Title: The Discussion
By: jayceepat Rating: NC-17 for explicit language and sexual descriptions.
Pairing: Bobby Dawson and Partner
Warnings: None.
Summary: Idle thoughts.
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Bobby Dawson belongs to CBS and Anthony Zuicker. Steve Austin is all mine.

"Bobby……Bobby……I know you're not asleep so answer me."

Bobby Dawson was floating in that wonderful place between sleep and awake. He was comfortable. How could he be anything but comfortable when he was lying on his favorite pillow, in his oversized Jacuzzi? It had cost them a fortune but when the love of your life is 6 ft 4 and weighs close to 225, a regular sized tub just don't cut it.

The water was just the way he liked it; a little on the hot side and the smell of citrus floated on the warm, moist air in the bathroom. The room was filled with the glow of candles and there was a bottle of really good Merlot chilling in the ice bucket sitting next to the tub. As I said, Bobby was comfortable; which was why he was ignoring the remarks coming from his pillow. He continued to ignore the remarks until the pillow thrust it's hips up against his butt in a ‘pay attention to me' nudge.

"Babe, this is the first down time we've had together in weeks. Please just enjoy the moment and don't start one of your philosophical discussions right now." Bobby knew when Steve said his name in just that tone with just that emphasis on the ‘by' at the end that he was about to start a discussion that would probably ruin Bobby's mood.

"I can't help it; the movement of the water, the wine, the candles, the scent of bubble bath and you; the most important element is you. Lying here in the water, holding you in my arms; feeling your bare skin against mine, feeling that cute little ass of yours rubbing against me; it's just the greatest thing in the whole world. It's the optimum experience; which is why it stimulates my creative process."

Bobby moved a large clump of bubbles back and forth across his stomach for a second, then said, "Why is it that your optimum induces acute brain activity followed by mouth activation and my optimum induces Nirvana followed by oblivion?"

"Just different personalities I guess; now pay attention because I've really had a curious thought here and I'd like your opinion."

"My opinion is that you table the thought ‘til after."

"After what?"

"After whatever we think of to do after we finish the bottle of Merlot and retire to our comfortable big bed with our great nightstands with the drawers filled with toys for good/bad boys to play with. That ‘after'!"

Steve snorted so hard, Bobby felt water splash up against his head. "Yeah right, Country. After we get through cataloging the contents of the drawers, we'll be lucky if we remember our kid's name let alone scientific questions that could carry great meaning for our kind."

Up to now, Bobby was still fighting to hang on to his state of pre-Nirvana but Steve's last remark was just too much. "What the hell are you talking about Austin; what do you mean ‘OUR KIND'?"

"I mean homosexual men; gay couples."

"You have come up with a scientific question that is going to be important to gay men everywhere. Is that correct?"

"Yeah and you know I like to run my hypotheses by you because your common sense combined with my scientific curiosity is a great combination; sort of like us."

Bobby groaned; in his head and out loud. "Okay big boy, go ahead but you're going to have to come up with something to keep me interested because I was so close to being asleep, it ain't gonna take much to put me back there. Think you can do that?"

Steve lifted Bobby up in the water and settled him a little higher on his chest. He wrapped one arm around him and started rubbing little circle's around his nipple. Then he began a sort of pinch/pull motion that had the little nub of flesh standing at attention in no time. He moved his hand over to the other nipple and gave it the same treatment. "How's that? Is that going to hold your attention?"

Bobby was not at all ashamed of the slight squeak in his "Oh yeah, that'll do it."

"Now, pay attention. Country, do you ever think about rectums?"

Bobby sat up so fast the water swamped his tub partner. Steve came up snorting and coughing and trying to get soap bubbles out of his nose, mouth and eyes. "Bloody Hell, Bobby. What are you trying to do; drown us both?"

"Bloody Hell, my ass. What kind of a question is that? Do I ever think about rectums? Rectums what…rectums in art, rectums in music, rectums as a way of life….I think about your rectum all the time and I'm thinking right now if you had something in your rectum maybe it would stop these idiotic questions from coming out of your mouth."

Steve had finally cleared his windpipe and was trying to calm his agitated lover. "Bobby calm down; it was a rhetorical question…Okay? It did not refer to any specific rec…..wait, you think about my rectum all the time? Awww baby; that's just so sweet and after 16 years too. I guess all those hours in the gym trying to keep my ass tight and up there is really worth it."

Bobby pushed his aggravating lover back down in the tub and settled himself down on top of him again; huffing in anger. "If you are trying to get me to pay attention to your idiotic theories, talking about your tight, sexy ass is NOT the way to do it."

"All right, just try to control yourself and not react so radically. Now, as I was saying, IF you think about rectums, you have to admit, they were designed for one thing; to allow waste material to leave the body; a quick, easy way to get crap out of you."

When Steve started chuckling, Bobby rolled his eyes. Steve had a habit of getting tickled at himself when he inadvertently said something funny. Bobby knew when Steve used the word ‘crap' he was thinking a generic word for waste and not shit. As soon as he said it, he realized he'd made a funny and now he was laughing at himself. Bobby reached under him and grabbed Steve's relaxed penis and gave it a jerk.

"Ow. Take it easy; it is attached you know."

"I'll take it easy later, right now, stay on point will you so we can get this over."

Steve raised Bobby up in the water again and resettled him against his chest where he could reach his nipples and his equally relaxed cock. "You keep hanging on to my dick like that and I'll keep you on my point baby. Now, where was I?"

"Oh yes; one use. The only reason there is another use for a rectum now is because of gay men BUT what was going through the mind of the first man who ever stuck his dick up another guy's ass? I mean it had to have happened centuries, even ages ago. Probably back in pre-historic times. But how did it happen? What made that Cro-Magnum, Neanderthal look at another guy's really hairy ass and think, Ugh, stick this up that…feel good."

"Can't you just picture it Bobby? Two hairy, probably naked guy's just one step up from a primate out hunting for food. Maybe they got something and one of them was cleaning the catch while the other was gathering wood for a fire."

"So you think it happened after fire was discovered?" Bobby found himself interested in spite of himself.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure because before that, they would have had to wear animal skins to either keep warm or keep insects off. It would only be after fire that they could go bare."

"Where was I?"

"One was cleaning, one was gathering firewood."

"Right. So the guy cleaning looks over to the other one who's bent over picking up a large branch. Maybe the branch is too heavy to pick up so he's bent over dragging it back to their camp. His ass is in the air and……"

"And what. Jesus Steve, why do you always get to the good part and then stop?"

"Well I'm just not sure what. I mean, what made the guy decide to go over, grab the guy's hips and stick his dick in that hairy hole. Did he try it with no lube…He had to, they didn't have Astroglide back in those days."

"No, but think about it. Depending on what they caught to eat, if the first guy was cleaning it and there was any fat on the catch, he'd have fat on his hands."

"Of course!!! See this is why I need to talk these things over with you. You always have a practical point of view. So the first guy has pterydactyl fat on his hands, he goes over, grabs his dick, rubbing the fat on it because it's on his hands and shoves his dick up the second guy's butt. It all fits."

The two men relaxed in the tub…but not for long. "But that still doesn't explain what thought processes the first guy went through to decide to fuck the second guy's butt in the first place. You know babe, it's like…who first tried to eat an artichoke? If ever there was a more unappetizing looking thing to try to eat, an artichoke is it. Do you suppose someone was just so hungry, they took a bite…but then, the first time one of those spiny tips punctured their tongue, they'd have spit the whole mess out and it's not as though the damned things taste good raw. You have to steam them just right and then get all the leaves off to get down to the choke and then clean all those disgusting ‘hair's out and then of course, there is the clarifie………"

Bobby had sat up, turned around and was glaring at the body in the tub with him. I use the term ‘body' because Bobby had pretty much made up his mind he was going to kill Steve. He was trying to decide how and where he would dispose of the body. He looked around the bathroom looking for ideas and his eye fell on Chelsi's hairbrush. She had come into the bathroom just before she got ready to go to her best friend's week-end long sleep-over and asked him to put her long hair in a French Braid for her. DAMN, this potential body was also his daughter's father. That meant, he had to give him one more chance.

"This conversation started with ass-holes; not a topic of conversation I'm used to having on a regular basis…at least not outside our bedroom. That was pretty strange in itself but now, now we're talking about artichokes. How in the name of anything did we get from ass-holes to artichokes and how the hell can those two words be used in the same sentence? That's just wrong in so many ways. Did you just fall into this by random association? Did you have some sort of planned conversation in mind when you started? Steve, I really want…no I NEED to know; how did this happen?"

Steve looked at his love, his husband of 16 years and thought again how lucky he was, how lucky they both were to have found each other in this crazy, unfriendly, frightening world.

"Well sweetheart, it really started when I realized we had this whole weekend to ourselves. I was thinking of all the things I wanted to do with you, places to go, maybe movies to rent but then you walked into the bedroom, turned around and asked me if those jeans were getting to worn to wear to work. I looked at that beautiful, gorgeous, sexy butt of yours and I guess I said something halfway right because you said thanks, kissed me good bye and left for work. Left me to think about your ass and how long it's been since I've been in it and then I knew just what I wanted to do tonight. But tonight was hours away so I started thinking about something special for dinner and went to the farmers market and they had some fantastic, fresh artichokes and the rest of dinner just fell into place."

All thoughts of murder and body disposal had left Bobby's mind and was replaced with thoughts of the fantastic dinner he and his partner had enjoyed together before their bath. He thought he knew what Steve wanted to do and just the thought made him tingle with anticipation. One of the many misconceptions about Steve and Bobby was the idea everyone had that Steve was the ‘male' member and Bobby the ‘female'. Bobby understood why people thought that. Because of the difference in size between the two men, it was an automatic thing to label Steve the ‘top' and Bobby the ‘bottom'. The truth was; Bobby was an aggressive, passionate really evil top. He had made it plain to Steve from the first time they were together that he would be the dominant and if Steve didn't like that, they wouldn't even start…well, he had amended that to say they would just have a one-nighter because by then he was so hot for the big, beautiful man trying to rip his pants off, he could not have stopped short of being threatened at gun point. He knew he wanted this gorgeous, brown-eyed body with the amazing mind and talented tongue beyond anything he'd ever felt before. He knew it wasn't just sex and he was scared and excited and confused all at the same time. When Steve kissed him until his eyes started to roll back and then said, "Suits me just fine, I'm a natural bottom", Bobby knew he was lost. He said that to Steve when he was pounding away on top of him. He had just pulled Steve's legs up against his body which let him get in even deeper. He thrust into the wet, heat and opened his eyes to see Steve looking up at him with complete trust and pleasure on his face. He closed his eyes against the beauty of the man beneath him and said, "Oh dear Lord, I'm lost."

"No you're not baby. Just hold on to me. You'll always know where you are; in my arms, my body, my heart." Steve gave Bobby his reason for living and established the center of his world right that moment. In sixteen years it had never wavered, never changed.

As they lived their lives together, on very rare occasions, Steve would top Bobby. It didn't happen often but when it did, it was one of those nights when their daughter had to be out of the house…way out of the house and Bobby knew he would do most of his next shift on his feet.

He looked into Steve's light brown eyes and caught his breath. There was love and passion and lust shining there. "Are you ready to leave the ass-holes and artichokes here in the tub and go to our bedroom?" Bobby was a little short of breath and the words were somewhat jerky.

Steve smiled, put a hand around Bobby's neck and pulled him down into a warm, wet kiss. "Yeah I'm ready but you do know, you may have just sunk a really serious scientific study."

"Maybe, but Steve, when it comes down to sex between two gay men, all that matters is that whoever is shoving what into where know where the happy spot is and I know where yours is and you sure as hell know where mine is so let's go do some experiments of our own to prove my point."

They got out of the tub, too wrapped up in each other to empty the water and as they headed into their bedroom, Steve could be heard saying, "God I love hands-on experiments."