Talker's Graduation (2 page)

true, Brian could make his way down the stairs and across the

street, but Tate was unused to thinking of Brian as vulnerable and

the thought scared him. He didn"t like to be late. He wasn"t fond of

walking outside under the streetlights (and he never did it alone)

but he was even less fond of the idea of Brian there without him.

So coming home for the third night in a row to find the

apartment spotless and dinner on the table was sort of a revelation,

really. He hadn"t shopped, so Brian must have negotiated the stairs

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8

and then come back up with a bag full of groceries. Neither of them

had money—how had Brian paid?

“I like to cook for you,” Brian said from his laptop, looking up

and smiling. Nearly four months after the attack, most of the bruises

had faded, but his eyes were still haunted by pain and

sleeplessness. Not right now, though. When Tate walked through

the door, they lightened, grew less weary, and warmed.

Tate walked over to him and nestled his chin in the curve of

Brian"s neck. God, Brian was warm, and it was bitterly cold outside.

“Whatcha doin"?”

Brian looked at him and smiled bitterly. “Selling my

schoolbooks.”

“
What?”

“Just my old ones. You can get money for them on

amazon.com—it"s how I got groceries today. We didn"t sell them at

the end of the semester because….” He trailed off. Neither of them

needed him to finish that sentence.

“But Brian—you"re going to need those, right? I mean, I

remember you telling me that one of them was like a three-part

book for a three-part class.”

Brian grimaced. “I haven"t sold that one yet,” he said quietly.

“But….” He bit his lip. “Talker, you"re skinny as hell. I know you"re

hungry—I sleep with you, remember? I hear your stomach growl.

You just… you don"t eat. It"s bad enough I"m stuck here for another

month—can I not watch you getting so thin, all worried about me?”

Tate swallowed and stood up deliberately, going to get himself

a bowl of mac and cheese. A part of him darted off into outer space

for a minute, like a fish in a gray-matter bowl, but he herded that

part back. Doc Sutherland had urged him to try to keep all his fish

in the brain-pond when he could—he missed less that way. But it

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9

was hard, so hard, when he didn"t want to talk about things. It was

so much easier to send that fish to outer space, rocking out to the

new track by Rise Against, than it was to burden Brian—who was

still healing—with what was really on his mind.

But Brian was healing for Talker"s sins. Brian had been beaten

up for protecting Tate when he couldn"t protect himself. Every time

he thought about it, he got nauseated, and every time he saw how

hard it was for Brian to move, to recover, he thought about it.

Working with the clay was good—in fact, it was
great.
Brian

had been able to pick up the weights and had been assiduous

about working his shoulder, but even better than that; a part of him

neither of them had known he had was suddenly taken, enraptured,

consumed, with the idea of taking the clay, forming it, shaping it to

his specifications and making it come alive. He made picture

frames and flower vases and abstract things that were simply

space, flowing lines with lovely, oceanic curves. Brian"s Aunt Lyndie

had brought him paints, the kind that made the clay waterproof, and

Brian had worked on his muscle coordination and his strength and

filled their apartment with small pieces of unusual beauty. Since the

clay was polymer and withstood about anything, he"d made Tate a

worry-stone. Tate wore the stone around his neck, and it was

painted a slick, night-sky blue. He used it, too—he held it in his

hand and rubbed it with his thumb whenever he felt his brain-fish

trying too hard to scatter, and they would usually come scattering

back to school around in his head instead of outer space.

They were trying to scatter now, but he clung desperately to

that worry-stone and breathed evenly to keep his shoulders from

twitching, because that would scatter his brain-fish again. He tried

to find words.

“You"re all I"ve got,” he muttered, standing at the counter with

the bowl of congealed mac and cheese. “I know, something bad

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10

happens to you, I won"t be alone in the world—I"ll have Lyndie and

Craig, and even the Doc, but… but Brian—I was weak, and it

almost got you killed, and when I think about that….”

His hand started to tremble and Brian stood up, looking pained

and upset. He swallowed and moved closer, closer, until he was

standing right in front of Tate, and it was as close and as intimate

as they"d been since December. Brian had his casts and equipment

taken off at the end of January, but the closest they"d been to skin

on skin had been when Tate had pressed up against Brian"s back

to show him how to work the clay.

“You know what the problem is?” Brian had whispered

hoarsely.

Tate shook his head “No.”

“The problem is, you haven"t gotten laid in for-fuckin"-
ever!
”

Tate laughed—he had to. Lying in bed at night, listening to the

miracle of Brian"s breathing—that had been heart-stopping, but it

had also been hormone-stopping. Being afraid of touching your

lover because you were afraid to hurt him—that put a wilt in a boner

right the hell quick, didn"t it?

“You"re not up to….”

“Bullshit,” Brian said mildly. “You may be afraid to hurt me, but

I"ll tell you right now, that thing"s working just fine, and he"s damned

hungry.”

Tate blushed. “I"m not,” he murmured, and Brian slid warm,

dry hands up against his ribs. Even Tate felt the bump and slide of

Brian"s palms on each lump of bone under his flesh.

“Tell you what,” Brian murmured, bending down to talk right in

Tate"s ear—the damaged one, which was sensitive to even the

slightest whisper. “How about we go feed my thing, and once you

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11

see I"m all working, and we"re alive, and it"s all good, maybe you"ll

feel better about coming back here and feeding your thing.”

Tate had been reluctant at first. But Brian—Brian was

assertive. He wasn"t aggressive or mean or frightening; he just set

his quiet mind to it and then shouldered on through, moved solidly

toward his goal, and his goal was getting Talker into the bedroom

by whispering in his ear and cupping his face, kissing along his

jawline, holding his hand. When they got there, he pulled Talker"s

shirt off, and because he"d been home all day, the apartment didn"t

have that ache of cold that it used to when it was just the two of

them gone all the time, so Talker didn"t shiver. He shivered when

Brian"s big hands spanned his ribcage again though, yes he did,

but that was a good kind of shiver. Brian kept up those kisses,

those soft whispers of lips on skin, down Talker"s throat, in the vee

of his clavicles, down, down his skinny chest, his tattooed shoulder,

down to the indent of his tummy. He spent a moment there, which

was torture because the skin was soft, and Brian opened his mouth

and pulled the taut, sensitized skin in, again and again, until it

almost tickled, and Tate had to suppress a sound between a

whimper and a giggle.

Brian looked up, leaning on his good shoulder and keeping his

injured one up and back. “Too skinny, baby,” he said soberly. “Give

me more to kiss.” He went back then, and kept kissing down, down,

fumbling with the button fly of Tate"s jeans until Tate reached down

and helped him.

Brian pulled them off, and there was Tate, in what once had

maybe been his greatest nightmare. He realized that the lights were

still on, and he made a noise about it, but Brian paused, looking

from the floor between Tate"s legs, where he was taking off Tate"s

shoes.

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12

“I want them on,” he said quietly. “You need to see me—

what"s damaged, what"s not. You need to know I"m okay. Once you

know I"m okay, you"ll feel better. You can eat. You"ll be okay too.”

“But my….”
But my scars!
He didn"t need to finish the

sentence—they both knew. The entire right side of his body was

covered in scars. He"d tattooed over the ones on his arm, his

shoulder, his neck, his face, but the parts of him that never saw the

sun—God, he couldn"t even look at himself. And it occurred to him

then—suddenly, for real—that this is what Brian had been talking

about. Brian knew about his scars, had felt them, had moved his

mouth and his hands over them and loved them and loved Talker

and was not disgusted or put off. And now Brian was making Tate

do the same thing.

Tate"s shoes were off and Brian placed kisses up the inside of

Tate"s damaged leg. Tate moaned, pulled his feet up to the bed

and spread his knees, then threw his arm over his eyes, because

he was embarrassed and turned on and needy.

Brian kept kissing. He skipped the creases—thank God,

because Tate was still sweaty and sticky from work—but he did

spend some time licking at the base of Tate"s cock and then

running his tongue up to the crown. There were scars on it—one of

the many reason Tate wanted the lights off—but he"d needed Brian

for so long, had been hungry for this for so long, and had needed

the reassurance that only physical touch could bring for
oh
so long,

that for once, he didn"t hide, or cover, or apologize. Brian"s mouth

covered his cock, slid down to the base, tightened, and then pulled

up again. The ridges of Tate"s damaged erection were massaged

again and again with Brian"s lips and….

Talker was moaning, needing,
begging
,
and he was hardly

aware of it. Brian"s weight was on his good shoulder, and his weak

hand came up to grasp Tate"s cock. He couldn"t tighten his fingers

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13

the way he used to, and the pressure was almost… teasing. Tate

moaned again, thrusting his hips into Brian"s hand harder, and

Brian pulled back and gave the head a casual swipe with his

tongue.

“Not hard enough, is it?” he said dryly. Tate turned his head

and looked at him. Brian was still fully dressed, but he was

wriggling his hips with enough urgency to let Talker know that he

was really turned on, just from touch.

“My dick?” Talker joked. “Yeah, plenty hard.”

Brian"s smile was gentle. “My hand, genius—maybe instead of

abstracts, I should spend all my time making dildo sculptures, see if

I can get my grip back.”

Talker giggled, and Brian kept up that not-quite-hard-enough

grip that was driving him insane. “Well, practice makes perfect!”

Brian kept stroking him and carefully bent and placed a kiss on

Talker"s hip. “Or maybe I can practice this way,” he said, and Talker

looked down his body and saw those amazing, clear, guileless

eyes, gazing at him with absolute devotion.

“Yeah,” Talker rasped. “I"m good with that. Go ahead and

prac-
tice
….”
Brian"s hand tightened, and his grip was
almost
hard

enough now, and Brian chuckled, the sound strained. Tate reached

down with his own damaged hand. “Here,” he said, and tightened

his fingers over Brian"s. Brian “hmmmd” and then opened his mouth

over the crown and started swirling with his tongue. Talker kept

stroking, and the pressure, between the two of them, was exquisite.

Talker"s nuts tightened up under him, and his whole body

started to tremble, and Brian kept up that pressure with his mouth

and their hands
oh God! Both
their hands, kept stroking and… “Oh,

Brian!”

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14

His other hand, his sound one, knotted in Brian"s hair, and

Brian moved their hands to take Talker all the way down to the

base. Talker squeezed his eyes tight and came, watching in

wonder as the black and red behind his eyes exploded with

shattered fragments of white brain-fish. “
Gawwwdd
….”
He

convulsed, turning to his side and holding Brian"s head, not to

control but just to… just to hold him, as Tate"s whole world went

whiteblind, shattered fish and all.