stop. look. listen.
Feeling Better Since I've surrendered
There’s nothing like the slow torture of finals when you are, for lack of a better word, dating Nate Fick.
Brad doesn’t really give a shit about the finals. It’s not that he doesn’t study, he just doesn’t fret or panic or ingest copious amounts of coffee and go batshit crazy when someone moves his notes. (To be fair, Nate only does two of the above. Guess which.)
Midterms weren’t that bad. Of course, during the midterms they were still unfucking themselves and trying to get the other one to check ‘yes’ on the notes passed in the study hall or whatever it was. Brad prefers not to dwell on those times and kicks Ray every time Ray launches into one of his rants on the dark era when the Iceman wasn’t getting any and everyone in the house was fucking miserable for it.
So, okay, midterms were bad. But this is worse.
Nate spends his every free moment in the library and believe Brad, Nate doesn’t have all that many free moments as it is. And the library means the study group, and the study group means Eveline and Trish and Rosa. (And Mike and Evan, but they at least never tried to get into Nate’s pants. Or Brad doesn’t know about that and they’re very lucky.)
Still, they are ways to deal with it.
“Coffee,” he says, placing the tray on the table, over the piles of notes. Trish gives him a stinkeye over it, must be her notes, but he places a cup in front of her and her brow smooths out. Eveline tries to surreptitiously move her chair the fuck away from Nate’s personal space. Brad glares at her for a good measure. “Nate, a moment of your time,” he says pleasantly, but Nate’s good at reading him and his eyes narrow.
“What’s your problem this time?” he asks when they’re outside of the study hall, when Brad’s pushing him against the wall. It’s late and the corridor is empty, but Brad wouldn’t let crowds stop him even if it wasn’t.
“You’re studying too much. Your brain will fry,” Brad tells him.
“So instead you’re attempting to fuck me stupid? Great plan.” Nate sounds annoyed, but the way he grinds his hips against Brad is pretty damn obvious.
“It’s a fucking brilliant plan and you know it. And you want it,” he adds, palming Nate’s dick through his pants, the heel of his hand pressing hard. Nate’s head hits the wall with a dull thud, his eyes closed as he bites his lip to keep the sound in.
“Mostly, I want to finish the chapter on the International Policy in the seventies.”
“And?”
“Getting some sleep after that would be nice.”
“And?” he pushes, teeth grazing Nate’s neck, feeling the pulse speed up under his tongue.
“Alright, fine. This isn’t half bad,” he offers breezily.
Brad laughs. Nate’s hard enough to pound nails already, straining against his pants in a way that must be bordering on painful, and he still manages to sound like a prissy princess. “Not half bad?” he asks and kisses Nate, slowly, lazily. He doesn’t even push his tongue in, just licks at the corner of Nate’s mouth, coaxes his lips open. At the same time he sticks his hand in Nate’s half-opened pants and starts working his cock.
“Brad,” Nate finally moans, surrendering.
“Good. If I suck your cock, will you scream for me? Loud enough so everyone inside the study hall hears you, come see what the racket is all about? It would be the only chance Eveline gets to see your dick.”
“She doesn’t--”
“Oh, yes, she does. Quite a few people would like to fuck you, Nate Fick, but only I get to do that. If I wanted to, all I’d have to do is nudge your legs open and you’d spread for me, wouldn’t you? Even now, even here?”
“You should have taken up that creative writing course, you’re wasting your great talent,” Nate muttered, almost going cross-eyed but the words come out level and unstuttering. Brad is actually quite impressed.
“It’s only creative writing if it’s not true. And as we both know, you would spread for me.”
“Brad, I swear to god--” he stops when the door on the far end of the corridor opens and someone comes out. The guy doesn’t even look in their direction, just heads the other way. Nate’s biting his lip so hard he draws blood, and he spills into Brad’s hand.
“You kinky shit,” Brad mutters with a certain amount of pride. “Who knew.”
“That was too fucking close. Next time you want public sex, at least have the decency to corner me in a bathroom or something,” Nate mutters and leans in, kissing Brad gently, licking at his mouth. “Just wait here, I need to get my notes.”
“And?”
“And once we get back to the house, we’ll discuss who’s spreading legs for whom tonight. If you’re lucky, I might even fuck you.”
“Dream on, Fick,” Brad says, ignoring the twitch his dick gives at that. He absently licks his fingers clean, leaning against the wall and settling in to wait. His only regret is that he doesn’t get to see the look on Eveline’s face when she sees Nate looking all fucked-out like this. He idly wonders if Nate actually had the presence of mind to zip up his pants.
*
Everyone’s slowly fucking off, Mike checking if every car has a sober driver and if everyone has their seatbelts on. He nods at Nate and looks around. Ray’s conked out, half-buried in sand, wearing some really ugly hat that looks like a stuffed donkey. Nate must have missed that part.
“You guys need a ride?”
“We’re fine,” Brad says. “Nate’s depressingly sober and can get us all home safely.”
Brad sounds sober but isn’t really, his eyes are dark and his lips are full and red from stretching around quite a few bottles. He’s coherent and conscious, though, so Nate will at least have someone to help him carry Ray to the car. He nods at Mike. “Go. I’ll see you back at the house.”
The fire is slowly dying out, no one is adding any more driftwood to it, but the evening is warm, the sand still hot underneath.
“Have a nice evening, gents,” Mike tells them and walks away towards Cara’s car. Nate perfunctorily checks if Ray’s still breathing (he is, and snoring) and lays down on the sand again, head propped up on Brad’s rolled up hoodie.
Brad’s laying next to him, his knee nudging Nate’s hip when he shifts. It wouldn’t be even half as distracting if Brad put the rest of his clothes back, but he discarded his shirt and his pants when some of the guys had the bright idea of going swimming and still hasn’t put them back on, laying on the sand just in his boxer briefs, miles of skin just next to Nate.
It would be almost too easy to turn to the side, run his tongue over the nearest available patch of Brad’s skin. Kiss his way up, linger when he finds the places that make Brad arch into the touch, that make him groan.
He wonders if Brad would get impatient, pull him up for a bruising kiss, or would his fingers tangle in Nate’s hair as he pushed him down, directing Nate’s attention to his cock.
“Nate,” Brad says and Nate shivers, closes his eyes for a moment. “Am I really that drunk or is Person singing Avril Lavigne in his sleep?”
Nate shakes his head and breathes out slowly, pulling himself up, dusting sand off his hands. “I think it’s our cue. If he starts singing louder someone might call the cops.”
“Ray’s singing is indeed a crime against humanity,” Brad agrees, bending to pick his shirt up. Nate looks away.
*
Nate writes things down on his skin. When he’s busy, when he has no time or he’s juggling too many things to fish out a sheet of paper, he uses the convenience of his palm or his wrist to jot down what he doesn’t want to lose.
A phone number, the date a paper is due, a book someone has mentioned and he just has to check out. The ink fades during the day, smudges out a little, but remains legible. It’s a slightly strange chronicle of Nate’s day and Brad traces the ink with his thumb, sliding it across Nate’s wrist, over the visible blue vein, under the smudge.
Ray has hijacked the movie night and they’re watching Tarantino again, Uma slaughtering everyone on screen and Ray providing a MST3K-style commentary, with Poke contributing whenever Ray takes a break to drink, or fucking breathe.
In the dark, Brad runs his fingertips down Nate’s arm, all the way to his wrist. He saw a number written there earlier, a string of letters too short to be a phone number, ending right on the heel of Nate’s palm. Brad just glimpsed it, in dark-green ink, almost as dark as Nate’s eyes now; but when it comes to everything about Nate, he all but memorised it.
It started with a nine and Brad traces the number over Nate’s skin with his fingernail. Nate’s breath hitches but it’s covered by the sound of bodies hitting the floor on the screen and of Stafford’s ‘that’s not even physically possible’ followed by a chorus of inquires as to how he would know.
Seven. Three. Brad’s eyes are firmly fixed on Uma, but he knows the exact moment Nate shifts, moves that little closer under the pretense of finding a more comfortable spot. Nate’s hand clenches and opens again, wrist up, like he’s offering it to Brad, the vulnerable patch of skin over his veins. His pulse is racing.
Brad wants to run his tongue over the ink, over the green and blue. Wants to suck on Nate’s fingers and then tell him what exactly he could do with them next. Wants to drop his hand into Nate’s lap, run his fingers up the inside seam of his jeans. Stick his hand right into Nate’s pants and jerk him off right here, right now, Nate’s dick in Brad’s hand as everyone watches Kill fucking Bill.
He doesn’t. Well, not yet, exactly, sticking his hand into Nate’s pants is still something he plans to do this evening, but for now he’s perfectly content just closing his fingers around Nate’s wrist.
*
Brad’s sister has measles, and that means he’s exiled. His mother takes this kind of things all too seriously, but when she and her siblings were little, Brad’s uncle had a severe case with some rather bad complications and so she’s pretty damn adamant about Brad not even being in the same state as Kate. So, exiled.
It’s not that bad, it’s not a fucking Dickens’ novel, the winter break on campus is actually pretty great; all the fun parties thrown by other outcasts and no mundane business of actually having to go to class. And if he really wanted to, there are dozen other places he could go, including somewhere warm and with a chance of catching a good wave.
But he had a rather awful winter break last year because of that shitty situation with Julie and well, he’s been looking forward to this.
“Would it help your mood if I sucked your cock?” Nate asks, irritably, from over his notes. Brad’s been absently taking his computer apart for the last half an hour just to put it back together. It must have been driving Nate up the wall.
This is also why Brad seriously needs to look inside Nate’s laptop. The keyboard alone should be interesting.
“I’m not sure. You should definitely try,” he says pleasantly. He’s not a guy who would stand in the way of scientific inquiry.
Nate looks somewhat pissy, like he half-expected Brad to decline the offer and let him go back to whatever bleeding-heart liberal dicksuck paper he’s writing a month earlier than it’s due. Like that would happen. But still, pissy Nate is kind of great.
Brad leans back to rest on his elbows, more laying than sitting on the floor now. He spreads his legs invitingly and that earns him Nate’s undivided attention. Oh, he tries to cover it with an irritated look, but there’s no mistaking the slight hitch of breath and the way Nate’s tongue swipes across his lower lip.
“Come on, Fick, it’s not going to suck itself.”
“It might, if you clapped your hands and believed really hard,” Nate tells him and slides off his chair. It rolls away with a squeak of the wheels.
“Speaking of hard, take that fucking sweater off, it’s a serious dick-softener.”
“No, it isn’t,” Nate says with complete conviction. And damn him, he’s right. It’s a sweater Nate’s goddamn grandmother made for him and unlike most people Brad knows who’d donate the monstrosity to goodwill, or burn it in the backyard, Nate wears it and doesn’t even look ridiculous. There’s no justice in the world.
He crawls in between Brad’s knees and waits until Brad looks up, and only then he pulls the sweater over his head, together with the shirt from underneath it.
“I didn’t know there was going to be a show.”
“Was that a complaint I’ve heard?”
“Just an observation,” he shrugs and wants to lick the answering smirk off Nate’s lips. And right now, he gets to do what he wants, and he pulls Nate in for a bruising kiss, biting Nate’s lower lip, waiting for the familiar sounds as Nate opens for him completely.
They fumble a little as Nate moves to straddle him, Brad’s head hitting the floor with a dull thud when he arches into Nate, when their dicks align. A screwdriver is digging into Brad’s side but he doesn’t mind at the moment.
The kiss slows down, still heated but with less intent now, like they have all the time in the world. It’s a feeling he gets a lot about Nate lately. It’s probably a whole new level of gay, but hey, guess whose dick he sucked this morning. Nate’s fingers thread his hair and his tongue is mapping out Brad’s mouth like it’s both a new terrain and something achingly familiar.
“Nate,” Brad groans and Nate pulls back slightly, his eyes completely dark. He looks at Brad with amazement that’s almost painful. “Weren’t you going to suck my dick?” Brad says, because if he didn’t, he’d say something strikingly different.
Nate huffs a laugh and kisses Brad again, briefly, before he moves back to kneel between Brad’s legs, undoing his pants efficiently, still smiling. There’s nothing quite as sinful as Nate Fick’s mouth stretched around Brad’s cock. One day it’s going to be the death of him, and then Nate will have some serious explaining to do.
“Don’t hold back. I want you to come in my mouth,” Nate says and Brad closes his eyes. See what he means about it killing him one day?
Nate’s hand rests on Brad’s thigh, but there’s no pressure, Nate doesn’t stop his hips from rising, doesn’t stop Brad from fucking his mouth. His eyes don’t stay closed for long, he needs to watch Nate’s lips on him, Nate’s gaze trained at him, dark and heated and almost too much but Brad has long resigned himself to the fact that from Nate Fick? He wants everything.
Nate looks like he agrees, swallows the last drop of Brad’s come and then crawls up his body for another kiss. “I’ve been thinking,” he says.
“While you were sucking my cock? I know you’re prone to thinking too much, but this is a little insulting.”
“Well, when I was sucking your cock I was thinking I’ll give you a few minutes to rest and then you can fuck me. But we’re moving onto the bed for that.”
“Pussy,” Brad says fondly.
“Very much not so,” Nate counters and sighs, rolling to the side and propping himself up on one elbow. He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry even though his dick is practically tenting his pants. “But, as I was saying.”
“You were thinking,” Brad supplies. “That’s a good thing, considering how much time, money and effort you’re putting into your education. Would be a great shame to waste that.”
“You should come home with me.”
Brad stares at him. “Nate,” he breathes out. “I don’t want a pity invitation.”
“Fuck you, Colbert.” There’s no heat in it, Nate means it as a statement of fact. “Don’t make it into something it’s not. Let’s try again: I want you to come home with me.”
There’s a great number of things Brad could say to that. Many things he wants to say, but everything dies in his throat. He reaches out instead, places his hand at the nape of Nate’s neck, pulls him close so their foreheads meet. Nate shifts closer easily and they stay like that for a moment. “Okay,” Brad finally says. “Do I get to defile you in your childhood room?”
“I think Mom turned it into a study. But I know better than thinking it’d stop you.”
“You obviously know me well,” Brad nods with a smile, but his tone turns out much softer than the mocking remark he intended. Nate nods slowly and brings his lips to Brad’s.
*
It’s the fifth night Nate doesn’t spend in his own bed. Brad’s not far from suggesting they get rid of Nate’s bed and use the space for something useful, like a pinball machine, but they’re still officially a secret.
Probably the worst-kept secret in the house, considering that yesterday when Brad sucked Nate off in the shower Nate completely forgot about the rule on using your inside voice when you’re coming your brains out.
Brad’s not a great fan of that rule anyway.
Nate sleeps on his stomach, head turned and half-buried in the pillow. He must have shifted when Brad was in the shower, because the sheet covering him had slid lower, invitingly exposing Nate’s naked back, fading marks on his shoulders, ones that Brad left there.
He mostly doesn’t do it on purpose. But there’s no harm in letting the whole world know that Nate is his and his alone, or rather that he’s someone’s, even if they don’t yet know he’s Brad’s.
This possessiveness surprises Brad a little. He was never like that about Sandra or Rachel, and he wasn’t like that about Julie. Maybe that was the problem with being with Julie.
Nate shifts, his lips mouthing something that Brad can’t quite make out. The last syllable seems familiar, though, Nate has moaned something like that quite a few times last night.
Brad crawls onto the bed, tugs at the sheet. Their first year, someone set up a fucking facebook group dedicated to Nate’s ass. Brad suspected it to be one of Ray’s retarded pranks, but all too many people joined it, if you ask Brad.
But, he digresses. What he was thinking is: saying it’s a nice ass is a fucking understatement.
Nate shifts again, as if conscious of Brad’s gaze, moves closer. It’s almost like an invitation.
Brad nudges his legs open, slides down to find the best angle, and starts licking, working his tongue inside Nate’s ass. He’d never thought he’d do that, before Nate, but it’s Nate. Brad had fucked him last night for the first time and right now he imagines he can taste himself.
They have used a condom, but he’s not spoiling his porn fantasies with facts.
Nate shivers, starts moving back, working himself on Brad’s tongue. That’s another thing about Nate he’s quite pleased to discover; Nate may look proper and shit, but once you get him past a certain point, he’s shameless, wanton. He takes everything Brad gives him and then demands more. And he’s a pushy fucker about that, too.
“More,” Nate says now, apparently awoken and proving Brad’s point. He scrambles to move, bend his legs and provide Brad with a much better angle and a free access to Nate’s cock.
“Morning to you too,” Brad mutters, his fingers closing around Nate’s dick. “Did you have pleasant dreams?”
“Somehow not as good as the reality. Fuck, Brad,” he groans, moving like he’s not sure whether he wants to push back on Brad’s tongue or thrust into his hand, shaking moments later.
Things Brad Colbert can’t get enough of: seeing Nate Fick come apart. And, you know, come. Pretty fucking awesome, if you ask him.
Nate turns around, liquid and boneless, and pulls Brad close, licks at his mouth, the sounds he’s making quieter now, but even better for it. “I’m going to suck your dick in a moment,” he promises into Brad’s mouth, managing to sound filthy and sweet at the same time. “I should have known you’d like that, you’ve been staring at my lips for weeks. Should have known you were thinking about fucking my mouth.”
That too. And it’s been months, not weeks. But fuck him sideways, he imagined just this, just kissing Nate and licking at his mouth and tasting his words and his smiles and his smirks; he imagined this just as often as he thought about getting Nate to suck his cock.
And guess what, he gets to have both.
*
Brad only learns Julie broke up with him when she changes her facebook status.
There’s really not much to say about that, because the whole thing works best as a punch line, and it’s not like he expected his damn high school girlfriend to be the one and only happily ever after and shit, but. Well. Not the best week of his life.
And then Ray, who didn’t get the memo that high school friendships and romances aren’t supposed to last and who somehow managed to follow Brad to the fucking college, Ray tells the tale to everyone and demands people buy Brad drinks. They do. It helps, for a while, and then he’s puking.
He’ll need to work on that.
He thinks he sees Nate Fick talking to Ray. It’s strange, because apart from the fact that they’re pledging the same frat, Nate and Brad and Ray don’t seem to have all that much in common. Nate’s in one of Brad’s classes, the one Brad’s taking only because Patterson is kind of awesome and actually knows what the fuck he’s talking about, unlike some professors around here, not to name names but fuck, Shwetje shouldn’t have graduated junior high, what the fuck is he doing teaching people?
Anyway. Fick. Who doesn’t seem to be an idiot or an asshole, but Brad’s good opinion isn’t that easy to win. Talking to Ray, who seems strangely subdued, for Ray, meaning the neighbouring states can’t hear him. Huh.
“Come on, Colbert,” Fick tells him suddenly right next to Brad. His eyes are really green.
The fuck? Oh, right, Brad’s drunk. Okay, then.
“I don’t know what lies Ray told you, but I’m not that cheap a date. Not going anywhere before I get a decent dinner and some fucking flowers. Azaleas are nice.”
He’s not quite as far gone as to not know what he’s saying, and he watches for Fick’s reaction. Fick laughs, surprising Brad. “I’ll make a note of that. Come on,” he repeats. “Hasser took Ray back to the dorms, but I think you need to walk it off a little. I know for the fact you have a test to write tomorrow.”
Patterson is a sadist asshole who apparently believes in monitoring progress and shit. Nobody warned Brad. Except, you know, Patterson, during the first class. “I’ll wing it.”
“Not hungover, you won’t,” Fick shakes his head and pulls Brad to his feet. He’s surprisingly strong for someone who looks like he should be a freshman in high school, not college. “One foot after the other, and we’re walking.”
Brad wants to tell him where he can put his condescension, but when he looks at Fick he sees concern and determination and something akin to amusement. It’s a really weird fucking expression. He snorts. “Your face looks funny.”
“I’m sure it does,” Fick agrees pleasantly and then falls silent, which suits Brad just fine. The night air is quite pleasant and Brad spends some time enjoying the cool breeze against his flushed skin and that’s why it takes him a moment to realise they’re not heading in the general direction of Brad’s dorm.
He asks Fick about that, but he just shrugs. “Walking it off, Colbert. We’re taking the scenic route.”
“The one with no fucking people around? Fuck, I thought you wanted me for my body, but maybe you just want to steal my kidneys.”
“Technically, your kidneys are a part of your body,” Fick tells him and it startles Brad into a genuine laugh. He didn’t expect to be amused tonight, by anything or anyone. Fick smiles at him with something that looks like satisfaction.
“I still require dinner,” Brad informs him.
“You’re out of luck, Colbert, because I require so much more than that,” Nate shoots back easily.
Truer words, Brad will think later. At the time, he just laughs and walks on, Nate falling into step with him.
*
Nate starts dating Ria at the beginning of their sophomore year. Brad starts to figure out why the fuck it bothers him and the conclusion isn’t very helpful.
It’s not that he dislikes Ria. She’s not a total idiot and has spectacular tits and likes cars, the faster the better, and Brad forgives her the retardation when it comes to bikes when she confesses she doesn’t care for the technical specs, she just likes the speed.
“There’s nothing better than going really fast,” she says once, eyes shining, and Brad would agree, except her hand is on Nate’s thigh, absently sliding up and down, and that one thing is going too fast for Brad’s liking.
He gets sexiled two weeks into Nate and Ria’s thing. Nate clears it with him four days earlier, and seriously, who the fuck does that? What happened to the good old sock on the door? But he has time to make plans and he does, trying not to question his growing irritation. He goes to the party Kocher is throwing, but the moment fucking Captain America gets involved it starts sucking some major ass and Brad finds himself back at the house, playing cards with Poke and Lilley and Ray, and Ray tries to cheat as he always does.
Brad tells himself he’s not listening for the sounds from upstairs, is not trying to hear if Nate’s headboard is hitting the wall already. He wonders if Nate pushed her against the doors when they got in, if he hiked up her skirt. Or maybe Ria got to her knees, swallowed Nate’s cock eagerly. That’s what Brad would do, if he got to do that.
The thought is surprisingly anti-climactic. Something tightens in Brad’s chest and his blood goes cold, but it’s not earth-shattering except that it is, a little.
Person calls and Brad shows his hand; full house that makes Ray groan. “Fuck, Brad, you looked so fucking depressed I thought you had shit,” he complains. “There’s bluffing and there’s just plain lying.”
There’s thinking about Nate’s lips and idly wondering if he would be good at sucking cock and there’s thinking about sinking to his knees and nuzzling Nate’s cock, licking the underside and fondling his balls, enjoying the sounds Nate makes and the way his fingers thread Brad’s hair. There’s that, and then there’s wanting to be the one with whom Nate wakes up, whose shoulder he kisses, smiling sleepily.
You can see how this isn’t helpful at all.
He spends the night on the couch in the common room, flipping through the channels. In the morning Ria bounces downstairs in one of Nate’s t-shirts and her own shorts and makes coffee. She wordlessly places a cup in front of Brad before going back upstairs, two mugs in her hands, and Brad hates her a little more for being actually nice.
Ria and Nate break up right before the midterms and Nate just shrugs when asked, not even offering excuses. They’re obviously still friendly, with that certain kind of awkwardness that comes with being friends with someone you used to fuck on regular basis, but their talks, as far as Brad can tell, revolve around classes and assignments and books. Brad hates Ria a little less, but now he considers her much more of an idiot for letting Nate get away.
He dreads the moment Nate hooks up with someone new. There’s no shortage of volunteers; Eveline from Nate’s study group looks ready to pounce him given the slightest invitation and Brad fantasises about running her over with his bike. Mostly, though, he fantasises about fucking Nate in the library, over their usual table. Spreading Nate open and fucking him, with his cock or his fingers or his tongue, some part of him inside Nate and Nate asking for more, calling out Brad’s name.
He thinks about making Nate coffee in the morning and taking it upstairs, to Nate who’s still groggy from sleep, skin flushed and warm, and maddeningly beautiful. Brad sees him like this every day and on some days, he does make the coffee, places it in front of Nate at breakfast and doesn’t say anything. It should be enough.
*
Ria Morales has dark hair, a generous but rare smile, a great taste in books and an abysmal one in movies. She also seems to be on Nate’s wavelength most of the time, and when she’s not they stay up arguing until four in the morning and making out after that.
They break up right before the midterms for no reason at all, but mostly because when Nate has been studying he didn’t even think of calling her, and because she didn’t mind it at all. They break up because most days, she prefers to stay in than go out with him. They break up because they’re great friends who like to fuck from time to time but who pretty much find this whole relationship thing a bit overwhelming.
“It’s not you, it’s me. Or maybe you,” Nate tells her mock-seriously and she laughs, breaking the tension around them when they sit in the cafeteria and she leans back in her chair.
“I want my books back,” she says.
“I want my shirts back,” he shoots back, because she’s been stealing them for weeks. She says they’re comfortable to sleep in and Nate doesn’t fucking know how you can be comfortable sleeping in a dress shirt, but hey. “Exchange of hostages tomorrow at dawn. Or actually, tomorrow before class.”
“Sounds good,” she kisses his cheek and that’s that. The next day she hands him the bag with the shirts and some CDs and one of his notebooks he left at her room and he gives her most of the books back, except for that one essays collection he hadn’t finished yet, but he promises to deliver next week. “You better,” she says. “I know where you live. You know,” she adds thoughtfully, “maybe Colbert will stop glaring at me like he’s trying to shoot laser beams from his eyes.”
There’s something pointed in her words but Nate doesn’t know what. He tries to chase the thought, the feeling of something important on the edge of his mind, but to no avail.
And speaking of Brad, he watches Nate carefully for days after the breakup, like he’s expecting something to happen. On Friday he offers to take Nate out and get him drunk and then escort him home safely, via the scenic route. Nate smiles in recollection and shakes his head, declines. He has the first exam on Monday, he doesn’t need a hangover on Saturday. But there’s something else in Brad’s gaze than wanting to return a favour; there’s concern and sympathy, but also some underlying nervousness Nate can’t place.
So instead of going out and drinking, he challenges Brad to a game of chess and they stay up late, playing, Brad’s strange uncertainty disappearing when he watches the board in concentration. And when Brad’s gaze is on the board, Nate watches him with growing curiosity, Ria’s words playing in his head.
He’s not sure what it is, yet, but he has a few theories.
At four in the morning Brad steals downstairs and comes back with two steaming mugs of coffee. His fingers accidentally brush against Nate’s when he’s handing one over and Nate thinks that maybe he wants to test one of those theories.
*
“If the cops ask about us, you know nothing,” Ray warns Nate the moment Nate walks into the room, dropping his duffel bag on the floor. Ray is sprawled across Brad’s bed, looking like he’s on the verge of sliding off it, his head upside down and his hair almost sweeping the floor but not quite.
Brad looks up from over his book and rolls his eyes, but his the corner of his mouth twitches in a ghost of a smile and Nate supposes this is Brad’s way of saying it’s good to see Nate.
“So, how was Tijuana?”
“Awesome,” Ray says at the same moment as Brad wryly offers: “Tedious.”
Just about as expected, then.
“Yes, well, tedious if you’re the Iceman and have a fucking icicle up your ass, maybe,” Ray volunteers. “Why the fuck would you go to Tijuana if all you’re going to do is mope like a little bitch and avoid pussy like the plague?”
“Fuck off, Ray,” Brad tells him pleasantly.
Ray gives Nate a pointed look. “Maybe you can figure out how to fix him. Because if you can’t, we’re going to take him to the vet, to really fix him. Trombley was more fun than he was,” he adds mournfully and leaves. “Fucking Trombley,” he adds loudly from behind the closed doors for a good measure.
“You took Trombley to Tijuana?” Nate asks incredulously.
“I don’t know what I’ve been thinking,” Brad admits. “But he chipped in for the gas and, well, didn’t want to be locked inside a car with just Person and Hasser, they’d be trying to be inconspicuous as they groped each other in the back seat. And I would honestly be afraid to fall asleep in the car, as the next thing you know, Person would try to give Hasser a blowjob while one of them was driving and I don’t exactly have a death wish.”
“You took Trombley to Tijuana,” Nate points out.
“Fuck you. You didn’t want to go,” Brad says, almost petulantly. Nate doesn’t explain again that his sister was getting married and he went home to attend the wedding. With the whole family invasion he would have almost preferred Tijuana with Person and Trombley. He would definitely prefer anywhere with Brad.
“I missed you,” comes out, unbidden. He hadn’t seen Brad since the day after the beach party, since the break started and he left for home. Since then he’s been telling himself he’d try, see if maybe he wasn’t completely delusional and if maybe Brad wanted him too, at least a little, at least enough to try.
Nate’s been meaning to test that theory slowly, so that it wouldn’t earn him a punch in the face. Well, no, Brad wouldn’t, and he probably wouldn’t laugh in his face either, but he might simply turn Nate down gently and that would somehow be worse. Because ever since he started to think about it, think about Brad, Nate can think of little else.
Midterms were a fucking nightmare, as you can imagine.
But he goes and blurts it out and Brad looks up sharply. His eyes are stormy blue and his expression shifts, quickly schooled down. “Told you to come with us. I don’t know how you do it, but the kids behave around you.”
Nate shakes his head. He could leave it at that, but he wants to be sure and he might not have guts to try again. “No, Brad,” he mutters and crosses the room, coming to a halt inches away from Brad. Brad looks up, surprised and confused and, Nate wants to think, hopeful. Jesus, he really wants to think that was hopeful. “I missed you,” he repeats and kisses Brad, soft and light but leaving no doubt as to his intent.
Just when he’s about to pull away, Brad groans into his mouth and the moment shifts. Nate feels it in his bones, under his skin. He can’t get close enough, and Brad seems to feel the same; his hand is on the back of Nate’s neck, pulling him even closer. He spreads his legs and Nate stumbles forward, resting his knee on the edge of the chair and Brad arches, his dick hard against Nate’s leg.
“So, you missed me too?” Nate asks after a moment, when he pulls back and breathes harshly. Brad looks up at him, head thrown back, throat exposed invitingly, his lips swollen and wet. He looks like a wet dream made flesh.
“No idea why you’d think that. I find your presence unbearable,” Brad tells him, but his deadpan is off and he licks his lips and reaches out, his hand against Nate’s throat and his thumb swiping at the corner of Nate’s mouth. Nate licks at it, and then sucks it into his mouth and Brad closes his eyes and moans. “Fuck, Nate. I want...” he breathes out and opens his eyes again, staring at Nate with something like amazement.
“Anything,” he promises.
“It’s a long fucking list,” Brad tells him, and there’s a hint of uncertainty there and Nate’s heart wants to pound its way out of his chest. Brad’s hand is still on the side of his neck, right over his pulse point, and Nate reaches to cover it with his own.
“Anything,” he repeats. “Everything,” he adds, and Brad smiles at him then, brilliant and blinding, and then he’s standing up, kissing Nate again, and Nate finds himself being pushed towards Brad’s bed, Brad’s hands pushing his shirt up, breaking the kiss only so he can get Nate’s shirt off over his head.
“On the bed,” Brad says curtly, his voice rough.
“Brad,” Nate breathes out.
“I’ve spent weeks jerking off, thinking about this. I’ve planned this,” Brad says and he sounds both like he’s disgusted with himself and like he’s fucking giddy. Nate wants to lick the words off his mouth, taste that small smile. “I’m going to suck your cock now, because I’ve been going insane wondering how it would feel to see you come apart for me, how it would be when you fucked my mouth, and I’m not dealing well with delayed gratification, so get on the fucking bed. Questions?”
“One. Could you hurry the fuck up?” Nate grins at him, steps back for long enough to undo his pants. Seconds later Brad is pushing them down and then they’re stumbling onto the bed and Brad is crawling his way down Nate’s body, his hands and tongue all over Nate’s skin and Nate bites his lip because there might not be many people in the house, but some would come running if he screamed as loud as he wants to.
“I’ve wondered if I could make you beg,” Brad says, almost conversationally, before swallowing Nate’s dick, sloppy and choking just a little, but he finds the rhythm quickly. Nate tries to hold on to the words as Brad works on sucking his brains out of his dick. He knows the words were a suggestion.
“Please,” he says obligingly. There’s not much he’d deny Brad. “Please, Brad.”
“Don’t hold back,” Brad tells him and cups his balls, rolls them in his hand as Nate’s dick hits the back of his throat. Nate couldn’t hold back even if he wanted to. He comes with Brad’s name on his lips, liquid fire filling his whole body.
Brad smiles at him and Nate reaches out. He feels overwhelmed, but it’s still not nearly enough, he wants more and he wants everything. They’ll start with Brad’s list and build up from there.
*
Ray comes around after the Thursday study group, hovers while Nate gathers up his notes. He gets a few strange looks and Trish just openly stares at him in confusion, because most people seem to operate under the assumption that Ray Person doesn’t even know where the library is. Most people don’t know that Ray was on a debate team in high school, that he can quote Avril Lavigne lyrics one moment and then argue with you about the freedom of the press and the history of censorship right the next second, and he’s going to quote three authors and one president during his spiel, and use profanities that would make a Marine sergeant weep.
Most people do know however, that Ray Person is a persistent motherfucker and a self-appointed guardian of one Brad Colbert. Nate is definitely aware of this one.
“Let it go, Ray,” he says quietly.
Ray crosses his arms and gives him a look that plainly says that if Nate thinks this is going to happen, then he needs to have his head checked. “Look, I know it’s unfortunate that you both got your fucking periods at the same time and are therefore incapable of thinking rationally, but Brad has a long and proud history of emotional retardation. Aren’t you supposed to take the fucking higher ground here?”
A girl at one of the tables they pass glares at Ray pointedly. He blows a kiss at her and, wonder of wonders, she actually blushes a little.
Nate sighs. “I thought we had a rule about not discussing anything related to me and Brad in public places.”
“No, it’s only your sex life that’s off limits. And who would be interested in that? It’s all monogamy and flowers and shit, not even the Iceman’s giant dick would make it even remotely entertaining.” At Nate’s look, he shrugs. “Don’t worry, I’m sure your dick is nothing to be ashamed of. But, higher ground, homes. Take it. When you don’t take the higher ground it ends in someone getting their legs chopped off with a light saber.”
“I have no idea what you’re even talking about.”
“I’m talking about Brad going into a funk and moping around because he thinks you’re going to move on and leave him, and I’m talking about you spending all the fucking time in the library or wherever and avoiding him like you have actually moved on. You two are worse than a shitty soap opera because soaps actually have nice fake boobs to look at. Fuck you all.”
“I’m not leaving him. He’s the one who...” he stops and bites his lip.
The whole fucking thing started when Nate told Brad about his plans for grad school. Brad unexpectedly flipped out about the very thing Nate thought would please him most. Nate couldn’t understand why, but he might have a vague idea now.
“He’s a fucking idiot,” he says and Ray nods.
“Yep.”
And Nate should have known, because Brad is Brad and one of the things he does best is devising contingency plans, being prepared for every eventuality, especially if one of those eventualities could be someone leaving him again.
Which is fucking not going to happen, but Nate should have known anyway.
“I’m a fucking idiot.”
“Yep,” Ray agrees readily, then pats his back. “But now you can go fix this shit, so we could once again listen to whatever music we fucking like instead of the fucking Air Supply. My brain melts from this shit.”
He’s not wrong about the Air Supply; Making Love Out of Nothing at All is coming from Brad’s speakers when Nate gets back.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Nate says. Brad starts to smile at the sight of him and then it drains out of his expression and what’s left is the uncertainty, worry. Nate hates this. Hates Julie and Rachel and whatshername before her, and hates Brad’s biological parents and everyone else who has ever disappointed Brad. Hates that right now, he’s the one who put that doubt in Brad’s eyes.
He drops his books on his own bed and steps closer to Brad’s, tilting his head and giving the laptop a pointed look. “I’m not fucking you if this is playing,” he warns, moving to pull off his shirt.
Brad blinks, his breath hitching almost unnoticeably. “I thought you had studying to do tonight,” he says, but he turns the music off and shuts down the computer, sets it on the table while it winds itself down.
Nate shrugs. “Fuck it, I’m already in grad school,” he points out and watches for the change in Brad’s expression, the tight curl of his mouth. He nods and climbs onto the bed, climbs over Brad, straddling his thighs. He kisses Brad and despite the confusion and the doubt, Brad lets him right in, responds in kind, licks into Nate’s mouth with familiarity and eagerness.
“Nate,” he mutters, eyes closed. Nate places a finger under Brad’s chin, waits until he has Brad’s complete attention.
“I’m not choosing Stanford because of you,” he says. “I’m choosing it because it’s one of the best fucking schools in the country. And because of you.”
“I know you got accepted into Harvard. It’s closer to your family and I don’t want you to compromise because...”
Nate shuts him up with a kiss. Contrary what the movies tell you, it’s not effective in an actual argument, as someone might just bite your tongue in spite, but it’s highly recommended when someone is spouting complete bullshit and trying his best not to show how much it hurts them. The emotions come across clearly as they seep into the kiss.
Brad groans and relaxes instinctively, his hand closing around Nate’s bicep. “That’s not a valid point in the discussion.”
“About as valid as your suggestion that it’s a compromise for me to get a spot at one of the top Law Schools in the country and to get you,” he points out and sighs. “Unless you were counting on me choosing Harvard because you’re sick of me,” he adds wryly.
“Never that,” Brad says quickly, like he’s appalled Nate could think that.
Nate sighs. “Good to know,” he says and slides a little down Brad’s body, enough so that he can undo Brad’s jeans and slide them off. The talking part is almost over, it’s time for demonstration. “And now get it into your thick skull that I’d follow you across fucking continents. I’m pretty happy with California, considering you could have chosen the Arctic.”
“What the fuck would I be doing in the Arctic?”
“Something dangerous and moronic, no doubt,” Nate shrugs, extending his hand. Brad automatically reaches to the drawer that holds the lube. Nate would laugh at the incongruity of the situation but he’s already occupied with two equally engaging tasks and he’s a bit busy, and he’s coating his fingers generously and slowly stroking Brad’s cock. It’s a good thing he’s a good multi-tasker.
“Then it’s a good thing I’m choosing California,” Brad mutters and groans when Nate pushes his fingers inside him, slick and insistent. “Harder,” he says and Nate complies.
“Compromise my ass,” Nate mutters, more to himself than to Brad, but Brad looks at him from under half-closed lids and bites his lip, visibly fights for control over his voice before he speaks.
“I would have followed you to Cambridge,” he offers and Nate swallows harshly, mesmerised by the look in Brad’s eyes.
“And you would have bitched about the land of liberals, wasting the time that could be spent on me sucking your cock. No, thanks.”
Brad laughs roughly, the sound easily segueing into a groan as Nate enters him. There’s a moment of stillness before they both move again, before Nate gets the best hold on Brad’s legs and finds the right angle. Brad’s pushing back as much as he can, his back arched and his head thrown back, exposing the line of his neck.
Nate leans in, licking up Brad’s collarbone, working his way up his neck. He bites at the right spot and Brad shudders, clenching around Nate.
“You’re mine,” Nate mutters, licking at Brad’s mouth. Brad nods almost absently, like this is common knowledge, like it doesn’t need restating. “And I’m yours,” Nate adds and Brad starts coming.
“Yes, fuck, Nate,” he moans brokenly and it’s all Nate needs.
Some time later, when Nate’s head is pillowed on Brad’s chest and he’s close enough to falling asleep that he has to strain to understand the words, Brad says: “Polar bears are fucking cool.”
“I’m not moving to the Arctic so you can get a pet polar bear,” Nate tells him sleepily. “I might love you, but fuck no.”
Brad doesn’t respond, just snorts into Nate’s hair and then briefly kisses the top of his head.
Brad doesn’t really give a shit about the finals. It’s not that he doesn’t study, he just doesn’t fret or panic or ingest copious amounts of coffee and go batshit crazy when someone moves his notes. (To be fair, Nate only does two of the above. Guess which.)
Midterms weren’t that bad. Of course, during the midterms they were still unfucking themselves and trying to get the other one to check ‘yes’ on the notes passed in the study hall or whatever it was. Brad prefers not to dwell on those times and kicks Ray every time Ray launches into one of his rants on the dark era when the Iceman wasn’t getting any and everyone in the house was fucking miserable for it.
So, okay, midterms were bad. But this is worse.
Nate spends his every free moment in the library and believe Brad, Nate doesn’t have all that many free moments as it is. And the library means the study group, and the study group means Eveline and Trish and Rosa. (And Mike and Evan, but they at least never tried to get into Nate’s pants. Or Brad doesn’t know about that and they’re very lucky.)
Still, they are ways to deal with it.
“Coffee,” he says, placing the tray on the table, over the piles of notes. Trish gives him a stinkeye over it, must be her notes, but he places a cup in front of her and her brow smooths out. Eveline tries to surreptitiously move her chair the fuck away from Nate’s personal space. Brad glares at her for a good measure. “Nate, a moment of your time,” he says pleasantly, but Nate’s good at reading him and his eyes narrow.
“What’s your problem this time?” he asks when they’re outside of the study hall, when Brad’s pushing him against the wall. It’s late and the corridor is empty, but Brad wouldn’t let crowds stop him even if it wasn’t.
“You’re studying too much. Your brain will fry,” Brad tells him.
“So instead you’re attempting to fuck me stupid? Great plan.” Nate sounds annoyed, but the way he grinds his hips against Brad is pretty damn obvious.
“It’s a fucking brilliant plan and you know it. And you want it,” he adds, palming Nate’s dick through his pants, the heel of his hand pressing hard. Nate’s head hits the wall with a dull thud, his eyes closed as he bites his lip to keep the sound in.
“Mostly, I want to finish the chapter on the International Policy in the seventies.”
“And?”
“Getting some sleep after that would be nice.”
“And?” he pushes, teeth grazing Nate’s neck, feeling the pulse speed up under his tongue.
“Alright, fine. This isn’t half bad,” he offers breezily.
Brad laughs. Nate’s hard enough to pound nails already, straining against his pants in a way that must be bordering on painful, and he still manages to sound like a prissy princess. “Not half bad?” he asks and kisses Nate, slowly, lazily. He doesn’t even push his tongue in, just licks at the corner of Nate’s mouth, coaxes his lips open. At the same time he sticks his hand in Nate’s half-opened pants and starts working his cock.
“Brad,” Nate finally moans, surrendering.
“Good. If I suck your cock, will you scream for me? Loud enough so everyone inside the study hall hears you, come see what the racket is all about? It would be the only chance Eveline gets to see your dick.”
“She doesn’t--”
“Oh, yes, she does. Quite a few people would like to fuck you, Nate Fick, but only I get to do that. If I wanted to, all I’d have to do is nudge your legs open and you’d spread for me, wouldn’t you? Even now, even here?”
“You should have taken up that creative writing course, you’re wasting your great talent,” Nate muttered, almost going cross-eyed but the words come out level and unstuttering. Brad is actually quite impressed.
“It’s only creative writing if it’s not true. And as we both know, you would spread for me.”
“Brad, I swear to god--” he stops when the door on the far end of the corridor opens and someone comes out. The guy doesn’t even look in their direction, just heads the other way. Nate’s biting his lip so hard he draws blood, and he spills into Brad’s hand.
“You kinky shit,” Brad mutters with a certain amount of pride. “Who knew.”
“That was too fucking close. Next time you want public sex, at least have the decency to corner me in a bathroom or something,” Nate mutters and leans in, kissing Brad gently, licking at his mouth. “Just wait here, I need to get my notes.”
“And?”
“And once we get back to the house, we’ll discuss who’s spreading legs for whom tonight. If you’re lucky, I might even fuck you.”
“Dream on, Fick,” Brad says, ignoring the twitch his dick gives at that. He absently licks his fingers clean, leaning against the wall and settling in to wait. His only regret is that he doesn’t get to see the look on Eveline’s face when she sees Nate looking all fucked-out like this. He idly wonders if Nate actually had the presence of mind to zip up his pants.
*
Everyone’s slowly fucking off, Mike checking if every car has a sober driver and if everyone has their seatbelts on. He nods at Nate and looks around. Ray’s conked out, half-buried in sand, wearing some really ugly hat that looks like a stuffed donkey. Nate must have missed that part.
“You guys need a ride?”
“We’re fine,” Brad says. “Nate’s depressingly sober and can get us all home safely.”
Brad sounds sober but isn’t really, his eyes are dark and his lips are full and red from stretching around quite a few bottles. He’s coherent and conscious, though, so Nate will at least have someone to help him carry Ray to the car. He nods at Mike. “Go. I’ll see you back at the house.”
The fire is slowly dying out, no one is adding any more driftwood to it, but the evening is warm, the sand still hot underneath.
“Have a nice evening, gents,” Mike tells them and walks away towards Cara’s car. Nate perfunctorily checks if Ray’s still breathing (he is, and snoring) and lays down on the sand again, head propped up on Brad’s rolled up hoodie.
Brad’s laying next to him, his knee nudging Nate’s hip when he shifts. It wouldn’t be even half as distracting if Brad put the rest of his clothes back, but he discarded his shirt and his pants when some of the guys had the bright idea of going swimming and still hasn’t put them back on, laying on the sand just in his boxer briefs, miles of skin just next to Nate.
It would be almost too easy to turn to the side, run his tongue over the nearest available patch of Brad’s skin. Kiss his way up, linger when he finds the places that make Brad arch into the touch, that make him groan.
He wonders if Brad would get impatient, pull him up for a bruising kiss, or would his fingers tangle in Nate’s hair as he pushed him down, directing Nate’s attention to his cock.
“Nate,” Brad says and Nate shivers, closes his eyes for a moment. “Am I really that drunk or is Person singing Avril Lavigne in his sleep?”
Nate shakes his head and breathes out slowly, pulling himself up, dusting sand off his hands. “I think it’s our cue. If he starts singing louder someone might call the cops.”
“Ray’s singing is indeed a crime against humanity,” Brad agrees, bending to pick his shirt up. Nate looks away.
*
Nate writes things down on his skin. When he’s busy, when he has no time or he’s juggling too many things to fish out a sheet of paper, he uses the convenience of his palm or his wrist to jot down what he doesn’t want to lose.
A phone number, the date a paper is due, a book someone has mentioned and he just has to check out. The ink fades during the day, smudges out a little, but remains legible. It’s a slightly strange chronicle of Nate’s day and Brad traces the ink with his thumb, sliding it across Nate’s wrist, over the visible blue vein, under the smudge.
Ray has hijacked the movie night and they’re watching Tarantino again, Uma slaughtering everyone on screen and Ray providing a MST3K-style commentary, with Poke contributing whenever Ray takes a break to drink, or fucking breathe.
In the dark, Brad runs his fingertips down Nate’s arm, all the way to his wrist. He saw a number written there earlier, a string of letters too short to be a phone number, ending right on the heel of Nate’s palm. Brad just glimpsed it, in dark-green ink, almost as dark as Nate’s eyes now; but when it comes to everything about Nate, he all but memorised it.
It started with a nine and Brad traces the number over Nate’s skin with his fingernail. Nate’s breath hitches but it’s covered by the sound of bodies hitting the floor on the screen and of Stafford’s ‘that’s not even physically possible’ followed by a chorus of inquires as to how he would know.
Seven. Three. Brad’s eyes are firmly fixed on Uma, but he knows the exact moment Nate shifts, moves that little closer under the pretense of finding a more comfortable spot. Nate’s hand clenches and opens again, wrist up, like he’s offering it to Brad, the vulnerable patch of skin over his veins. His pulse is racing.
Brad wants to run his tongue over the ink, over the green and blue. Wants to suck on Nate’s fingers and then tell him what exactly he could do with them next. Wants to drop his hand into Nate’s lap, run his fingers up the inside seam of his jeans. Stick his hand right into Nate’s pants and jerk him off right here, right now, Nate’s dick in Brad’s hand as everyone watches Kill fucking Bill.
He doesn’t. Well, not yet, exactly, sticking his hand into Nate’s pants is still something he plans to do this evening, but for now he’s perfectly content just closing his fingers around Nate’s wrist.
*
Brad’s sister has measles, and that means he’s exiled. His mother takes this kind of things all too seriously, but when she and her siblings were little, Brad’s uncle had a severe case with some rather bad complications and so she’s pretty damn adamant about Brad not even being in the same state as Kate. So, exiled.
It’s not that bad, it’s not a fucking Dickens’ novel, the winter break on campus is actually pretty great; all the fun parties thrown by other outcasts and no mundane business of actually having to go to class. And if he really wanted to, there are dozen other places he could go, including somewhere warm and with a chance of catching a good wave.
But he had a rather awful winter break last year because of that shitty situation with Julie and well, he’s been looking forward to this.
“Would it help your mood if I sucked your cock?” Nate asks, irritably, from over his notes. Brad’s been absently taking his computer apart for the last half an hour just to put it back together. It must have been driving Nate up the wall.
This is also why Brad seriously needs to look inside Nate’s laptop. The keyboard alone should be interesting.
“I’m not sure. You should definitely try,” he says pleasantly. He’s not a guy who would stand in the way of scientific inquiry.
Nate looks somewhat pissy, like he half-expected Brad to decline the offer and let him go back to whatever bleeding-heart liberal dicksuck paper he’s writing a month earlier than it’s due. Like that would happen. But still, pissy Nate is kind of great.
Brad leans back to rest on his elbows, more laying than sitting on the floor now. He spreads his legs invitingly and that earns him Nate’s undivided attention. Oh, he tries to cover it with an irritated look, but there’s no mistaking the slight hitch of breath and the way Nate’s tongue swipes across his lower lip.
“Come on, Fick, it’s not going to suck itself.”
“It might, if you clapped your hands and believed really hard,” Nate tells him and slides off his chair. It rolls away with a squeak of the wheels.
“Speaking of hard, take that fucking sweater off, it’s a serious dick-softener.”
“No, it isn’t,” Nate says with complete conviction. And damn him, he’s right. It’s a sweater Nate’s goddamn grandmother made for him and unlike most people Brad knows who’d donate the monstrosity to goodwill, or burn it in the backyard, Nate wears it and doesn’t even look ridiculous. There’s no justice in the world.
He crawls in between Brad’s knees and waits until Brad looks up, and only then he pulls the sweater over his head, together with the shirt from underneath it.
“I didn’t know there was going to be a show.”
“Was that a complaint I’ve heard?”
“Just an observation,” he shrugs and wants to lick the answering smirk off Nate’s lips. And right now, he gets to do what he wants, and he pulls Nate in for a bruising kiss, biting Nate’s lower lip, waiting for the familiar sounds as Nate opens for him completely.
They fumble a little as Nate moves to straddle him, Brad’s head hitting the floor with a dull thud when he arches into Nate, when their dicks align. A screwdriver is digging into Brad’s side but he doesn’t mind at the moment.
The kiss slows down, still heated but with less intent now, like they have all the time in the world. It’s a feeling he gets a lot about Nate lately. It’s probably a whole new level of gay, but hey, guess whose dick he sucked this morning. Nate’s fingers thread his hair and his tongue is mapping out Brad’s mouth like it’s both a new terrain and something achingly familiar.
“Nate,” Brad groans and Nate pulls back slightly, his eyes completely dark. He looks at Brad with amazement that’s almost painful. “Weren’t you going to suck my dick?” Brad says, because if he didn’t, he’d say something strikingly different.
Nate huffs a laugh and kisses Brad again, briefly, before he moves back to kneel between Brad’s legs, undoing his pants efficiently, still smiling. There’s nothing quite as sinful as Nate Fick’s mouth stretched around Brad’s cock. One day it’s going to be the death of him, and then Nate will have some serious explaining to do.
“Don’t hold back. I want you to come in my mouth,” Nate says and Brad closes his eyes. See what he means about it killing him one day?
Nate’s hand rests on Brad’s thigh, but there’s no pressure, Nate doesn’t stop his hips from rising, doesn’t stop Brad from fucking his mouth. His eyes don’t stay closed for long, he needs to watch Nate’s lips on him, Nate’s gaze trained at him, dark and heated and almost too much but Brad has long resigned himself to the fact that from Nate Fick? He wants everything.
Nate looks like he agrees, swallows the last drop of Brad’s come and then crawls up his body for another kiss. “I’ve been thinking,” he says.
“While you were sucking my cock? I know you’re prone to thinking too much, but this is a little insulting.”
“Well, when I was sucking your cock I was thinking I’ll give you a few minutes to rest and then you can fuck me. But we’re moving onto the bed for that.”
“Pussy,” Brad says fondly.
“Very much not so,” Nate counters and sighs, rolling to the side and propping himself up on one elbow. He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry even though his dick is practically tenting his pants. “But, as I was saying.”
“You were thinking,” Brad supplies. “That’s a good thing, considering how much time, money and effort you’re putting into your education. Would be a great shame to waste that.”
“You should come home with me.”
Brad stares at him. “Nate,” he breathes out. “I don’t want a pity invitation.”
“Fuck you, Colbert.” There’s no heat in it, Nate means it as a statement of fact. “Don’t make it into something it’s not. Let’s try again: I want you to come home with me.”
There’s a great number of things Brad could say to that. Many things he wants to say, but everything dies in his throat. He reaches out instead, places his hand at the nape of Nate’s neck, pulls him close so their foreheads meet. Nate shifts closer easily and they stay like that for a moment. “Okay,” Brad finally says. “Do I get to defile you in your childhood room?”
“I think Mom turned it into a study. But I know better than thinking it’d stop you.”
“You obviously know me well,” Brad nods with a smile, but his tone turns out much softer than the mocking remark he intended. Nate nods slowly and brings his lips to Brad’s.
*
It’s the fifth night Nate doesn’t spend in his own bed. Brad’s not far from suggesting they get rid of Nate’s bed and use the space for something useful, like a pinball machine, but they’re still officially a secret.
Probably the worst-kept secret in the house, considering that yesterday when Brad sucked Nate off in the shower Nate completely forgot about the rule on using your inside voice when you’re coming your brains out.
Brad’s not a great fan of that rule anyway.
Nate sleeps on his stomach, head turned and half-buried in the pillow. He must have shifted when Brad was in the shower, because the sheet covering him had slid lower, invitingly exposing Nate’s naked back, fading marks on his shoulders, ones that Brad left there.
He mostly doesn’t do it on purpose. But there’s no harm in letting the whole world know that Nate is his and his alone, or rather that he’s someone’s, even if they don’t yet know he’s Brad’s.
This possessiveness surprises Brad a little. He was never like that about Sandra or Rachel, and he wasn’t like that about Julie. Maybe that was the problem with being with Julie.
Nate shifts, his lips mouthing something that Brad can’t quite make out. The last syllable seems familiar, though, Nate has moaned something like that quite a few times last night.
Brad crawls onto the bed, tugs at the sheet. Their first year, someone set up a fucking facebook group dedicated to Nate’s ass. Brad suspected it to be one of Ray’s retarded pranks, but all too many people joined it, if you ask Brad.
But, he digresses. What he was thinking is: saying it’s a nice ass is a fucking understatement.
Nate shifts again, as if conscious of Brad’s gaze, moves closer. It’s almost like an invitation.
Brad nudges his legs open, slides down to find the best angle, and starts licking, working his tongue inside Nate’s ass. He’d never thought he’d do that, before Nate, but it’s Nate. Brad had fucked him last night for the first time and right now he imagines he can taste himself.
They have used a condom, but he’s not spoiling his porn fantasies with facts.
Nate shivers, starts moving back, working himself on Brad’s tongue. That’s another thing about Nate he’s quite pleased to discover; Nate may look proper and shit, but once you get him past a certain point, he’s shameless, wanton. He takes everything Brad gives him and then demands more. And he’s a pushy fucker about that, too.
“More,” Nate says now, apparently awoken and proving Brad’s point. He scrambles to move, bend his legs and provide Brad with a much better angle and a free access to Nate’s cock.
“Morning to you too,” Brad mutters, his fingers closing around Nate’s dick. “Did you have pleasant dreams?”
“Somehow not as good as the reality. Fuck, Brad,” he groans, moving like he’s not sure whether he wants to push back on Brad’s tongue or thrust into his hand, shaking moments later.
Things Brad Colbert can’t get enough of: seeing Nate Fick come apart. And, you know, come. Pretty fucking awesome, if you ask him.
Nate turns around, liquid and boneless, and pulls Brad close, licks at his mouth, the sounds he’s making quieter now, but even better for it. “I’m going to suck your dick in a moment,” he promises into Brad’s mouth, managing to sound filthy and sweet at the same time. “I should have known you’d like that, you’ve been staring at my lips for weeks. Should have known you were thinking about fucking my mouth.”
That too. And it’s been months, not weeks. But fuck him sideways, he imagined just this, just kissing Nate and licking at his mouth and tasting his words and his smiles and his smirks; he imagined this just as often as he thought about getting Nate to suck his cock.
And guess what, he gets to have both.
*
Brad only learns Julie broke up with him when she changes her facebook status.
There’s really not much to say about that, because the whole thing works best as a punch line, and it’s not like he expected his damn high school girlfriend to be the one and only happily ever after and shit, but. Well. Not the best week of his life.
And then Ray, who didn’t get the memo that high school friendships and romances aren’t supposed to last and who somehow managed to follow Brad to the fucking college, Ray tells the tale to everyone and demands people buy Brad drinks. They do. It helps, for a while, and then he’s puking.
He’ll need to work on that.
He thinks he sees Nate Fick talking to Ray. It’s strange, because apart from the fact that they’re pledging the same frat, Nate and Brad and Ray don’t seem to have all that much in common. Nate’s in one of Brad’s classes, the one Brad’s taking only because Patterson is kind of awesome and actually knows what the fuck he’s talking about, unlike some professors around here, not to name names but fuck, Shwetje shouldn’t have graduated junior high, what the fuck is he doing teaching people?
Anyway. Fick. Who doesn’t seem to be an idiot or an asshole, but Brad’s good opinion isn’t that easy to win. Talking to Ray, who seems strangely subdued, for Ray, meaning the neighbouring states can’t hear him. Huh.
“Come on, Colbert,” Fick tells him suddenly right next to Brad. His eyes are really green.
The fuck? Oh, right, Brad’s drunk. Okay, then.
“I don’t know what lies Ray told you, but I’m not that cheap a date. Not going anywhere before I get a decent dinner and some fucking flowers. Azaleas are nice.”
He’s not quite as far gone as to not know what he’s saying, and he watches for Fick’s reaction. Fick laughs, surprising Brad. “I’ll make a note of that. Come on,” he repeats. “Hasser took Ray back to the dorms, but I think you need to walk it off a little. I know for the fact you have a test to write tomorrow.”
Patterson is a sadist asshole who apparently believes in monitoring progress and shit. Nobody warned Brad. Except, you know, Patterson, during the first class. “I’ll wing it.”
“Not hungover, you won’t,” Fick shakes his head and pulls Brad to his feet. He’s surprisingly strong for someone who looks like he should be a freshman in high school, not college. “One foot after the other, and we’re walking.”
Brad wants to tell him where he can put his condescension, but when he looks at Fick he sees concern and determination and something akin to amusement. It’s a really weird fucking expression. He snorts. “Your face looks funny.”
“I’m sure it does,” Fick agrees pleasantly and then falls silent, which suits Brad just fine. The night air is quite pleasant and Brad spends some time enjoying the cool breeze against his flushed skin and that’s why it takes him a moment to realise they’re not heading in the general direction of Brad’s dorm.
He asks Fick about that, but he just shrugs. “Walking it off, Colbert. We’re taking the scenic route.”
“The one with no fucking people around? Fuck, I thought you wanted me for my body, but maybe you just want to steal my kidneys.”
“Technically, your kidneys are a part of your body,” Fick tells him and it startles Brad into a genuine laugh. He didn’t expect to be amused tonight, by anything or anyone. Fick smiles at him with something that looks like satisfaction.
“I still require dinner,” Brad informs him.
“You’re out of luck, Colbert, because I require so much more than that,” Nate shoots back easily.
Truer words, Brad will think later. At the time, he just laughs and walks on, Nate falling into step with him.
*
Nate starts dating Ria at the beginning of their sophomore year. Brad starts to figure out why the fuck it bothers him and the conclusion isn’t very helpful.
It’s not that he dislikes Ria. She’s not a total idiot and has spectacular tits and likes cars, the faster the better, and Brad forgives her the retardation when it comes to bikes when she confesses she doesn’t care for the technical specs, she just likes the speed.
“There’s nothing better than going really fast,” she says once, eyes shining, and Brad would agree, except her hand is on Nate’s thigh, absently sliding up and down, and that one thing is going too fast for Brad’s liking.
He gets sexiled two weeks into Nate and Ria’s thing. Nate clears it with him four days earlier, and seriously, who the fuck does that? What happened to the good old sock on the door? But he has time to make plans and he does, trying not to question his growing irritation. He goes to the party Kocher is throwing, but the moment fucking Captain America gets involved it starts sucking some major ass and Brad finds himself back at the house, playing cards with Poke and Lilley and Ray, and Ray tries to cheat as he always does.
Brad tells himself he’s not listening for the sounds from upstairs, is not trying to hear if Nate’s headboard is hitting the wall already. He wonders if Nate pushed her against the doors when they got in, if he hiked up her skirt. Or maybe Ria got to her knees, swallowed Nate’s cock eagerly. That’s what Brad would do, if he got to do that.
The thought is surprisingly anti-climactic. Something tightens in Brad’s chest and his blood goes cold, but it’s not earth-shattering except that it is, a little.
Person calls and Brad shows his hand; full house that makes Ray groan. “Fuck, Brad, you looked so fucking depressed I thought you had shit,” he complains. “There’s bluffing and there’s just plain lying.”
There’s thinking about Nate’s lips and idly wondering if he would be good at sucking cock and there’s thinking about sinking to his knees and nuzzling Nate’s cock, licking the underside and fondling his balls, enjoying the sounds Nate makes and the way his fingers thread Brad’s hair. There’s that, and then there’s wanting to be the one with whom Nate wakes up, whose shoulder he kisses, smiling sleepily.
You can see how this isn’t helpful at all.
He spends the night on the couch in the common room, flipping through the channels. In the morning Ria bounces downstairs in one of Nate’s t-shirts and her own shorts and makes coffee. She wordlessly places a cup in front of Brad before going back upstairs, two mugs in her hands, and Brad hates her a little more for being actually nice.
Ria and Nate break up right before the midterms and Nate just shrugs when asked, not even offering excuses. They’re obviously still friendly, with that certain kind of awkwardness that comes with being friends with someone you used to fuck on regular basis, but their talks, as far as Brad can tell, revolve around classes and assignments and books. Brad hates Ria a little less, but now he considers her much more of an idiot for letting Nate get away.
He dreads the moment Nate hooks up with someone new. There’s no shortage of volunteers; Eveline from Nate’s study group looks ready to pounce him given the slightest invitation and Brad fantasises about running her over with his bike. Mostly, though, he fantasises about fucking Nate in the library, over their usual table. Spreading Nate open and fucking him, with his cock or his fingers or his tongue, some part of him inside Nate and Nate asking for more, calling out Brad’s name.
He thinks about making Nate coffee in the morning and taking it upstairs, to Nate who’s still groggy from sleep, skin flushed and warm, and maddeningly beautiful. Brad sees him like this every day and on some days, he does make the coffee, places it in front of Nate at breakfast and doesn’t say anything. It should be enough.
*
Ria Morales has dark hair, a generous but rare smile, a great taste in books and an abysmal one in movies. She also seems to be on Nate’s wavelength most of the time, and when she’s not they stay up arguing until four in the morning and making out after that.
They break up right before the midterms for no reason at all, but mostly because when Nate has been studying he didn’t even think of calling her, and because she didn’t mind it at all. They break up because most days, she prefers to stay in than go out with him. They break up because they’re great friends who like to fuck from time to time but who pretty much find this whole relationship thing a bit overwhelming.
“It’s not you, it’s me. Or maybe you,” Nate tells her mock-seriously and she laughs, breaking the tension around them when they sit in the cafeteria and she leans back in her chair.
“I want my books back,” she says.
“I want my shirts back,” he shoots back, because she’s been stealing them for weeks. She says they’re comfortable to sleep in and Nate doesn’t fucking know how you can be comfortable sleeping in a dress shirt, but hey. “Exchange of hostages tomorrow at dawn. Or actually, tomorrow before class.”
“Sounds good,” she kisses his cheek and that’s that. The next day she hands him the bag with the shirts and some CDs and one of his notebooks he left at her room and he gives her most of the books back, except for that one essays collection he hadn’t finished yet, but he promises to deliver next week. “You better,” she says. “I know where you live. You know,” she adds thoughtfully, “maybe Colbert will stop glaring at me like he’s trying to shoot laser beams from his eyes.”
There’s something pointed in her words but Nate doesn’t know what. He tries to chase the thought, the feeling of something important on the edge of his mind, but to no avail.
And speaking of Brad, he watches Nate carefully for days after the breakup, like he’s expecting something to happen. On Friday he offers to take Nate out and get him drunk and then escort him home safely, via the scenic route. Nate smiles in recollection and shakes his head, declines. He has the first exam on Monday, he doesn’t need a hangover on Saturday. But there’s something else in Brad’s gaze than wanting to return a favour; there’s concern and sympathy, but also some underlying nervousness Nate can’t place.
So instead of going out and drinking, he challenges Brad to a game of chess and they stay up late, playing, Brad’s strange uncertainty disappearing when he watches the board in concentration. And when Brad’s gaze is on the board, Nate watches him with growing curiosity, Ria’s words playing in his head.
He’s not sure what it is, yet, but he has a few theories.
At four in the morning Brad steals downstairs and comes back with two steaming mugs of coffee. His fingers accidentally brush against Nate’s when he’s handing one over and Nate thinks that maybe he wants to test one of those theories.
*
“If the cops ask about us, you know nothing,” Ray warns Nate the moment Nate walks into the room, dropping his duffel bag on the floor. Ray is sprawled across Brad’s bed, looking like he’s on the verge of sliding off it, his head upside down and his hair almost sweeping the floor but not quite.
Brad looks up from over his book and rolls his eyes, but his the corner of his mouth twitches in a ghost of a smile and Nate supposes this is Brad’s way of saying it’s good to see Nate.
“So, how was Tijuana?”
“Awesome,” Ray says at the same moment as Brad wryly offers: “Tedious.”
Just about as expected, then.
“Yes, well, tedious if you’re the Iceman and have a fucking icicle up your ass, maybe,” Ray volunteers. “Why the fuck would you go to Tijuana if all you’re going to do is mope like a little bitch and avoid pussy like the plague?”
“Fuck off, Ray,” Brad tells him pleasantly.
Ray gives Nate a pointed look. “Maybe you can figure out how to fix him. Because if you can’t, we’re going to take him to the vet, to really fix him. Trombley was more fun than he was,” he adds mournfully and leaves. “Fucking Trombley,” he adds loudly from behind the closed doors for a good measure.
“You took Trombley to Tijuana?” Nate asks incredulously.
“I don’t know what I’ve been thinking,” Brad admits. “But he chipped in for the gas and, well, didn’t want to be locked inside a car with just Person and Hasser, they’d be trying to be inconspicuous as they groped each other in the back seat. And I would honestly be afraid to fall asleep in the car, as the next thing you know, Person would try to give Hasser a blowjob while one of them was driving and I don’t exactly have a death wish.”
“You took Trombley to Tijuana,” Nate points out.
“Fuck you. You didn’t want to go,” Brad says, almost petulantly. Nate doesn’t explain again that his sister was getting married and he went home to attend the wedding. With the whole family invasion he would have almost preferred Tijuana with Person and Trombley. He would definitely prefer anywhere with Brad.
“I missed you,” comes out, unbidden. He hadn’t seen Brad since the day after the beach party, since the break started and he left for home. Since then he’s been telling himself he’d try, see if maybe he wasn’t completely delusional and if maybe Brad wanted him too, at least a little, at least enough to try.
Nate’s been meaning to test that theory slowly, so that it wouldn’t earn him a punch in the face. Well, no, Brad wouldn’t, and he probably wouldn’t laugh in his face either, but he might simply turn Nate down gently and that would somehow be worse. Because ever since he started to think about it, think about Brad, Nate can think of little else.
Midterms were a fucking nightmare, as you can imagine.
But he goes and blurts it out and Brad looks up sharply. His eyes are stormy blue and his expression shifts, quickly schooled down. “Told you to come with us. I don’t know how you do it, but the kids behave around you.”
Nate shakes his head. He could leave it at that, but he wants to be sure and he might not have guts to try again. “No, Brad,” he mutters and crosses the room, coming to a halt inches away from Brad. Brad looks up, surprised and confused and, Nate wants to think, hopeful. Jesus, he really wants to think that was hopeful. “I missed you,” he repeats and kisses Brad, soft and light but leaving no doubt as to his intent.
Just when he’s about to pull away, Brad groans into his mouth and the moment shifts. Nate feels it in his bones, under his skin. He can’t get close enough, and Brad seems to feel the same; his hand is on the back of Nate’s neck, pulling him even closer. He spreads his legs and Nate stumbles forward, resting his knee on the edge of the chair and Brad arches, his dick hard against Nate’s leg.
“So, you missed me too?” Nate asks after a moment, when he pulls back and breathes harshly. Brad looks up at him, head thrown back, throat exposed invitingly, his lips swollen and wet. He looks like a wet dream made flesh.
“No idea why you’d think that. I find your presence unbearable,” Brad tells him, but his deadpan is off and he licks his lips and reaches out, his hand against Nate’s throat and his thumb swiping at the corner of Nate’s mouth. Nate licks at it, and then sucks it into his mouth and Brad closes his eyes and moans. “Fuck, Nate. I want...” he breathes out and opens his eyes again, staring at Nate with something like amazement.
“Anything,” he promises.
“It’s a long fucking list,” Brad tells him, and there’s a hint of uncertainty there and Nate’s heart wants to pound its way out of his chest. Brad’s hand is still on the side of his neck, right over his pulse point, and Nate reaches to cover it with his own.
“Anything,” he repeats. “Everything,” he adds, and Brad smiles at him then, brilliant and blinding, and then he’s standing up, kissing Nate again, and Nate finds himself being pushed towards Brad’s bed, Brad’s hands pushing his shirt up, breaking the kiss only so he can get Nate’s shirt off over his head.
“On the bed,” Brad says curtly, his voice rough.
“Brad,” Nate breathes out.
“I’ve spent weeks jerking off, thinking about this. I’ve planned this,” Brad says and he sounds both like he’s disgusted with himself and like he’s fucking giddy. Nate wants to lick the words off his mouth, taste that small smile. “I’m going to suck your cock now, because I’ve been going insane wondering how it would feel to see you come apart for me, how it would be when you fucked my mouth, and I’m not dealing well with delayed gratification, so get on the fucking bed. Questions?”
“One. Could you hurry the fuck up?” Nate grins at him, steps back for long enough to undo his pants. Seconds later Brad is pushing them down and then they’re stumbling onto the bed and Brad is crawling his way down Nate’s body, his hands and tongue all over Nate’s skin and Nate bites his lip because there might not be many people in the house, but some would come running if he screamed as loud as he wants to.
“I’ve wondered if I could make you beg,” Brad says, almost conversationally, before swallowing Nate’s dick, sloppy and choking just a little, but he finds the rhythm quickly. Nate tries to hold on to the words as Brad works on sucking his brains out of his dick. He knows the words were a suggestion.
“Please,” he says obligingly. There’s not much he’d deny Brad. “Please, Brad.”
“Don’t hold back,” Brad tells him and cups his balls, rolls them in his hand as Nate’s dick hits the back of his throat. Nate couldn’t hold back even if he wanted to. He comes with Brad’s name on his lips, liquid fire filling his whole body.
Brad smiles at him and Nate reaches out. He feels overwhelmed, but it’s still not nearly enough, he wants more and he wants everything. They’ll start with Brad’s list and build up from there.
*
Ray comes around after the Thursday study group, hovers while Nate gathers up his notes. He gets a few strange looks and Trish just openly stares at him in confusion, because most people seem to operate under the assumption that Ray Person doesn’t even know where the library is. Most people don’t know that Ray was on a debate team in high school, that he can quote Avril Lavigne lyrics one moment and then argue with you about the freedom of the press and the history of censorship right the next second, and he’s going to quote three authors and one president during his spiel, and use profanities that would make a Marine sergeant weep.
Most people do know however, that Ray Person is a persistent motherfucker and a self-appointed guardian of one Brad Colbert. Nate is definitely aware of this one.
“Let it go, Ray,” he says quietly.
Ray crosses his arms and gives him a look that plainly says that if Nate thinks this is going to happen, then he needs to have his head checked. “Look, I know it’s unfortunate that you both got your fucking periods at the same time and are therefore incapable of thinking rationally, but Brad has a long and proud history of emotional retardation. Aren’t you supposed to take the fucking higher ground here?”
A girl at one of the tables they pass glares at Ray pointedly. He blows a kiss at her and, wonder of wonders, she actually blushes a little.
Nate sighs. “I thought we had a rule about not discussing anything related to me and Brad in public places.”
“No, it’s only your sex life that’s off limits. And who would be interested in that? It’s all monogamy and flowers and shit, not even the Iceman’s giant dick would make it even remotely entertaining.” At Nate’s look, he shrugs. “Don’t worry, I’m sure your dick is nothing to be ashamed of. But, higher ground, homes. Take it. When you don’t take the higher ground it ends in someone getting their legs chopped off with a light saber.”
“I have no idea what you’re even talking about.”
“I’m talking about Brad going into a funk and moping around because he thinks you’re going to move on and leave him, and I’m talking about you spending all the fucking time in the library or wherever and avoiding him like you have actually moved on. You two are worse than a shitty soap opera because soaps actually have nice fake boobs to look at. Fuck you all.”
“I’m not leaving him. He’s the one who...” he stops and bites his lip.
The whole fucking thing started when Nate told Brad about his plans for grad school. Brad unexpectedly flipped out about the very thing Nate thought would please him most. Nate couldn’t understand why, but he might have a vague idea now.
“He’s a fucking idiot,” he says and Ray nods.
“Yep.”
And Nate should have known, because Brad is Brad and one of the things he does best is devising contingency plans, being prepared for every eventuality, especially if one of those eventualities could be someone leaving him again.
Which is fucking not going to happen, but Nate should have known anyway.
“I’m a fucking idiot.”
“Yep,” Ray agrees readily, then pats his back. “But now you can go fix this shit, so we could once again listen to whatever music we fucking like instead of the fucking Air Supply. My brain melts from this shit.”
He’s not wrong about the Air Supply; Making Love Out of Nothing at All is coming from Brad’s speakers when Nate gets back.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Nate says. Brad starts to smile at the sight of him and then it drains out of his expression and what’s left is the uncertainty, worry. Nate hates this. Hates Julie and Rachel and whatshername before her, and hates Brad’s biological parents and everyone else who has ever disappointed Brad. Hates that right now, he’s the one who put that doubt in Brad’s eyes.
He drops his books on his own bed and steps closer to Brad’s, tilting his head and giving the laptop a pointed look. “I’m not fucking you if this is playing,” he warns, moving to pull off his shirt.
Brad blinks, his breath hitching almost unnoticeably. “I thought you had studying to do tonight,” he says, but he turns the music off and shuts down the computer, sets it on the table while it winds itself down.
Nate shrugs. “Fuck it, I’m already in grad school,” he points out and watches for the change in Brad’s expression, the tight curl of his mouth. He nods and climbs onto the bed, climbs over Brad, straddling his thighs. He kisses Brad and despite the confusion and the doubt, Brad lets him right in, responds in kind, licks into Nate’s mouth with familiarity and eagerness.
“Nate,” he mutters, eyes closed. Nate places a finger under Brad’s chin, waits until he has Brad’s complete attention.
“I’m not choosing Stanford because of you,” he says. “I’m choosing it because it’s one of the best fucking schools in the country. And because of you.”
“I know you got accepted into Harvard. It’s closer to your family and I don’t want you to compromise because...”
Nate shuts him up with a kiss. Contrary what the movies tell you, it’s not effective in an actual argument, as someone might just bite your tongue in spite, but it’s highly recommended when someone is spouting complete bullshit and trying his best not to show how much it hurts them. The emotions come across clearly as they seep into the kiss.
Brad groans and relaxes instinctively, his hand closing around Nate’s bicep. “That’s not a valid point in the discussion.”
“About as valid as your suggestion that it’s a compromise for me to get a spot at one of the top Law Schools in the country and to get you,” he points out and sighs. “Unless you were counting on me choosing Harvard because you’re sick of me,” he adds wryly.
“Never that,” Brad says quickly, like he’s appalled Nate could think that.
Nate sighs. “Good to know,” he says and slides a little down Brad’s body, enough so that he can undo Brad’s jeans and slide them off. The talking part is almost over, it’s time for demonstration. “And now get it into your thick skull that I’d follow you across fucking continents. I’m pretty happy with California, considering you could have chosen the Arctic.”
“What the fuck would I be doing in the Arctic?”
“Something dangerous and moronic, no doubt,” Nate shrugs, extending his hand. Brad automatically reaches to the drawer that holds the lube. Nate would laugh at the incongruity of the situation but he’s already occupied with two equally engaging tasks and he’s a bit busy, and he’s coating his fingers generously and slowly stroking Brad’s cock. It’s a good thing he’s a good multi-tasker.
“Then it’s a good thing I’m choosing California,” Brad mutters and groans when Nate pushes his fingers inside him, slick and insistent. “Harder,” he says and Nate complies.
“Compromise my ass,” Nate mutters, more to himself than to Brad, but Brad looks at him from under half-closed lids and bites his lip, visibly fights for control over his voice before he speaks.
“I would have followed you to Cambridge,” he offers and Nate swallows harshly, mesmerised by the look in Brad’s eyes.
“And you would have bitched about the land of liberals, wasting the time that could be spent on me sucking your cock. No, thanks.”
Brad laughs roughly, the sound easily segueing into a groan as Nate enters him. There’s a moment of stillness before they both move again, before Nate gets the best hold on Brad’s legs and finds the right angle. Brad’s pushing back as much as he can, his back arched and his head thrown back, exposing the line of his neck.
Nate leans in, licking up Brad’s collarbone, working his way up his neck. He bites at the right spot and Brad shudders, clenching around Nate.
“You’re mine,” Nate mutters, licking at Brad’s mouth. Brad nods almost absently, like this is common knowledge, like it doesn’t need restating. “And I’m yours,” Nate adds and Brad starts coming.
“Yes, fuck, Nate,” he moans brokenly and it’s all Nate needs.
Some time later, when Nate’s head is pillowed on Brad’s chest and he’s close enough to falling asleep that he has to strain to understand the words, Brad says: “Polar bears are fucking cool.”
“I’m not moving to the Arctic so you can get a pet polar bear,” Nate tells him sleepily. “I might love you, but fuck no.”
Brad doesn’t respond, just snorts into Nate’s hair and then briefly kisses the top of his head.
