Once upon a time, I wrote this story, and posted it. I believe it was another one of Judith’s prompts, though that’s more or less lost to time. Then the database died during a server migration and I had to change webhosts and the old “full backup” wouldn’t transfer to the new host, and this post disappeared…until Maria was like, “Did I dream this?”
She did not dream it. It exists! Judith wanted, I think, pre-Truman, Will mad at Hugh. Here we are. It falls right around the beginning of chapter twenty-seven of Catalysts.
Will sat on the train, trying not to be turned on by the thought that in a few hours he’d be at Hugh’s.
If he was telling the truth, Will had been just a little bit turned on pretty much all the time since he hit Purchase on his tickets. It wasn’t until he was approaching the house that he got nervous.
Stupid to be nervous showing up at Hugh’s. Especially stupid since he hadn’t been here in two entire months, and he’d just texted Hugh from the train. Hugh would be happy to see him. Obviously.
Okay, tell the truth: it almost seemed like Hugh hadn’t even noticed he’d left. He literally texted See you soon. Which was…normal? Probably? Except Will wanted something more like I can barely contain my desire to see you tied to the bed in the guest room, taking my flogger.
And yeah, that wasn’t Hugh’s style, but still. That’s what he wanted. See you soon was what you said to your grandmother. Shit.
Will swallowed his nerves and knocked. It would be fine. Everything would be fine.
The door opened and Hugh smiled at him, stepping back. “Will, come in. It’s so good to see you.”
“You too.” I want to suck your cock right now, I want you to spank me, I want to feel you so deep in my ass I can’t breathe.
“How was the train?”
How was the fucking TRAIN?
“Good. It was good. Uh. You know.”
“Go ahead and put your backpack down.” And oh, god, he gestured to the guest room. Go ahead and put your backpack down in the guest room, the room for guests, the impersonal room where the casual friends stay.
Do not fucking cry, you asshole. Of course he’s happy to see you. Do not cry.
Will put his stuff down, in the guest room, and went to the bathroom so he could get it together. If Hugh thought for a second he was this close to freaking out—no, stop. Don’t let Hugh know. He’d dig and dig and dig until he solved the mystery, and then everything would change because their whole thing was based on Will not becoming some kind of obsessive stalker.
He had to be cool. He had to match Hugh for cool and not that invested. He could do this. Dammit.
Will went back to the guest room and changed into his suit for dinner. When he emerged, Hugh kissed him lightly.
“You look good. Santa Barbara suits you.”
So you don’t even fucking miss me? Just I look good because I moved away, seriously?
“Yeah. I guess it does.” No, it doesn’t, because you’re not there and I think about you every fucking day.
“You ready?” Hugh asked, and shit, fuck, his eyes did that thing, where the skin around them went tight, that thing where they tried to see into Will’s brain.
Will turned away. “I’m ready for pumpkin ravioli. Man, I miss Andrew’s.”
“I’m sure.”
You’re so stupid. I don’t miss pumpkin ravioli nearly as much as I miss sitting across the table from you, you jerk.
God, Will had to get his shit together, or this whole weekend was just gonna be him going more fucking insane and Hugh being totally chill.
“Let’s go, Will.”
Touch me. Touch my arm. Touch my back. Oh my god, do something, do something that makes me think you remember that we like each other.
But Hugh led the way downstairs to the car, and Will forced himself to make small talk like a normal person.
If all they did all weekend was chitchat, he was going to explode. Or have a nervous breakdown. And really, no matter what they did, he was probably going to cry. He should start steeling for that inevitable embarrassment now.
* * *
Dinner was good. Espresso at Antony’s was delicious as always, and for a second everything felt okay. Antony boomed at them, Will hammed it up in return, and Hugh played along. Just like usual. Just like they had all summer, since Hugh began taking him to these places, as if he was part of something more than a random fuck.
Damn everything, he wasn’t just a random fuck. Antony’s wasn’t the kind of place Hugh took just anyone, and Will didn’t have to ask him to know it.
So why did he feel like a fucking stranger on a date half the time?
“Let’s take a walk,” Hugh said.
A walk? A fucking walk?
“Okay. Sure.” Will bit down very hard on his tongue and tried not to cry.
“Tell me more about the radio show, Will.”
“Uh, well, I mean, you’ve seen Ads and I together, so that’s basically it, just us goofing off and playing music.”
“And Adam and—what is the young woman’s name?”
“Beccs. Rebecca.”
“Are Adam and Rebecca still not speaking?”
Oh god, this was a fucking joke. Walking around with Hugh, talking about Ads and Beccs being estranged, or whatever? Shit.
“Let’s walk the lake.”
Christ, what was Lake Merritt, like two miles? And then they’d still have to get back to the car before going to Hugh’s. What the hell?
“Yeah, okay.” Because what else could he possibly say?
He thought Hugh murmured something, but when he looked over, Hugh seemed relaxed and at ease, walking around the lake in his suit, with the wind blowing around them.
Was this even safe? Shit. Not like most homeless people were dangerous, but some were. And it was fucking dark.
“I just registered for a conference about behavioral responses to childhood emotional abuse.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Should be interesting. It’s not for another few months, but I got an early bird price.”
“Cool. Where’s that?”
“I lucked out this time; it’s local. It may end up being a waste of time, but I usually get something out of these professional events.”
“Yeah.”
They made more small talk around the lake. Will dodged questions about dating opportunities and tried not to compare the reality of this trip with his fantasy of it, which had been building since he said goodbye to Hugh before leaving for SB.
Two months. Walking around Lake Merritt at ten p.m. was so not how he’d thought he’d be spending tonight.
* * *
They got back to the house. Will stood awkwardly in the kitchen while the water boiled for tea.
“Get the cups down?” Hugh asked.
Good, a job. He got the cups down, and the tray. He filled the cream jug with milk while Hugh filled the teapot with water.
“Thank you.”
You’re welcome. Except what came out was “Thank you? I mean, you’ve fucked me, you’ve blown me, you’ve whipped me, and all you can say is thank you?”
“Should I have said something else?”
“Fuck you. You know what? Fuck you.” Will swallowed and tried to stop, tried to pull back, but it was too late. “Fuck you, Hugh! Why the hell did we just spend all that time walking when we could have been here? Do you not want me? Do I fucking disgust you or something? It’s been two fucking months and what, you can’t even touch me now?” A sudden, horrible thought occurred to him. “Oh my god, did you find a dude? Shit, shit, I’m so fucking stupid, it’s so fucking obvious, and I spent all this time thinking about this—”
The hand pressing his lips into his teeth was warm from the teapot.
“I was eliminating possibilities. Something was clearly off with you. If it had been nerves, the walk would have eased off the tension, but instead, it increased it. Will, look at me.”
He tried to say “fuck you”, but it was muffled behind Hugh’s hand.
The bastard had the audacity to laugh.
“I’m open to that. Will, if I found someone, I’d tell you. You’d be the first to know.”
Then why the fuck are you treating me like we have a new hands-off rule and nobody told me about it? Too much to chew into Hugh’s palm, so Will settled for looking at him, letting his anger come through however it could via forehead and eyes and, oh yeah, apparently now he was shaking. Awesome.
“Hush. Breathe in, Will. Breathe out. Whatever it is going on in your head, it’s probably wrong. Come upstairs.”
They left the tea made and cooling on the counter.
Hugh’s bedroom felt like home. It smelled right, it felt right, like the air of it shifted to make a Will-shaped space he wished he’d never left.
Oh, fuck, fuck everything. Will pulled his clothes off carelessly and got in the bed. It felt defiant, like he was taking liberties, but he didn’t look up to see Hugh’s reaction. Fuck Hugh, too.
Except that thought didn’t play quite right. God, the anger was so much easier to deal with than this, whatever this was. Sadness, fear, loneliness maybe more than everything else.
Hugh’s body, also naked, slid under the blankets to press against his back.
Fuck it. Will reached for Hugh’s arm and wrapped himself in it, clinging as hard as he could. Hugh’s chest rose and fell with a sigh that unsettled the hair at the nape of Will’s neck.
“I missed you very much, Will.”
“Then why are you pretending we barely know each other?”
“Am I?”
“Fine. Don’t answer. I don’t care.”
“I don’t mean to pretend anything. We went to dinner, Will. How is that pretending we barely know each other?”
“No, I mean—” Will squeezed his eyes shut and squeezed Hugh’s arm harder. “You haven’t touched me! I don’t understand. I thought—I thought I’d get here and you’d tell me to take off my clothes, you know? I thought you’d fuck me, and we’d go to dinner, and we’d have tea, and you’d tease me, and you’d maybe flog me, and then you’d fuck me again! Jesus, Hugh, you told me to put my stuff in the fucking guest room, like you’ve never had your dick in my ass!”
It all sounded so fucking pathetic. Will clenched his jaw and scrunched up his face until his ears filled with white noise and sparklers went off behind his eyelids. It’d probably give him a headache, but at least it was a distraction.
At least, until Hugh shifted and made him lie on his back.
“You could keep your things up here, Will. I have no preference. The guest room was closer, and I am used to seeing you in it. That wasn’t intended as a slight. Open your eyes, please.”
Staring up at Hugh made everything worse. Hugh looked the same as always. Unmoved.
“I didn’t want to start anything before dinner because it would have made us late to dinner.”
“But then it’s like you kept stalling with everything you could think of so we wouldn’t come back to the house. We’ve never walked around the lake after Antony’s. And my legs are sore now.”
“I can help you with some partnered stretches, Will.”
Will wanted so much to laugh. But the tears were too close to the surface now, and if he laughed, he’d cry. “So you do want to have sex?”
“Of course. What on earth made you think I didn’t?”
“You hardly even kissed me! You said ‘see you later’ like we were buddies!”
“I said ‘see you later’?”
“On text.”
“Oh.” Hugh frowned. “Earlier today? I was looking forward to seeing you later, Will. It seemed—appropriate.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Will tried to roll away to fume at himself not under the microscope of Hugh’s gaze, but Hugh held him firmly with a hand flat on his chest.
“Fuck it. It’s nothing. Just me being needy, making too much of everything, like usual. Count on me to fucking ruin the only good weekend in months.”
“Will.” Fingers smoothed his hair back. “Please look at me. You haven’t ruined anything. You aren’t needy.”
“I am, though. I’m needy and I try to hide it and then you made us walk around the entire lake like what, like you couldn’t bear to be in a room alone with me?”
“Absolutely not my intention. I wanted you to be relaxed when we got here, and sometimes intense physical exertion gets you there quicker than tea in the library.”
Oh. “But you hardly kissed me when I got here, Hugh.”
Hugh’s thumb brushed over his lips. “I was holding back. I told you—if we’d started something then, we would have been late for dinner. And the anticipation was good. Forcing myself to pull in the reigns all night when I wanted to take you apart felt like the right move. I thought it would work for both of us.” He raised his eyebrows. “Will, if something’s not working for you, tell me. If you didn’t want to walk, you could have mentioned it.”
“I thought you were avoiding me.”
“Why would I invite you here if I didn’t want you here, Will?”
“I don’t know. Pity? Poor Will, can’t get a date, can’t even get laid like a normal guy.”
Hugh’s eyes narrowed. “How does a normal guy get laid?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. They go to a bar and find someone. They go online and find someone that way. I don’t know. Normal people have more sex than I do, Hugh.”
“I’d challenge that, actually. I suspect most people over-report how frequently they’re having sex, especially in your demographic, Will.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Will muttered.
“It matters. Do you go to bars?”
“Not really.”
“Do you go online, wherever people are meeting?”
“No.”
“So your experiments at meeting people have been—what, exactly?”
“Fuck you.”
Hugh stretched out over him, knees coming down on either side of Will’s thighs, pressing their dicks together. Will wasn’t super hard—yet—but the feel of Hugh’s skin made him tingle somewhere deep in his balls.
“I haven’t had sex since you left, either, Will. How do you want me?”
“Hugh…” He couldn’t answer. He didn’t know the answer, and he couldn’t talk, anyway.
Hugh kissed his cheek, his jaw, his neck. “Tell me. Say the words. You must speak, Will. You have to tell me when you start to twist things.” Kisses, down his neck, over his chest. Hugh spent a few minutes on his nipple, pulling with his teeth until Will was breathing raggedly. “I know it’s hard, and I know it feels real, but you have to remember it isn’t.”
“But—but you—you don’t need this as much as I do.” Dammit. He was crying anyway. “You don’t need me as much as I need you and I hate myself for it, I hate myself for wanting you this much.”
“Oh, Will.” Hugh came back up and grabbed his ear to pull his head up, lips pressing against his other ear so that when he spoke, it was low, almost inaudible. “You have no idea how much I fucking miss you. Sometimes I wake up in this bed and I think you’re still here for a split second, and Will, I feel so fucking lost when I realize you aren’t it takes everything I have to get out of bed and drink coffee and take a shower. I dream about your skin under my fingertips. Do you understand?”
Will trembled, pressing his lips to Hugh’s skin. “I didn’t know that. I thought it was just me.”
“Hazard of feeling everything too deeply; you will always think it’s just you, Will. But with me, you shouldn’t worry about that. I feel things just as deeply.”
“You hide it better.”
“I don’t recommend that as a life choice. Hiding things only makes you more lonely.”
This time Will rolled them both, landing on top of Hugh so he could look down. “You get lonely?”
“Lonely is my default state, I sometimes think. This surprises you?”
But no, not really. Hugh, in his big house, with Cordelia and the grandparents around every corner. His big house, where even Lucy and Nick didn’t seem to come around that often.
“You should go out more,” he said, smiling a little.
“You should take your own advice.”
“Probably. But it all feels so hopeless. I mean, what, I go out, I meet girls, and then what? I have literally thought of loading Grindr just so I could maybe have sex again someday. I mean, that might be a dick move. I don’t know.”
“I don’t think it would be a dick move. So to speak. But I also don’t think it would actually make you feel better.”
“Yeah. Kind of what I figured.”
Hugh smiled, and this time he looked just a little bit sad, which Will realized was the smile he considered Hugh’s “real” smile. A little sad, a little resigned.
“I love you,” he said, staring down. “I can’t help it. I think about you all the time. I’m trying really hard not to be a creeper, but I think about you a lot, Hugh. I miss you a lot.”
“I miss you a lot, too. It worries me less.”
“Just—we started this thing and it’s still not—you know. It’s still not like I want to marry you.”
“Convenient, since that would be illegal. Again.”
“Yeah, but you know, it’s not like casual, either, Hugh. For me.”
“Will.” Hugh’s hands ran up his arms, over his shoulders, coming to rest on his neck. “Nothing about this has ever been casual to me.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I tell myself that, but it doesn’t help.”
“Maybe this will.” Hugh tugged him down for a kiss, insistent and promising. “I don’t think I’m cut out for marriage. Or even for relationships, really. But you are something different, and incredibly precious to me, Will.”
“God, you have to stop saying shit like that.”
A hand snaked in between their bodies and touched Will’s dick.
“I’ve been looking forward to this. I tried so hard not to pressure you. I wanted to offer you train tickets, but I didn’t want you to think I was just trying to get in the way of you moving on.”
“Fuck, moving on?” Ohgod, ohgod, Hugh’s hand. Will tried not to thrust, but it was hard.
“I’m not trying to convert you. And Grindr aside, I believe you have women in your future. Perhaps as well as men, I don’t know. But you have a wonderful future ahead of you, and I’d hate to be in the way of it.”
Words, words, words, when what Will wanted was Hugh’s hand, maybe his mouth.
Oh thank god, thank god. He realized that Hugh wanted something else and shifted until their dicks were in range.
“Yes. Good. Stay right there.” Hugh kissed his neck and reached over for lube. “Good, Will.”
Lubed hands, one wrapping around their dicks, the other reaching back.
“Wider. Let me in, Will.”
Will spread his legs and Hugh slid fingers into his crack, holding some kind of insane sit-up position while he did it, all of Hugh’s fucking muscles on display now when Will looked down to see their dicks in his hand.
“Clench for me. Yeah, Will. I want to feel how tight you are, without me in your ass for two months.”
He nearly came just feeling Hugh’s finger at his hole. The pleasure was sudden and intense, but he held on, even though Hugh’s other hand was jacking both of them faster, even though it took everything in Will’s power not to thrust into his fist.
“Good, nice and tight.” Hugh’s finger pushed inside, and Will’s brain tripped on the order to clench when what he wanted was to bear down in welcome, not resistance.
And god, fuck, a finger inside, yeah, he missed that a lot. It wasn’t the same with his own fingers.
“Two now. Let me in, Will. Let me in. I’ll tell you when I want you tight again.”
Will exhaled and pushed out, burying his eyes against Hugh’s shoulder. “Please—please, Hugh—”
“Good boy.” Two fingers in so deep, he could feel knuckles against his ass. “Clench now.”
He clenched, and Hugh’s fingers moved against his prostate as his other hand sped up, suspending Will between two kinds of pleasure.
“Come, Will. Stay tight just like this and come for me.”
Impossible to resist. He came, shaking, letting Hugh take all of his weight, still grinding against Hugh’s dick, his belly, his hand.
“Stay right there,” Hugh said, and used the fingers still in his ass to guide him. “You feel so good, Will.” He held Will hard against him with the arm that had jacked him off, and Hugh thrust up, ground up, pulled Will down, grinding until Will gasped with the friction on his hyper-sensitive dick.
Hugh’s fingers hooked inside him and Hugh hissed, “Don’t even think about moving, Will.”
The sensation was way too much and he couldn’t control the weird convulsive shudders running through his body, which just seemed to get Hugh off more.
“I’m coming—Will—coming—”
And yeah, watching Hugh’s face while he came, that was fucking hot. So fucking hot. It was the only time he couldn’t completely control his expression, and Will loved it. Will loved this moment of unguarded feeling on Hugh’s face.
He kissed Hugh gently at first, letting him rise out of the orgasm before really going in. It was all backwards, out of order, dinner and fucking and making out at the end. Will closed his eyes and did everything he’d wanted to do for two months, all the kissing he missed so fucking much sometimes it was an ache he didn’t think he’d ever be free from.
Hugh’s hands squeezed his ass cheeks. “I’m glad you’re here, Will. In my bed. On my skin.”
“Me too.”
“Shower?”
“Yeah.”
They kissed up against the walls of the shower, and Hugh opened him up with soapy fingers, maybe with intent, maybe just for fun, talking a bunch of shit about he didn’t want to hurt Will, didn’t want to take him too hard in the morning with his ass so tight.
And yeah, panting against the tiles while Hugh’s voice surrounded him and his fingers opened him? God, this was so good.
Will crashed fast and hard, like always. But he must not have slept long. When he woke up, Hugh was sitting beside him, reading a book.
He tipped his glasses down. “Hello again.”
“How long was I asleep?”
“Oh, forty-five minutes or so. Are you awake now, or are you merely rising out of your doze long enough for a kiss goodnight?”
Will flushed. “Shut up.”
“Honest question.” Hugh leaned down and used his fingers under Will’s chin to guide him up for a kiss. “Thank you for coming up, Will.”
“Uh, yeah. Well. Anytime.”
“Let me know if you want me to buy your tickets. You may recall that I’m now wealthy.”
“Ha. Right. Rich guy, I keep forgetting. Not.” Shit, it was hard to look Hugh in the eyes when he got like this. How the hell did Will ever let himself forget that Hugh Reynolds only came off casual when he was trying to mask depth? Hugh didn’t even have a “casual” setting for people.
“I may not let you leave the bed tomorrow. FYI.”
Please yes. “What, no yard work?”
“True. I may let you leave the bed for yard work, providing you make your mouth available to my use throughout the day.”
“What, in the yard? With the neighbors?”
“I was thinking just inside the door.”
Will grinned. “Sweet.”
“You, Will, are very, very sweet. If you aren’t going directly back to sleep, I may take this opportunity to remind myself just how sweet you taste.”
“Shit, Hugh, come on.”
Hugh set his glasses and book aside, sliding down into the bed. “Will. I love you very much. I don’t let people go once I’ve let them in. You have always imagined yourself to be so much more vulnerable between us, but if that was ever true, it isn’t now.” He reached out, cupping Will’s cheek, and Will caught his breath. “Your sadness hurts my heart. Don’t imagine, ever, that I could easily dismiss you from my life.”
“Okay.” Will leaned in for a kiss. “Just, I don’t know what this is.”
“It is what we make it,” Hugh said, again.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Can we make out more, now? I love kissing you.”
“God, Will. You astound me.”
Yeah, back at you.
They kissed, on their sides, with Will’s leg over Hugh’s back, nestling their dicks together. It could have turned into sex again, but it didn’t. Kissing, hands roaming over skin, the occasional flutter of eyelashes beating on cheeks or necks.
Will woke up the next morning, still curled in Hugh’s arms. It didn’t matter what it was, or wasn’t; being in Hugh’s arms was home, regardless.
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