Work Text:
Nathan Prescott took his testosterone on Saturday after dinner. He would follow his wind-down routine with a shower, apply ointment and a bandage, and then crawl into bed with his partner. Sometimes he would play games on his phone or read, which was Mark's preference for his lover. They'd sit in the silent comfort of their luxury condominium. White walls, black rafters, white bed sheets as luxurious as they were comforting. The cleaning staff always kept them tight, a firm tuck that inevitably came unraveled under their lovemaking, both their glasses set aside to worship one another's bodies.
Today, Valentine's Day fell on a Saturday.
Bracing against the marble of the sink that matched the black marble of the floor, Nathan lifted his right leg toward himself, his sheathed syringe balanced clumsily in his mouth as he stretched his quad in preparation for penetration.
It never got easy, sticking himself like this, but the effects were more than worth it. He took a deep breath, reaching for the small vial waiting for him against the backsplash.
The man ran his tongue over his upper teeth, and his fingers gingerly uncapped the syringe, plunging it through the rubber film and filling the barrel with the gender-affirming liquid.
He placed the vial back in its home and took a final breath, hopping his ass onto the edge of the sink. He eyed his awaiting flank of flesh and steadied his hand over the target.
Subcutaneous had been less brutal than intramuscular, but his body still tensed.
"Come the fuck on…." he coached. "You always do this." Man up. The words seared in his mind.
Curling his upper lip in a snarl, he braced and pricked the needle into the top of his thigh.
"Fuck." He muttered. The relief washed over him with an intense warmth, but it was too heavy in its blanket.
"Wait." Nathan's eyes were slow in their sockets as the door opened, Mark's dark silhouette filled the negative space of the threshold. He couldn't bring his eyes to meet his mentor's face. Time floated away from him as he felt warmth, and a firm chest caught him. Why couldn't he smell Mark's aftershave, the one he loved to inhale when they were close like this?
A beloved baritone pierced his drifting mind.
"Easy, I've got you." A promise, every word delivered with a smile. No words came from the heir, only a sound of disorientation bleeding to fear. The older man shushed him, placed his lips and facial hair to his bare face. He wished he could grow a beard as handsome as Mark's. One of the many things Nathan was envious of.
His eyes closed without his consent. He shook his head with the last of his strength. Something was wrong, but it came again, those words more steady and responsible for keeping him upright as any embrace.
"I have you, Nathan." All tonality and sense blurred. The clatter of the plastic syringe falling from his hand was the last sound he registered. His muscles lost all tension, his spin collapsing under gravity.
It was a familiar soundscape he roused to, shutter clicks and the high-pitched dying cry of umbrella lights. Nathan's hands regained motion first. His palm stroked over small items strewn about him. In his haze, he failed to determine their form, whatever the fuck they were, but they were soft, impossibly soft.
Then Nathan heard it, the familiar stream of feverish murmurs that only came forth when Mark Jefferson could be his true self. Words not meant for muses, models, or victims. The gentle timbre was the undercurrent beat to the half-reality he floated through. Beautiful. Perfect. Mark.
His eyes couldn't open, but his mouth twitched into a smile, something twisted and ugly as he lay under the photographer's musing – Chosen.
After nearly a decade, Mark Jefferson still found him worth the effort.
Through gentle experimentation, he found he only had physical control of his wrist. He stretched the joints softly, and with the limited capacity, he reached past the softness, fingers splayed into the darkness from behind his eyelids.
The camera and flashes maintained their onslaught, but Nathan had learned to be patient. He let the moment be captured and ripped from him.
Then it came, a sure hand interlacing fingers with his own. A sound was all he could attempt, caught and choked out before it could hope to reach his mouth. A final click cut the warm silence before a second hand gripped the jagged curve of the illicit crest of his left hip bone. Naked. Oh, Mark. He could feel the man's shadow towering over his prone form, even as he remained sightless.
Lips and beard pressed to his forehead. He hummed and sighed out the last of his energy. A gift for the man he had let shape him through his most vulnerable years. He let go of the reins and all efforts towards lucidity.
Mark had him.
When he woke in the morning in their bed, he felt realligned, rested, as though his body hadn't known rest in months. However, standing brought him into his body, the muscle aches, clawing dehydration in his throat.
He passed on his morning coffee, scrambling to down glass after glass of water in their shared kitchen. During his third refill, a matte black photo box. It rested without cessation on the glass high top table.
Nathan forced himself to swallow down his handful of pharmaceuticals: antipsychotics, mood stabilizer, antidepressant, and vitamin D.
He rewarded himself through further deviation from his morning rituals, abandoning the water glass to sit at the table and shake the lid off the box. Inside, white rose petals. He tried to shift the floral remnants aside to see the printed image, but the bulk was too much.
Curious fingers gripped the hard edges of the 11x14 and pulled it forward from its resting place in the box. The petals shifted away. Nathan stared at the linen-printed image bound to a fine art board. Blue eyes assessed the framing, composition, expression, and intention.
Nathan's own nude form, wrapped in the curves of their sheets, held by their shared bed. His gaze traced his form carved out from the stark whites composed of petals and rumpled sheets. Set dressing. An homage to one of his favorite films, "American Beauty." A fresh bandage had been applied to his injection site – black. Pretentious prick. His hands ran over his thigh, redressed in his normal sleeping clothes, feeling the bandage like a brand beneath the cotton.
He admired the placement of sheets over his genitals, grateful for the modesty that saved him from a wave of impending dysphoria.
Nathan flipped the board over in his hands, the matte black drinking in his vision with its endless expanse. There, at the bottom, in familiar white paint marker, were the initials.
MJ
Neither of them needed overt sentimentality; their actions had always displayed their truest intentions. The portrait he held was a priceless Mark Jefferson original. Mark, through his lens, had made him priceless. He held the image to his chest, feeling a swell of warmth fiercer than any 'I love you' could hope to stir within him, though Mark Jefferson was known to make a convincing romantic.
Nathan had never wanted that. No, what he craved was to be framed by Mark Jefferson alone, to be remade as something beautiful under the artist's lens and vision.
Nathan Prescott was, himself, a Mark Jefferson original.
♡
Gift fic for Kate and their Nathan!
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