What am I thinking?
He didn’t know.
He only knew that waking up with Damon like this, quiet and lazy with Damon’s arm draped over his waist, so heavy and warm....
It lifted something inside Rian. Calmed the nonstop storm of quietly fussing thoughts that only let him be when he absorbed himself in a painting of some other piece of art, up to his elbows in clay and wearing thick, wet gray gloves of it or making a complete disaster of himself with smears of gouache or chalky pastel powder everywhere. That same calm filled him as he traced his fingertips over the curve of Damon’s shoulder, watching how the morning sunlight turned dusky, rich brown to gold at Damon’s starkest edges, and just...let himself be at rest.
Let himself enjoy the simple pleasure of being held in a sleepy tangle by a man who had him so messed up Rian didn’t know who he was anymore.
Had he really been in denial all this time?
Had he really been so angry with himself at this completely illogical, strange, inexplicable instant charge between himself and Damon that he’d lashed out to deny it, push it away, avoid giving in to something so confusing it could only be a little bit frightening...especially when he had no idea if Damon felt even remotely the same way?
What is this? What...did we just do? he asked—himself, Damon, as he walked his fingertips lightly down his bicep, then stopped on one of the scars on Damon’s forearm. Like the one on his neck, it was a twisted thing that looked as if it had been slashed quickly by a cruel and jagged blade, cut swift and deep and then stitched closed to scar in a gnarled white line. Another one cut a path almost perfectly down the center of his pectorals, starting just to the right and below the dip of his collarbone and snaking down toward the peak of his ribs; still another started at his right shoulder and writhed diagonally, narrowly cutting past the edge of one small, tight dark brown nipple on its way down to Damon’s hip. They all seemed to start somewhere on his right side, and slash outward in a radial pattern spraying out in all directions.
Rian let himself press his fingers to the scar that started just below Damon’s right pectoral, over the rhythmic wave pattern of his obliques—only to yank his hand back with a rather embarrassing squeak as he felt the rumble of Damon’s voice rising up through tawny muscle, a vibration that touched him before it spilled past Damon’s lips.
“You know,” Damon said groggily, his voice sleep-soft and husky with restrained, drowsy laughter, “you used to just stare at me.”
Wincing, Rian coiled his hand against his chest. “...sorry.”
Damon’s shoulders shook with his short chuckle, before his eyes slipped open—half-lidded, their creases and angles making them look even softer than the haze of slumber that seemed to glaze dark brown like a mist.
“We just fucked,” Damon murmured bluntly, yet with a subtle edge of... Rian didn’t dare to imagine it was affection. “It’s okay. You can touch.” Then Damon’s eyes opened more, clearing, flicking over Rian’s face searchingly. The arm draped over Rian’s body tightened, sending a ripple of coiling muscle flowing up Damon’s forearm and over his bicep. “You okay? Not too sore? Not hurt?”
“No. Not...not too sore,” Rian answered shyly—if only because he didn’t have the guts, right now, to say I’m just sore enough. That he’d woken up feeling good, sensuously melted and worked over and sated, and that he wouldn’t mind waking up that way again. So he only flashed Damon a quick smile, and gave in to that invitation to touch, finding the gnarled beginning of the longest diagonal scar-slash and slowly following it down with one fingertip, feeling its strange waxy-ribbed texture, keeping his eyes on that and not on Damon’s face. “I’ll be fine.”
Silence fell between them, and Rian’s heart beat harder, faster, a quick-snap thing that hurt as if a rubber band shot against his rib cage again and again.
And that rubber band nearly popped as Damon said, “You want to ask, don’t you.”
Rian’s eyes widened, his head snapping up; his lips parted, but he couldn’t...he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say About what we did? About sleeping together? About...about what it means?
Who knew he was the sort who could be that afraid of rejection.
His shallow flirtings, his shallow relationships...
Even when they told him I don’t need you to fix me, Rian, I don’t need...any of this...
He’d never been worried about them walking away.
Not when he was always the one who cut and run first, the moment that need they swore they didn’t have started to suffocate him entirely.
He swallowed, flattening his fingertips and smoothing them against that scar that widened broader as it traveled further down Damon’s chest. “About...about your scars?” he deflected. “I didn’t want to be rude.”
If Damon caught the pause, that hesitation—his sleepy, amused expression gave nothing away, his entire body relaxed as if he’d melted into a comfortable pile of man. “We’re pretty good at being rude to each other. Why stop now?”
Rian lofted a brow, fingertips stopping. “You’re not funny, Damon Louis.”
“Yes, I am.” Smirking, Damon caught Rian’s hand, drawing it away from his chest and lifting it to trace warm lips over his knuckles, breaths tickling between Rian’s fingers. “I’ll tell you, if you want. It’s just one story. Got ’em all at the same time. Except this one.” Still clasping Rian’s hand, Damon twisted his arm to expose the underside of his forearm, and another scar—one that ripped from his wrist up toward his elbow, tapering in the opposite direction of the other scars. “Fell off the bleachers my first year teaching here. Sober, too. I don’t even drink, so don’t even know what the fuck I was doing, but I ripped my arm on the metal edge of the bleachers. Cut myself open from elbow to wrist. Picture of grace.”
“You normally are,” Rian ventured softly. “Graceful, that is.”
Damon jerked oddly—minutely, but there, blinking as he gave Rian a startled look, before he cleared his throat and looked away. “You want the story, or not?”
“I’m listening if you want to tell me.” Smiling to himself, Rian shifted to pillow his head on his arm, curling his fingers against Damon’s grasp. “I’m guessing they had something to do with the Navy.”
“Everything to do with it. You know what they say about the Navy—everybody’s taxis.” Damon let out a groaning sigh, settling against the bed, and Rian understood the layered soft futons atop the mattress now; Damon’s weight made the mattress sink, and just one layer of padding would probably mean feeling the box spring underneath after a long night. “I was barely eighteen, on my first deployment. We’d been sent as the taxis to get this Army unit out. Afghanistan. They’d been pinned for weeks, caught in place, half of ’em torn apart by IEDs, the rest of ’em running out of food and water real fast. We’d already tried an airlift, nearly got shot out of the sky. So ground team it was.”