when they see the video of us and him?” Laurent asked

They could very really be in a lot of trouble for it. They should be, realistically. Nicaise was fucking fourteen years old.

Aimeric blanched, swallowing thickly “you were clearly drugged,”

“You weren’t Aimeric,” Laurent said

Nicaise hissed at him, like a cat “shut up, you don’t remember any of it, Aimeric cried the whole time and the video- it’s awful, you can hear him in the background making threats when Aimeric hesitated, he didn’t do anything wrong, he didn’t have a choice,”

God, that-

Laurent could barely breathe through the clenching in his chest, the constriction grabbing at his throat like a hand, stealing the air from him. Nicaise was right, wasn’t he? Laurent and Aimeric could, maybe, get away and stay away. It wasn’t a guarantee and Aimeric was right in that Laurent had been looking over his shoulder and waiting for the other shoe to drop every single second for the last few weeks.

But Nicaise?

Nicaise was not getting away. His mother knew, might marry the prick and then what? Silence condemned Nicaise and all the boys like him that would come after him. It wasn’t about them, it was about Nicaise. The others that should never have to know what it was like.

“Well, it’s not like we don’t have evidence,” Laurent said, offering Aimeric a shaky smile

Aimeric squeezed his eyes closed, lacing his fingers together and dropping his forehead down to his knees. Breathing. Just breathing.

“All of our stories,” Aimeric said rising back up “the hard drive… it’s enough, right? For them to at least arrest him?”

Laurent shrugged “I would think so but I don’t know, I really don’t,”

Aimeric bit his lip, eyes flickering thoughtfully to Nicaise.

“I’m sorry to ask this,” Aimeric said blinking at Nicaise

“What? Don’t look at me like that just spit it out,”

Aimeric hesitated, canting his head at Laurent. All at once Laurent knew exactly what Aimeric wanted to know.

“Has he fucked you recently and would there be evidence of it?” Laurent said pointedly

Nicaise shifted, a smile breaking over his face “right before I came out the house and I didn’t stop to shower,”

He laughed and though he was the only one who found it funny the glance Laurent exchanged with Aimeric was relieved.

“Well, there’s our immediate evidence,” Laurent said

Fuck, were they doing this? Were they really going to go through with it?

“Do we call? Or…” Aimeric trailed off and Laurent jumped to his feet.

“No, if we call I’ll second guess it, we need to go to a station, Nicaise bring the hard drive,”

Laurent excused himself to his bedroom, finding the envelope and a few of the errant prescription boxes, the fucking methadone prescription his uncle had signed. When he had it all laid out he was fumbling for his phone. He dialled Damen, chewing on his bottom lip as he waited for him to answer.

“Hey you,”

Something unwound in his shoulders the moment he heard his voice, he could hear the smile there and he clung to the warmth it prompted in his stomach.

“How’s it going?”

“Damen can you come and pick us up?”

Damen on the other end of the line paused whatever was on the TV in the background, his game, his film, his show, whatever it was there was silence.

“What’s wrong?”

Laurent breathed out “we’re going to go to the police, Nicaise is here and- can you take us please?”

Damen reassured him, promised he’d be there in 20 minutes and Laurent’s sigh was all relief even as his stomach churned at the idea of having to talk about it. Tell people. There would be no going back.

Damen drove them to the nearest police station and the silence in the car was thick, stewing, brimming with too many emotions. Laurent squirmed in his seat, unsure what to do with himself, where to put his hands, couldn’t remember how to swallow or breathe or think beyond the scream in his head telling him this was a bad idea. That bad things would happen.

He supposed, that scream, that voice, was the main reason why he should.

When they pulled up Laurent was not surprised Damen parked. Neither was he surprised when Damen climbed out the car with them. Laurent let himself fall into Damen’s side, watched Nicaise and Aimeric make their way up the steps and disappear inside the Police Station. Laurent wasn’t afraid to follow. He just needed to soak Damen in a little more first.

“I’m sorry I asked you to be here for this,”

Damen tutted and drew him closer, wrapping his arms around him and let Laurent bury his face in his chest.

“I can do it by myself, I know I can, but I just-“

Didn’t want to.

“I’ll be right here when you get out, for whatever you need,” Damen said gripping his fingers tight “I love you, and I’m proud of you,”

“I love you too,”

Laurent breathed out, nodding like he wasn’t about to shit himself and let his hand find Damen’s. It was enough knowing he would be there, waiting, ready to catch him if Laurent fell apart in the interview he assumed he was going to be have to do.

With one last deep breath he steeled himself, and went inside.

~*~

October, 1 year later

If Laurent got any more paint in his hair he was going to quit. He had no idea how he was making it so messy but, apparently, he was too vigorous with the roller.

“I don’t think I like this colour after all,” he said

The room was bright and airy, the weak sunlight spilling in through the high banked windows offering a view of an ample well-tended garden. It was quaint and homey and he suspected the rusty magenta of the walls would be repainted before the spring.

“I told you,” Auguste said brandishing his paintbrush like an accusation.

He wasn’t faring much better, he had streaks of it on his forearms, flecks on his face and in the stubble of his jaw. One of them had stepped in it at least, if the state of the dust covers on the floor was any indication.

“Well, it didn’t look so bad in the tin,” Laurent said

Auguste groaned “she’s having a break down, which means I’m going to have a breakdown, you know she called me last night and kept me on the phone for nearly an hour, talking about dating profiles,”

The horror in his brother’s voice was matched by the state of his face and Laurent barely held back his own shudder. He did not want to think about his mother like that please and thanks. As far as he was concerned, she was entirely asexual and both himself and Auguste were conceived immaculately.

“Move in with someone,” Laurent said “it’s the perfect excuse, when she calls me and she’s prattling too long I just tell her Damen needs me and I have to go,”

It certainly came in handy, even if his mother was probably starting to suspect Damen was a needy and demanding boyfriend. Ironic, given the way Laurent felt most days.

“How did Damen get out of this again?” Auguste groused

Every weekend -and several weeknights between- had been devoted to helping their mother decorate her new house. To say she had cleaned their father out in the divorce was an understatement.

Laurent enjoyed the idea probably more than was acceptable.

His mother hadn’t known. When she found out, and she found out Aleron had known- Laurent had never heard his mother swear and had certainly never seen her strike anyone. Multiple times. In quick bruising succession.

“He’s at his house, the tenant called, something about not being able to turn the switch on the water main? I don’t know,”

“I don’t get why you won’t just let him sell it,” Auguste said

Auguste wouldn’t. Laurent knew Damen well enough to know if he sold his house, he’d buy them a house outright and he’d put Laurent’s name on it and Laurent didn’t want him to. Not whilst he couldn’t contribute.

He wanted them to be equal but the tenants were getting on Damen’s last nerve. The plan was to rent it out whilst Laurent was at university, and that in turn paid for the house they were renting together. He was fairly sure the annoying tenants were going to force the issue because Damen’s patience was at the very ends of what he could suffer.

“I don’t want to feel like it’s unequal, I can’t afford a house right now and I’m not going to be able to for years-“

“Exactly, so what are you going to do? Rent for the next ten years?” Auguste snorted “Laurent it’s Damen he won’t see it as equality, he’ll see it as some what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours bullshit,”

“I know that, but I don’t want to feel like a burden or like-“

“Oh my god get a fucking grip,” Auguste laughed “What’s the real issue? Damen would be fucking beside himself if you let him, he loves that shit, he has the money, he has a good job,”

“And I don’t yet,”

“Yes but you’re working on it, so fucking let him because if it was the opposite way around, or in the future if Damen wanted to take time out to like, get a PhD or whatever, you’d do it for him, no?”

“Of course I would,”

“Why?”

“Because I love him and I’d want him to…” he trailed off, groaning as a wide grin split Auguste’s face “alright, shut up, I’ll think about it,”

An hour or two later their mother was returning, laden with bags from whatever decorating store she’d cleared out. Laurent couldn’t even be enthusiastic about what she showed him because it just looked like a bunch of stuff he and Auguste were going to have to do.

Well, not whatever the drill was for. That sounded like a Damen problem.

Auguste excused himself to the bathroom, cursing as he tried valiantly to get the paint off his face and it left Laurent alone with his mother.

In years gone by she’d been an absent figure. Physically and -he now know- mentally. It was strange to see her with a wide smile and buzzing with energy. Stranger still when she touched his cheek and pulled him into a hug. No matter how many times she had done so over the last year, it still surprised him. It surprised him more that he had no will or want to pull away from her.

Laurent hugged her back, smiled into her shoulder when she tutted about the paint in his hair and watched her closely when she pulled back.

“Have you had an update? Heard anything?” she asked

Laurent shook his head, he hadn’t spoken to Detective Vannes this week and he’d been getting better at not harassing her for an update every other day. He wished someone had warned him a year ago how long the process was.

They weren’t anywhere near a trial yet either. Vannes had told him the criminal justice system was slow. He hadn’t thought she meant glacial.

“No, they’re still tracing the people in the videos, same old same old,”

Laurent had been shown countless photos. Fucking endless stills of face after face. He’d been shown lists of people, a rolodex of names and notes - as Nicaise had said- to see if he recognised any or knew anything that would help the police track down the ones who had no address in the notes.

It was mortifying how much he didn’t know. He didn’t recognise anyone. Didn’t know any names, had to explain over and over they never told Laurent their real names and Laurent couldn’t remember any pertinent addresses.

Not even after he started intensive therapy. He wasn’t exactly displeased a lot of his memories were lost to him. He didn’t fucking want them. Blocked, repressed, or gone, it was all the same to him.

Aimeric had been more helpful, could recall more detail than Laurent. Nicaise had been invaluable, a little sponge of information who’d faced the whole thing with an enviable kind of courage Laurent didn’t really have even now.

It had taken a few days for an arrest to be made. A few weeks more before the story broke. Locally at first, and then nationally. Neither Laurent, nor Aimeric, nor any of the other boys -some men now- who’d been located had waived their right to anonymity so their faces and names were never printed. It was still hard to see it in the papers, hear about it on the news knowing it was about him.

It had died down now, but Vannes had assured him that when the trial came around it would be a frenzy. It was, after all, one of the largest caches of child pornography they’d discovered in the country. Let alone Marlas.

The evidence dated back years. Well before Laurent was born. The kind of horrifying span of time that had allowed his uncle to get complacent. To get cocky. He hadn’t even tried to hide any of it. Not really. He had been remanded into custody without bail, kept in a high security sex offender wing for his own safety. People like his uncle wouldn’t survive very long in general population.

The news had broken to his family before the public. Broken because they arrested Aleron, and had interviewed both his mother and Auguste. They’d heard everything. They had no evidence against Aleron, no way to prove he had known, so they couldn’t hold him as an accessory and had to let him go and really, Laurent didn’t care. The man had lost everything anyway. Mud sticks, allegations never go away.

His mother had sobbed when she’d seen him, her pain as palpable to him as his own. She had filed for immediate divorce and slowly, at first, she had integrated into Laurent’s life as though he was twelve years old all over again and still very much a mommy’s boy. Slowly, little by little, she opened up some about the extent of what she had endured with his father for all those years and it was hard to hold a grudge or be resentful when Laurent knew exactly what it had been like.

Auguste though.

Auguste. Laurent had never seen his brother cry before that. When he’d shown up at Laurent’s flat frantic and horrified and murderous.

It didn’t make the past okay, but it did all go some way to make it worth it. The long interviews, the anxiety of the pending trial, the saturation in the news, the whispers in the city. Laurent wasn’t sure he would have coped without Damen.

“Alright, we’re going, call us if you need us,” Auguste said breezing back into the room and pressing a kiss to their mother’s cheek.

Laurent followed suit, accepting the soft hand at his cheek and the tight hug she gave him again before he followed Auguste out to his car.

“I’m going to tell her I’m allergic to paint,” Auguste groused the moment they drove off

Laurent snorted, flashing him a grin “paint or hard work?”

Auguste hit him none-too-gently for his quip and spent the fifteen-minute drive from their mothers to Laurent’s roasting the shit out of him. Good naturedly, mostly, but Auguste never could help himself. It was his normal.

“You still coming over later?” Laurent asked as Auguste pulled up outside the house Laurent shared with Damen.

“Is Damen still cooking?”

Laurent rolled his eyes “yes, it’s all him don’t worry,”

Laurent may have given Auguste food poisoning once a few months ago, and because he was Auguste he’d been a shit about it ever since.

“Then yes, we’ll be there,”

Laurent absolutely did not miss the we part of his sentence.

“Ah yes, the infamous firefighter at last,”

Auguste laughed, giving him a shove “you won’t tease when you see him, now get out of my car,”

Laurent went, rolling his eyes when Auguste flipped him off as he drove away.

The house was quiet when he let himself in, the low hum of the TV in the front room the only indicator that Damen was home. Laurent went straight into the living room and threw his jacket over the back of the sofa neither of them ever sat on and kicked his shoes off, grinning as Damen unfolded himself from the sofa they did like. He was wearing nothing but an old pair of shorts that were barely longer than his underwear and Laurent’s gaze lingered on the definition of muscle in his thighs like he always did. If there was one thing he had learned about living with Damen it was that he was allergic to being fully clothed if he didn’t have to be.

Laurent had precisely 0 complaints about it.

“How was it?”

Laurent gestured to his hair wordlessly, pouting for all he was worth.

The smile Damen flashed him was all amusement “oh that colour is an interesting choice,”

“You hate it,”

“Yes,” Damen laughed and gestured to the floor in front of him where he dropped a cushion “come sit,”

It took Damen twenty minutes to painstakingly pick the dried flakes of paint out of Laurent’s hair and five minutes more before Laurent let him move because he really loved getting a head massage.

Damen groaned as he lay back on the sofa, already shifting to press himself against the back of it before Laurent had even gotten to his feet. He slid down easily into the space Damen created for him, pressing himself close and closing his eyes when Damen’s arms went around him.

Decorating was tiring work.

The TV was a quiet mumble and with his head pressed against Damen’s chest it was drowned out by the steady thrum of his heartbeat. When Damen’s hands started a slow drift up and down his spine Laurent sighed, any remaining tension leaking out of him.

In their quiet moments he found peace. Something so foreign to him it took him a long time to adjust to the absence of anxiety, or restlessness, or fear. It was something no one had ever told him: how used to a state of being a body could become. Separate from his mind. An unconsciously attuned thing that did not know how to behave without stress every single day.

It was a strange and uncomfortable thing to admit and get used to. More often than not it had him feeling like he had somehow conned his way into his current life. As though any minute he would wake from a very vivid dream.

His therapist said it was because he still did not feel worthy of happiness.

And maybe it was true but he was trying. He was trying very hard and sometimes he wasn’t trying at all and it came naturally; imagining the future and the things he could do. Things he wanted to experience. Places he wanted to go.

Things he just wanted.

There was one thing he wanted. One thing he wanted more than anything. So much he had lost countless hours daydreaming about it, thinking about it. Half planning it in his head before he even realised what he was doing. In truth, it had been on his mind for a long time. The thing he wanted to do. Or rather, the thing he wanted to ask.

But he couldn’t, not yet. He promised himself he would ask when it was over. When it was done. When he was free and the spectre of his past had been removed and he no longer had to think about court or trials or interviews. He already knew the answer he would get to his question. He was sure. He was surer than he had ever been about anything but now wasn’t the right time.

Until it was he’d dream of one day and hope it came sooner rather than later.

Damen’s finger against his forehead, a slow gentle caress, had him peeling his eyes open, blinking and snagging on the quiet warmth in Damen’s eyes.

“What are you thinking?”

His voice was hushed and Laurent let out a quiet amused breath. Damen read him far too easily.

“About what happens when it’s over,” he said

His hand drifted, unconscious, his fingertips mapping a trail over Damen’s ribs, into the divots and grooves of his abdomen. Laurent fucking loved his body. It was the background on his phone and his lockscreen. And he had taken, recently, to snapping photos of him when Damen wasn’t paying attention. Laurent was being entirely normal about it.

One day, maybe, he’d ask Damen to film them together. When cameras didn’t remind Laurent of anything horrific anymore. Not now, not whilst the trial was still looming, the evidence and stills upon stills and hours upon hours of footage too fresh in his mind.

But one day. Damen was visual, he liked that stuff and though he would never ask or expect it, Laurent wanted him to have it. He was working on it. A surprise he was building up to.

“What will happen?” Damen asked

His hands weren’t still either, Damen’s never were. Damen sought him out, if they were close together, would move closer if they weren’t. His fingers playing with the ends of his hair, the tips of Laurent’s fingers, fitting his palm against his hip, or his waist, his thumbs finding the tension in Laurent’s foot, or grazing up beneath his jeans to touch his ankle.

Laurent was no better but Damen was the sun and Laurent was helplessly in his orbit. Helpless and happy about it. He never knew he enjoyed being touched so much. Especially when it didn’t involve sex.

“Nothing probably,” Laurent admitted “closure maybe, though I don’t know if I know what that will look like,”

Laurent’s fingers traced the cut of Damen’s V, following the divot, moving across until his thumb was brushing the trail of hair that led downward. Laurent followed that too, fingers seeking and mindless as he drifted beneath the waist of Damen’s shorts and curled his hand around his cock. It was soft and Laurent was always shocked by the intimacy of holding him like this. The comfort of it when it was devoid of any sexual intention.

“Only you get to decide what closure looks like,”

Laurent smiled, marauding fingers stilling, settling the weight of Damen’s cock in his hand, rolling the skin between his thumb and palm absently.

“In that case I’ve decided it’ll look like a holiday or a really big piss up, one or the other,”

Damen snorted, as he leant forward to press a brief kiss to Laurent’s readily upturned mouth.

“We’ll do whatever you want,”

“Whatever we want,” Laurent amended

Damen huffed a laugh against his mouth “same thing,”

Laurent, as always, melted beneath his quiet attention. Damen’s brand of devotion was unassuming and simple and yet it surprised him every time, just how loved he could make Laurent feel without doing much of anything at all.

“How tired are you?” Laurent asked

He tightened his grip, stroking Damen slowly as he shifted, hooking his leg over Damen’s thigh. Damen shook his head, forehead softly nudging his.

“Not at all now,”

Laurent grinned, licking his way straight into Damen’s mouth and Damen’s answering groan and the hard clasp of his palm against Laurent’s ass was enough to make his cock start to thicken in the tight confides of his jeans.

He lost himself to the kiss for long lazy moments, all tongue and breath and grinning teases, a chase and retreat, a game as their hands roved and Laurent stroked Damen’s cock harder, relishing the feel of him getting heavier and firmer in his fingers.

“Off,” Damen said plucking at the waistband of Laurent’s jeans

Laurent snorted, half falling inelegantly backwards to put himself on the floor so he could shimmy out of his jeans and underwear. Whilst he was down there he retrieved the errant bottle of lube that seemed to live either under the sofa or in the drawer of the coffee table.

Rising to his feet he found Damen had stripped himself and Laurent threw the lube at him, grinning when it hit him in the stomach.

“Don’t do that, I have ball torture PTSD from you,”

Laurent cackled, reaching behind himself to tug his shirt off as Damen coated his cock.

“It hit you in the balls like barely,” Laurent reminded him.

It hadn’t and it hadn’t been a bottle of lube that he’d chucked in Damen’s direction but a fairly big dildo. In Laurent’s defence he had been digging it out of the toybox expecting Damen was paying attention. It wasn’t his fault Damen had not been looking and it wasn’t his fault his blind throw had caught Damen in the balls. Laurent, because he was a very good boyfriend, had spent five minutes absolutely howling with laughter whilst Damen grumbled in pain and tried to pretend he wasn’t also laughing.

“It was enough thank you very much,”

Damen was smiling as he said it, and Laurent leant over him to kiss it from his mouth before settling on his side back on the sofa. He faced away this time, plastering his back to Damen’s chest. Damen’s mouth was at his neck instantly, worrying the skin between his teeth in a tease as he swiped the excess lube at Laurent’s hole.

When he was done his hand drifted down Laurent’s thigh, palm skimming the slight red marks still adorning his skin. He had matching pink marks around his shins, where, just last night, they had been tied together with red rope. His thighs to his shins, a spreader bar at his ankles and his wrists locked behind his back. Only his legs were twinging, and his cock when he thought about it, stomach thrumming with a steady throb of arousal.

As much as Laurent enjoyed the sex, and the mental release of the scenes they did when Laurent needed it, it was the marks he loved best. They made him feel owned.

“How are these?” Damen asked against his neck, fingers skimming the marks.

Laurent hummed, grinding backward, sliding his ass against the line of Damen’s cock.

“Good,”

Damen grinned against his skin “want more?”

Laurent groaned, flinging his arm up to thread his fingers into Damen’s hair.

“Always,” he said craning his neck in answer

The bite was quick and hard, a sharp burst of sensation followed by the wet tease of Damen’s mouth sucking at his neck, tongue lapping at the indents of his teeth left in Laurent’s skin. The shudder of arousal slipping down his spine and heating his skin made him groan, writhing against Damen’s body in slow undulations.

Damen didn’t stop sucking at his skin, tugging a bruise to the surface even as he reached down and positioned himself at Laurent’s hole. He didn’t push in right away, he prodded at him, thrusting lightly, pushing the head inside over and over until Laurent whimpered.

“Please,”

As soon as the word was out of his mouth Damen gave him what he wanted, thrusting inside slow and patient until he was as deep as he could possibly get. Laurent let out a long breath, dropping his fingers from Damen’s hair so he could nudge his head back, peek up at him from over his shoulder.

Damen was already looking at him, sliding an arm beneath Laurent and splaying his hand at his chest as his other coaxed Laurent’s leg up. He lifted it, letting Damen hook it over his arm, taking the weight of it as he started to move.

It was a lazy kind of pace, unhurried, let Laurent close his eyes and savour every second of it. The way the hard hot line of Damen’s cock inside him had his body pulsing, the fan of his breath at his neck, the pinch of his fingers on his thigh where Damen was holding it, the sweet perfection of the breathy noises Damen let loose that merged with Laurent’s choppy quiet groans.

He sought Damen’s hand, tangling their fingers on his chest, reached down with the other to stroke his cock, as leisurely as Damen was thrusting into him, grinding deep, breathing words against his ear that had goosebumps erupting down his neck and a contrasting heat burning hotter and hotter in his stomach and balls and cock where he was starting to leak.

“I want to stay like this all night,” Laurent said, flexing his hips back, encouraging Damen deep.

Damen bit his earlobe in answer, the rumble of his mouth a dark sensual sound that had Laurent arcing like it was a reflex.

“Imagine what the guests would say,” Damen teased, voice playful

Laurent laughed despite himself, clenching hard around Damen as he did so.

“Fair point,” he managed “fuck, ok, let me turn over,”

Damen stilled instantly and Laurent pulled himself off Damen’s cock, flipped over to face him and hooked his leg high over Damen’s waist, fingers going unerringly up into Damen’s hair. When Damen pushed back inside his fingers tightened, tugging gently at Damen’s curls as he grinned back at him, the dark look on his face so fucking hot and precisely the reason he’d wanted to flip around.

“Fuck me,”

He breathed the words against Damen’s mouth, sank his teeth into his bottom lip and Damen’s answering groan lit him up.

“Hold on then,”

Damen held him close with one arm, hand clamped around the back of Laurent’s neck, with his other he dug his fingers into the meat of Laurent’s ass and spread him wider, pulling out slowly and flashing him a smirk before sinking back inside hard and fast.

Laurent moaned instantly, tightening his fingers in Damen’s hair, hooking his leg tighter and held Damen’s gaze as Damen fucked into him, hard and fast and fucking relentless. He couldn’t look away, panting as Damen gripped him hard, spreading him wide and pounding into him, pulling noises from him that their neighbours might not appreciate. The sofa beneath them rattled precariously and Laurent’s toes were curling, cock throbbing where it was rubbing up against Damen’s hard stomach.

“I’m gonna come,” Laurent said “fuck, there, so close-“

He cut himself off to throw his head back, breaking the eye contact to moan, riding out the waves of pleasure as Damen shifted the angle, tilting Laurent forward and nailing his prostate and Laurent was powerless to stop his orgasm from barrelling through him.

He gasped, hips flexing back as he bounced himself down on Damen’s cock, meeting him thrust for thrust as the pleasure washed through him. Damen cursed, hands tightening, biting into his skin as he said his name and came hard, deep inside Laurent. Just the way he liked it.

Still shaking, panting and trying desperately to catch his breath Damen resettled them, still inside him. Laurent hummed, clenching as he buried his face in Damen’s chest and breathed kisses there.

“I can’t be bothered to move,” Laurent said, breathless and content to lie there all night.

“Then don’t, I have to put the oven on but you can stay here, you’re not showering, I want my come in you all night,”

Laurent groaned, biting his lip at the interested twitch of his spent cock. He fucking loved when Damen said shit like that and Damen, the bastard, well knew it.

~*~

Aimeric arrived first that evening, alone and wearing a harassed expression Laurent had long since become familiar with.

“What did Jord do this time?” Laurent grinned

Aimeric scowled at him and barged past him into the kitchen where Damen was standing over the hob, mixing something which smelt amazing.

“Please can you trade places with him? I need advice,”

Damen snorted, sparing Aimeric the briefest glance “unless you want food poisoning, then no,”

“That was one time,” Laurent snapped, grabbing two bottles of beer from the fridge and stomping into the living room in mock outrage.

“Twice!”

Damen’s shout from the kitchen made Laurent snort as he threw himself down onto the sofa and two seconds later Aimeric appeared, half glaring at him as he swiped the beer from the table.

“Jord didn’t do anything,” Aimeric said

Which was usually the problem but Laurent bit his tongue. Despite the pining and yearning that had lasted so very long, Jord and Aimeric’s relationship was relatively new. A few months wherein Laurent shifted from hearing lament’s about Jord’s obtuseness to hearing about exactly what Jord liked in bed. He wasn’t quite sure which was worse.

“I’m the problem this time,” Aimeric said

He was clutching the neck of the bottle tightly, and his other hand had curled into a fist in his overlong sleeve, a habit Laurent recognised immediately. It meant it was one of those days. Laurent was familiar with them, both with Aimeric’s and with his own.

“I’m too clingy,”

Laurent’s insides rioted instantly “did he fucking say that?”

“What?” Aimeric blinked taken aback “no, no, he didn’t, I just- feel like he must think it sometimes because I think it sometimes, and I’m too… I get in my head a lot, I get insecure and I feel like I’m constantly asking him for reassurance or asking who he’s with or if I look okay and what if he gets sick of it? Of me and he just leaves me?”

“I’m hardly the relationship expert, I can barely handle my shit so I really have no idea except, you know, talk to him about it, maybe?”

Aimeric huffed “well how did you do it? You got with Damen and everything got better,”

Laurent breathed out, tried to order his thoughts.

“It really didn’t,” he settled on “it was shit, it still is sometimes,”

“But Damen helped, right? Like it helped you get better? So what did you do?”

Laurent shrugged. Was it Damen?

Maybe in part. Love helped, he was aware of that, his love for Damen and Damen’s love for him was something tangible he could cling to, something he could inspect to make him double down on his resolve to keep going when the easier option was to give in to the pain and the despair. It was the thing nobody had ever told him about healing, about moving on, about trying. It was hard work. It was a conscious decision and one that had to be made over and over, every day, even when it hurt. Even when it was difficult or awkward or unpleasant. It was a choice.

Love helped of course, but love alone couldn’t do it.

“You have to want it for you,” Laurent said “it has to be a choice you make for you, I can’t do it for Damen any more than Damen can magically make me better by loving me, it helps, it helps to love him, to have his love, but if you don’t want to actively get better, really and sincerely, for yourself, then all love will do is delay the inevitable and make the guilt ten times worse when you fail, love is amazing, and it definitely helps, but it’s not going to heal you, it’ll just paper over the cracks if you let it, and you can’t let it,”

Aimeric frowned.

“You have to choose it for yourself, not for someone else, do I want to be better for Damen? Yes, every day, always, I’ll strive to be the kind of man he deserves because anything less is robbing him of what I want him to have, but I want to be better for me more than I do for him, and on bad days Damen’s belief in me can help me when I don’t have the belief in myself,”

He let those words settle saw Aimeric grappling with them.

“All I know is that if I don’t want him to win, if I want to be normal, if I want a better life than I have to make it happen, it’s not easy, it’s fucking horrible and some days I think why the fuck am I bothering? But those are the days where I remind myself it’s because on good days I feel good, it gets easier, the choice gets easier, but it is one I’ll have to make every day for the rest of my life and I know that,”

Aimeric sighed as he leaned back against the sofa, tipping his head up to stare at the ceiling.

“I’m so fucking tired of trying,” Aimeric said “it feels like this fucking huge endless uphill battle and I’m never going to win,”

Yeah. Yeah it did. An endless terrifying road from here until the lights went out, where he would have to try every single day. His therapist said it would get easier. But before then, it really fucking sucked. Trying was exhausting. Actively fighting his own head every hour of every day was the kind of mental battle no one and nothing could have prepared him for.

“Listen, every day he hasn’t beaten me is the only kind of win I care about, count the small things you know? Like shit, today I got out of bed and didn’t think about any of it for a solid two hours, that’s a win, it has to be, he took my childhood he’s not having the rest of my life because we both deserve a chance, and I am going to give it to myself because I’m the only one that can,”

When Aimeric only took a swig of his beer and pouted down into the bottle Laurent sighed, rubbing his forehead.

“On the bad days Damen is there, sometimes I don’t want him to be, it gets to be a lot, but we’re getting better at finding a balance that works for us,”

“Do you ever slip?”

Slip? Sometimes he went careening straight off the goddamn ice and fell through a crack. Less now than in the beginning but it still happened sometimes. It was inevitable. Healing, he had been righteously informed, was not linear and rarely made sense.

“Yes, but not so bad I do something I can’t take back because Damen’s good at reading me and I guess I’m getting pretty good at talking to Damen when it is getting bad, when I feel like I might slip,”

“What do you do?”

Laurent smirked “he reminds me who I belong to and we do things that switch my mind off and I just- put myself in his hands and let him do things to me I don’t even know I need,”

Aimeric snorted “do I want to know what that means?”

Laurent shrugged “yesterday he tied me up with rope and wouldn’t let me come until he’d come inside me like three times… then he wouldn’t let me stop coming until I was coming dry and I was insanely close to pissing myself,”

Aimeric grinned, eyebrows up “it’s concerning how often you say you nearly piss yourself,”

Laurent threw his head back to laugh, shaking his head “listen, you try taking a battering from a massive dick for hours, coming your fucking brains out whilst your prostate practically screams, and then tell me how your pelvic muscles are doing, I will wait,”

He should really tell him that a few times now he was sure he really was pissing, he didn’t really know, it felt really fucking good either way and Damen thought it was hot. He also maintained that it wasn’t piss but for Laurent the jury was still out.

“So, that’s the key to not slipping? Great sex?” Aimeric asked wryly.

The truth is, he’d had days where he thought about it. About going cruising or to a backroom or redownloading Grindr. He would be lying if he said he didn’t, if he hadn’t waivered when someone came on to him because it was familiar and he was, bluntly, some kind of addict in that regard. It wasn’t because he wanted to but because whether he liked it or not the compulsion remained and his issues with sex weren’t going to be easy to police or get over. It didn’t mean he loved Damen any less or he didn’t want to be monogamous. It was just… habit. Echoes Damen called them.

On those bad days he’d learned to talk to Damen, to tell him how he was feeling, and Damen was getting better at not taking it personally, and not interpreting it as Laurent wanting someone else or thinking of betraying him.

Laurent would rather die than betray him like that but it was naïve to think he wasn’t ever going to be in a bad headspace. It was much easier now to talk about it and to spot it happening than it had been a year ago. Laurent hadn’t thought about doing anything like that for a while now at least. And he’d never actually acted on it. It didn’t make it any better for either of them, but he was trying and he was better now than he ever had been.

Damen told him not to count it in days or weeks. But Laurent did anyway. It had been three whole months since he’d nearly slipped and had to tell Damen he’d considered it. It had been three months and it was Laurent’s longest victory yet.

“It helps that Damen’s sex drive is high and he’s down for pretty much anything, somehow it’s something we do together and that really helps, if I didn’t have him I’d have to find a different way to do it, but you don’t have the same problem’s as me Aimeric, so you have to find what works for you and your issues,”

Healing was an intensely personal thing. It wasn’t one-size-fits-all or easy and it certainly couldn’t be bent to fit every circumstance. What worked for Laurent wouldn’t work for Aimeric, or Nicaise, they had to find their own way and they would.

They could.

They had the time and the choice and the ability even if they didn’t believe it. It was something Laurent had learned the hard way.

“So don’t go making your healing about Jord,” Laurent warned “it’s tempting but don’t, it won’t work, it will never work if you do it for someone else, Jord is a factor but he can’t be the reason, you understand?”

Aimeric nodded and even if he looked like he didn’t wholly understand Laurent couldn’t force it. Laurent had had to learn it on his own and he’d had to find what worked for him. If what worked for him was kinky scenes with Damen, scribbling in a journal, or occasionally stabbing a pillow to bits then it just was.

As long as he wasn’t harming himself or anyone else then it was okay. His trauma was his own. As was the responsibility when it leaked out around him and poisoned things.

His coping strategies weren’t always spot on, but they helped and that was the important thing.

Before Laurent could say anything else there was another knock at the door and he jumped up, grateful to get away to give himself and Aimeric a second to recompose themselves.

He was met by a large man with a tattooed neck and dark eyes, and his brother, grinning like a fucking cheshire cat. The firefighter. Auguste was right, he was attractive.

“This is Henri, Henri, my brother Laurent,” Auguste said

Henri nodded, flashing him a smile totally at odds with the beard and the ink, all soft and sweet and Laurent could very well imagine him rescuing a kitten from up a tree.

“Nice to meet you,” Henri said

“You too, you know Damen, right? He’s in the kitchen,” Laurent said

If Henri clocked that it was a dismissal, he didn’t say anything, he beamed and went through to the kitchen as directed. Auguste came inside, closed the door behind him and leant against it, annoyingly smug.

“Well? What do you think? Hot right,” Auguste grinned

Laurent rolled his eyes.

“He does kind of look like Margot,” he said instead of giving Auguste what he wanted.

Auguste shoved him “don’t start,” he warned “besides, just taking a leaf out of Damen’s playbook, you know, keeping it in the family,” he winked

Laurent pulled a face, shoving him right back “dick,”

Auguste cackled as he followed Henri through to the kitchen to say hi to Damen. Laurent took all of two steps before the door was going again and he span around, pulling it open for Jord. Jord immediately handed him two bottles of wine.

“One white, one Red, for you and Damen,” Jord said, already taking his coat off and hanging it on the pegs that went largely unused.

Laurent had a habit of throwing his jackets over the back of the sofa in the living room and as Damen didn’t seem to care it had kind of stuck.

“Thanks, I-“

“Is Aims here yet?” Jord cut across him

Laurent nodded to the living room, grinning despite himself at the soft as shit look on Jord’s face at the prospect of seeing Aimeric. He took himself back to the kitchen, squeezing past Henri and Auguste as they went in to say hello to Aimeric and dumped the wine bottles on the counter.

Damen had turned to face him, expression all amusement.

“I told you, Henri is hotter than Margot,” Damen said, voice quiet and conspiratorial.

“I know but we’re never telling him that,”

Damen agreed, already holding his arms out as Laurent fell dramatically against his chest.

“Why are we doing this again?” Laurent groaned, sliding his arms around Damen’s waist “we could be having sex right now, or even better, napping,”

“I mean we still could,” Damen grinned, dipping down to kiss him. All tongue and ill-intent “either one is good with me,”

“If you guys fuck whilst we’re here again we will leave this time,” Auguste said from the doorway, poking his fucking head in from nowhere “you’re loud little bro,” he teased, yanking open the fridge door to help himself.

Laurent grimaced, pressed his face into Damen’s chest.

“Can I kill him?”

Damen chuckled as he flipped Auguste off and patted Laurent’s ass affectionately to get him to let go. Laurent did so, reluctantly, and followed Auguste into the living room where he was busy announcing to everyone he’d just saved dinner by cockblocking Laurent. Awesome.

“Oh please not again,” Aimeric said, turning to him with a scowl

“Once,” Laurent said “we did that once, drunk, it’s not a thing,”

“Sure,” Jord grinned “like the food poisoning isn’t a thing,”

Everyone laughed, including Damen as he came into view from the kitchen the fucking traitor. Laurent huffed, folding his arms over his chest.

“Fuck all of you, we’re not friends anymore,” Laurent said before turning a narrowed stare on Damen “that includes you,”

Damen grinned, leaned down over the back of the sofa and breathed his response against his ear.

“We were never just friends,” he said, making goosebumps erupt over Laurent’s arms and down his neck “so I think I’m safe,”

The prick didn’t even wait for a response, he took himself off like he knew damn well  what he’d just done. Which, he most definitely did. Asshole. Laurent was dating an asshole.

The final knock at the door pulled Laurent away and he swung the door open on their final guests. Nicaise looked annoyed before he even opened his mouth, shoving past Laurent with Leon following behind him, flashing Laurent an apologetic kind of smile.

Bewildered, Laurent turned his eyes up to Nicaise’s father, still standing in the doorway. Since the arrest of Nicaise’s mother, he’d been living with his father full time. He was mostly happy, even if he did lament the rules his father had for him when he’d spent his whole life thus far doing as he pleased.

“Sorry about him,” he said “he’s annoyed because I told him he isn’t allowed any alcohol,”

Laurent grinned “ah, that’d do it,” he said “are you sure you don’t want to stay? We have plenty of food,”

Nicaise’s father smiled, even as he shook his head “no, this is good for him, I appreciate you inviting him, just, if he says anything will you let me know?”

“Of course,” Laurent offered

The man was trying his best and Laurent knew first hand Nicaise didn’t have it in his nature to make anything easy.

Laurent said his goodbyes, promised to take care of Nicaise and went straight to the backdoor. Predictably Leon and Nicaise were vaping. Laurent leaned in the doorway, giving Nicaise a pointed look.

“You know you’re not allowed to do that here,”

“You smoke!” Nicaise accused

“I’m 24, I can do as I please, you are 15,”

“I’ll be 16 in a month,” Nicaise snapped

“Still two years away from making that decision,”

“You were more fun before,” Nicaise snapped, diligently handing over his vape when Laurent held his hand out for it.

“I’ll give it back when you leave, but your dad is trusting me and after everything, I’m not rocking that boat, not if you want to keep coming over here, you understand?”

Nicaise huffed, nodding solemnly and glowering when Laurent likewise confiscated Leon’s vape.

Fucking teenagers.

“Dinners ready,” Damen said which was perfect timing.

If there was one thing Laurent knew about teenage boys it was that they could be distracted from just about anything by the promise of food.

Once they were all at the table Laurent had an out of body experience that he often got whenever he realised this was his life now. A dinner party on a Saturday at Laurent’s house, with his brother willingly in attendance and Nicaise sat across from him.

It was surreal. He wouldn’t change it for anything.

Dinner was lively, as was dessert, the kind of noise Laurent hadn’t gotten used to yet. Being surrounded by people he cared about was a strange experience. Even stranger to imagine they cared about him. That he counted his brother among them.

Either reading his mind or his face, Damen leant into him, his straying fingers idly twirling strands of Laurent’s hair at the nape of his neck.

“You good?”

He turned his head so Damen’s lips were a brush against his forehead instead of his ear and smiled, pressed his eyes closed when Damen kissed him, his fingers tightening on the nape of his neck in a comforting squeeze. Laurent didn’t need to say it, Damen already knew.

Vannes’ name lighting up his phone screen on the table made him pause, frowning when he turned his eyes on the clock hanging above the mantle. She never called this late. It was nearly ten pm. Something must have happened.

“It’s Vannes, I’ll be back in a sec,” Laurent said excusing himself to the kitchen.

The noise stopped, every gaze following him out. It was why Laurent even bothered to leave the room. He didn’t much want six pairs of eyes on him watching him in tense silence as he spoke to the detective. He’d tell them all whatever news she had but he needed to be alone to hear it.

Or at least, not under the spotlight.

Damen followed him, standing in the doorway like a silent support. His eyes didn’t bother Laurent in the slightest. It was different he supposed. Funny, how he didn’t even consider Damen’s presence an intrusion on alone.

Laurent hit answer.

“Vannes?”

“Hi Laurent, sorry to call so late but I thought you’d want to know immediately,” she said with the kind of tone that let Laurent know exactly how pushy he’d been about that detail over the past year.

“You’d be right,” he said “what is it?”

“There’s no easy way to say this,” she said

Laurent’s stomach turned over, plummeting to his knees, horror already creeping in. It must have shown on his face because Damen came toward him, taking hold of Laurent’s hand and squeezing his fingers. Laurent met his eyes, took in the calm encouraging expression and the love shining in his eyes and nodded.

“Just say it,” Laurent said

“He’s dead,”

There was a ringing in his ears. A hiss of noise as Laurent struggled to make sense of her words.

“Dead?”

At the word Damen beside him blinked, eyes going wide even as his brow creased.

“The prison called, they found him about an hour ago, he hung himself in his cell,”

“Hung himself,” Laurent parroted and Damen beside him cursed, jaw tensing as he shook his head.

“Yes, he’s gone,” She sighed “this isn’t the end of the case, the trials for everyone else will still-“ she cut herself off “we can discuss the rest tomorrow, but I thought I’d let you know before it broke in the news,”

“I’m with Aimeric and Nicaise,” he said “just so you don’t waste time letting them know, I can- I’ll tell them,”

“Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow,”

She hung up and for a second Laurent could only stare at his phone screen, unable to discern a single emotion. How was he supposed to feel? He knew there should be something. Some indicator in his chest to guide him but there was nothing. Just white noise and a heavy absence of feeling.

When he put his phone in his pocket he turned immediately to Damen. Damen was right there, drawing Laurent into his arms, his hands soothing and careful down his spine.

“Are you alright?”

“The coward’s way out,” Laurent said, remembering what he’d said about Aimeric “I should be surprised but I’m not,”

Of course he’d killed himself. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he?

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed in Damen’s embrace, breathing him in and letting the knowledge settle. But too soon Damen was drawing back, pushing Laurent’s hair behind his ear.

“Do you want me to tell them? Or to tell them to leave? I know you told Vannes you’d-“

He shook his head, his palm across Damen’s chest “I can tell them, they should know,”

They all should.

When Laurent and Damen went back into the dining room the noise stopped, everyone turning toward them with questions on their faces. Laurent didn’t think he was imagining the tension.

“He’s dead,” he said without any fanfare “he hung himself,”

Damen was a solid line against his back, his hand a steady anchor at Laurent’s hip. As soon as he spoke he nudged himself backward, pressed himself tight against him and Damen’s arm went around his waist, his chin pressing against the side of Laurent’s head.

The pin drop silence following his declaration was strained, shocked, vibrating with it as Laurent met Aimeric’s eyes.

It was broken, predictably, by Nicaise laughing, drawing seven pairs of horrified eyes to him.

“What? Don’t look at me like that, it’s hilarious, all that time we spent scared of him but he topped himself because he was too afraid to face us in court? That’s fucking funny,”

Was it? Laurent still didn’t know how to feel.

“I need to smoke,”

He gripped Damen’s wrist as he left, dragging him along until he was in the back garden. The cool chill was a balm against his skin. The deep few drags of his cigarette made him settle, enough to meet Damen’s gaze.

“I’ll tell them to leave,” Damen said “they’ll understand,”

Laurent’s exhale was all relief as he nodded. He didn’t much care if he was being rude. It was late, he didn’t know how to process and he didn’t much want to do so under the scrutiny of everyone else.

Damen kissed his temple and stepped away to make sure everyone else left. Giving Laurent some space. The internal alarm Damen had developed for Laurent’s moods would bring him back when Laurent needed him. And Laurent would need him soon, when he’d had a chance to get his shit together. But to do that Laurent needed to pace and smoke and figure out where his fucking head was at.

He listened to Auguste and Henri leaving, smoked another cigarette until he heard the muffled knock on the front door that meant Nicaise’s dad had arrived. The murmur of Damen’s voice followed and Laurent imagined he was telling him what had happened.

Laurent sat down on the wall and knew even before he appeared Aimeric wouldn’t leave without coming to talk to him.

He came out unobtrusively, quiet as he sat beside Laurent on the wall.

“How are you feeling?” Aimeric asked

Laurent snorted a laugh, tipped his head back to stare at the stars.

“Fuck if I know,” he said “you?”

Aimeric didn’t immediately respond and Laurent shifted to look at him, noted the awkward way he was playing with the edges of his sleeves, face scrunching up as he shook his head.

“Pissed,” he hissed out “I just- he’s- how dare he,” Aimeric said looking up at him

Laurent expected glassy eyes and was met instead by a burning gaze.

“He took this from us, I wanted justice, I wanted him to answer for it, to- to look me in the eye on that stand and hear me even just once,”

“He did hear us Aimeric,” Laurent said “for once, he did us a favour,”

“How can you-“

“Because now we don’t have to speak at trial, now we’ll just make statements, we won’t need to be there, there will be less chance of our faces in the papers and Nicaise won’t have to go through it either,”

It was kinder, especially for Nicaise. But was it justice?

Laurent supposed not. But it didn’t really matter, did it? He died alone, afraid, and trapped, the world knowing exactly what he was. It was the desperate last act of a man obsessed with control.

Aimeric rose to his feet, shaking his head even as he let out a huge sigh and fisted his hands in his hair, tugging hard.

“I hate this, I was- I hate him, I’m glad he’s dead,” he said whirling back to Laurent “I’m glad he’s dead but it doesn’t feel like justice,”

Laurent nodded “I’m not sure anything ever would have felt like justice,”

 There wasn’t any justice. Nothing would have ever felt like enough. What he did, the things he’d done, there was nothing in the world that could be weighed against it, nothing that would have felt just or deserved or right. There would never be any making it right.

Aimeric sniffed hard and turned away, gathering himself.

“You’re right,” Aimeric said “doesn’t make it okay,”

No. No, it didn’t.

“No, but he’s gone and that- it might be enough,”

Aimeric’s nod was tight and when Laurent got up to hug him he breathed out harshly into Laurent’s shoulder, squeezing him close.

“Good riddance and all that,” Laurent mumbled when he pulled back

Aimeric snorted, surreptitiously wiping his eyes “yeah, fuck that bastard,” he grinned, watery and wobbly “I’m gonna go, call if you need me,”

“You too,” Laurent said, following him inside

He didn’t leave the kitchen until he heard the front door close behind Aimeric and Jord. Until Damen was leaning in the doorway and offering him a soft smile.

“What do you need?”

Laurent held his arms out and Damen moved instantly, stepping into him and wrapping him up safe and tight. Laurent’s arms went around him, fingers digging into the skin at the small of his back as he buried his face in his chest. Breathed.

Breathed him in and the white noise out.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” he said against Damen’s chest “and I’m glad he killed himself,”

When he turned his face up Damen was already there, warm and understanding.

“I never wanted to go to court, it would have felt like I was on trial so… this is better,”

“This is better,” Damen echoed

And it was. If Laurent could have chosen, he’d want him faraway and out of sight. He supposed dead was as faraway as he could make him. So maybe it wasn’t justice, but Laurent would be lying if he said his world didn’t feel a little brighter, a little safer, a little more peaceful, without him in it.

“I just want to go to bed,”

Damen nodded and stepped away from him, giving Laurent some space. Whilst Damen tidied up the front room Laurent jumped in the shower, resisted the urge to turn the water up and instead let it calm his muscles and heat his skin pleasantly.

The death of his uncle was a good thing and the more he thought about it, the more the shock filtered out of his system, the more the relief trickled in. Faster and harder, a spiral of it that had him breathing out and tipping his face up into the spray, hiding a smile in the gentle caress of the water.

There would be no facing him in trial. Nicaise wouldn’t have to sit in a cold room somewhere and give his testimony via video link. Laurent wouldn’t have to endure the cross examination from hell. Aimeric wouldn’t have to look the man in the eye ever again. He was gone.

It wasn’t justice but it really was better. It was, perhaps, the only over he was going to get.

And he would take it. Relish it. Live with it and be thankful for small mercies.

He stayed under the spray until he heard Damen locking up and his footsteps on the stairs, the specific creak of their bedroom door as he went inside. Only then did he get out of the spray, the warmth taking the edge off the tension in his muscles and the space letting him take a breath.

The mirror was fogged up when he stepped out and he wiped it down, gaze snagging on the man staring back at him. Laurent didn’t immediately turn away from it. He didn’t feel so much like a stranger anymore.

Laurent dried off quickly, rubbing his hair furiously until it was only damp and Damen wouldn’t complain too much about Laurent’s habit of sleeping with it wet. He paused in the doorway to their bedroom, observing Damen where he was on his side on the far side of the bed facing away, phone plugged in and charger just that little bit too short to let him roll onto his back whilst he typed. But facing away was good. Laurent climbed in behind him, settling close, tracing his mouth across Damen’s shoulders as he slid an arm over his waist and snuggled in close.

Damen tapped away on his phone for several more minutes and Laurent closed his eyes, contented by the familiarity and the comfort of Damen’s skin against him.

“Baby I don’t care what you say I’m gonna sell that fucking house before I kill the people living in it,”

Laurent chuckled against Damen’s skin, grinning at the grumbles Damen let out as he all but threw his phone onto the bedside table and settled down.

It was quiet, warm, the sensation of home Laurent had never had before. And one he had gotten very used to very quickly. It was, often, the little things he liked best. The mundane. The everyday. It was a different kind of closeness. An intimacy he couldn’t name.

“Damen,”

Damen hummed, fingers squeezing in acknowledgement around Laurent’s splayed across his stomach.

“Marry me,”

Damen shifted instantly, rolling over until he was facing Laurent, eyes wide.

 “Yes,”

“You’re supposed to at least think about it,”

“I don’t need to, do you?”

“You said I get to decide what closure looks like, what comes next,” He said fingers gentle at Damen’ jaw “I want it to look like us,”

It was, he supposed, as over as it was ever going to get for him. All he had to do now was concentrate on putting himself back together and on the days where it felt almost impossible, he had Damen right there to help him. So why wait now?

It was done and Laurent wanted it, he wanted what comes next to start as soon as fucking possible.

Damen kissed him, deep and slow and sweet as he tugged Laurent closer into the safety of his arms.

“Yes,” Damen affirmed against his mouth

Laurent smiled into his kiss, stomach fluttering as it settled in him. Damen wanted to marry him. Damen was going to marry him.

In the grand scheme of things it was more than he ever could have hoped for and he deserved the chance to enjoy it. He very much intended to.

~*~