Title: Forgive Me, Father

Author: black_dahlia63

Disclaimer: No, the pretty boys aren't mine, but my weekends off would be more fun if they were.*sigh*

cross posted at 30_lemons

"I want to ask you something," the sleepy voice said in the darkness, and Nick groaned good-naturedly. The two of them had just finished a double shift, and he had no idea where they'd managed to summon up the energy for sex; but now they were lying tangled in each others' arms he was exhausted, and the last thing he wanted was to play one of Greg's little question-and-answer games.

"No interrogations, man, not tonight," he said, smiling and keeping his eyes closed as he spoke. "I'm too tired."

"Who was the first guy you ever slept with?" Greg went on, undeterred, reaching up to curve one hand round the side of Nick's face. "We've been seeing each other nearly two years now, and you still haven't told me about him."

"Another night, okay?" and he was glad the darkness in the room hid his face at that moment – because the memory still hurt, even after so long, and he knew Greg would be able to see the pain in his eyes. "There isn't much to tell, anyway."

"Ni-ick," Greg sing-songed, rubbing his thumb just below his lover's ear, and the caress broke the last threads of Nick's resistance.

"It was the year I turned eighteen," he said, still without opening his eyes. "Cisco was still hoping I'd go into the same line of work as he had, so when my summer vacation started I got packed off to work for this university buddy of his who was partner in a law firm in Massachusetts," he went on, placing an arm round Greg as the younger man nestled against his side. "He and his wife had four kids, two of their girls were married by then and the third one was working overseas somewhere – and they had a boy four years older than me," and as Nick continued speaking it was as though he was seeing it all over again behind his closed eyelids.

*****************

"How are things there?" his father asks. "What are you learning?"

That I can't believe you're making me give up my summer to answer the phone and file papers and make coffee, , Nick thinks, but what actually comes out of his mouth is, "It's really interesting, Cisco, I'm glad you arranged it."

"See? We'll have another judge in the family yet," and a dry chuckle echoes over the phone. "Have a good weekend, Pancho, and make us proud of you."

"Always," he says, and he replaces the phone in its cradle on the kitchen wall before opening the fridge door and removing a Coke. The hated shirt and tie and pants that he wears during the day have been replaced by cut-off denims that are so frayed his mother has been attempting to throw them out for two years; barefoot and shirtless, he walks out onto the deck and settles in one of the loungers next to the pool.

The water sparkles invitingly, but he won't let himself be tempted just yet. It's two o'clock on a Friday afternoon, he's finished work early and his hosts are out of town until Sunday night at a wedding; for now, simply doing nothing is enough for him, and he lies back and closes his eyes. Sleep catches him unawares, and when the door leading out onto the deck opens again five minutes later he does not stir.

He has no idea how much time has passed when he opens his eyes again and finds someone standing next to the lounger looking down at him, but he's so startled he knocks his drink over; as Coke froths over the sun-bleached boards of the deck, he pushes himself up on one elbow and says, "Who the hell are you?"

"You first," comes the response. "This is my house, dude," but the young man with shoulder length dark hair is grinning broadly. "You're the Stokes kid, right? My sister Jenny told me you were here," and Nick recalls the hugely pregnant young woman who was at the house for lunch the previous Sunday. "What do they call you?"

"Nick," he says, taking an outstretched hand and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. "You're Luke, right?"

"Damn, they told you I exist," Luke says, and when he laughs the stud in his tongue catches the light; the two of them are the same height, and he's got the most brilliant blue eyes Nick's ever seen. "What else did they tell you?"

"Not much," Nick answers. "I asked about you, but they kinda brushed me off – what did you do to piss them off so badly?"

"Drink, drugs, anything you care to name, really," is the response. "I'll tell you about it, just let me go get us both a beer first."

"Another one of those is fine," Nick says, gesturing at the knocked-over Coke can, and he is met with a snort of laughter.

"Don't y'all drink beer in Texas?" Luke asks, gently mocking Nick's Southern accent. "I thought all cowboys drank beer."

"Yeah, I drink beer," Nick counters, feeling his face heating up. "I just get the feeling your dad always counts ‘em to make sure they're still all there – since, y'know, I'm not twenty one and all," and his voice tails away in embarrassment as he watches Luke walk away into the house, but the reply delivered from the kitchen makes him smile.

"You going to let that stop you? Just blame it on me, it's not like that would surprise him."

****************

"Damn, where'd you get that done?" Nick asks, his eyes widening as Luke peels off his Ramones T shirt to reveal an ornate dragon covering most of his torso.

"New York," Luke replies nonchalantly. "Went there for two weeks' vacation and stayed for two years."

"What were you doing there?" Nick asks, but he has a feeling he knows the answer, because he has already been told about the two private schools Luke was expelled from for dealing drugs and the military school that finally admitted it couldn't handle him either.

"What is it they say? Don't ask, don't tell?" and Luke snorts laughter again. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you," and he reaches down for another beer from the case he carried out onto the deck. "But my dad thought he had it all figured out, so when I told my folks I was coming home he met me at the airport and pretty much said it wasn't gonna happen. So here I am, living in a fleapit apartment fifteen minutes from here that ought to be condemned, and they're spraying for bugs again this weekend, so since I knew mom and dad were going to be gone I figured I'd crash here and leave before they got back."

"You still have a key?"

"Took my sister's out of her purse and copied it," is the laconic reply, and Luke raises an eyebrow. "What are you smiling for?"

"I – I just never met anyone like you before."

"No, I bet your daddy keeps you away from people like me, doesn't he?" is the answer, accompanied by another grin. "C'mon, Nick, have another beer and let's hear something about you."

"Me? Nothing to tell," Nick says as he catches the can thrown across to him and pops the tab; it's his third, as many as he has ever drunk at once in his life. "I've got five sisters and a brother, I'm..."

"Baby of the family?"

"That obvious, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," Luke says. "If you weren't, you'd never have agreed to work for my dad for nothing all summer – well, he isn't paying you, is he?"

"No," Nick mumbles, feeling his face beginning to burn again. "It's just – well, when my dad thinks something's a good idea, it's just easier to let him think it is than argue with him about it."

"You let him decide everything for you?" comes the answer, and Luke lets his empty can roll under the lounger before taking another one out of the case. "I just bet your girlfriend's the daughter of a friend of his."

"How do you even know I have one?"

"You have, haven't you? What's her name?"

"Beth."

"You don't love her, do you?"

"What?"

"You didn't smile when you said her name," Luke says. "Have you even called her since you've been here?" and he goes on speaking without waiting for an answer. "It's easier to see someone he likes than go after what you really want, isn't it? Stick with the preppie girl mommy and daddy approve of rather than go for the girl who works at Wal-Mart because you like the way she makes you feel when you're around her?"

"You met me an hour ago," Nick counters, defensiveness creeping into his voice. "You don't know me well enough to judge me like that, man."

"Tell me I'm wrong, then."

"You are, but I don't want to talk about it," Nick says quietly, and he drains his can with a series of long gulps. "Give me another one of those, would you?"

**********************

"Are you drunk?" Luke asks when two hours have passed; the two of them have emptied half the case of beer, and Nick has found himself completely at ease with someone his parents would undoubtedly hate on sight.

"No, but I think you are," Nick says with a grin. "I could still do two lengths of that before you could," and he points at the pool, where the late afternoon sun is gleaming on the water's surface.

"You're on," Luke says, scrambling to his feet, but while he's fumbling with his sneakers Nick has already shed his cut-offs and underwear with the ease of a boy who's grown up in an almost all-male household. He only stumbles slightly before executing a near-flawless dive into the deep end, and he has completed two lengths of the pool before his competitor has even finished his first; he treads water, waiting for Luke to catch up, and then he grins triumphantly.

"Captain of my high school swim team," he says with a smirk. "Never asked me about that, did you?" and he vaults out of the pool as handfuls of water are tossed at him; looking around for a towel and not seeing one, he heads in the direction of the pool house, leaving wet footprints on the warm flagstones surrounding the pool.

He opens the door of the pool house and walks inside, leaving the light off as he takes a towel from the shelf in the corner; the half-dozen beers he has drunk have made him slightly uncoordinated now he's out of the water, and he leans back against the wall for support as he dries his face. When he takes the towel away from his face there's a shadow in the doorway that blocks out most of the sun, and he remains leaning against the wall while Luke walks into the pool house. "What?" he asks, and he's laughing, but his throat closes up as the distance between them narrows to a few inches and he sees the expression on Luke's face.

"You look exactly the way I felt when I was sixteen," Luke says. "You've never told anyone, have you?"

"Stop it, man, you're wasted," Nick manages to say, but he isn't laughing now; there's a huge lump in his throat as he speaks, and he clutches the towel tightly to stop his hands shaking. He knows, part of his mind is saying, but the rest of his mind is saying that Luke can't know, he can't possibly. Luke can't know what it's like to take girls out, to sleep with them and keep hoping that the next time will be the time it all actually means something. Luke can't know what it's like to sit having dinner at your girlfriend's house and be unable to stop looking at her older brother, to stare at the hollow of his throat and wonder what his skin would feel like if you placed your lips against it.

Because Nick knows why it never means anything to him when he's been with any of the handful of girls he's dated, and it scares him. It scares him to look at Beth's brother and think the things he thinks, because he knows what his father would say if he knew. "Deviant behaviour", that's what Cisco would call it, something he'd never want any of his boys to indulge in; so Nick's kept these feelings to himself, he's bottled them up and he's never acted on them – and he's never told anybody about them, not even people he's known for years, so the idea that someone he's only known for an afternoon could look at him and know...

Unless...

"I need to go back outside," he mumbles, inexplicably close to tears, and he finally manages to avert his eyes; still clutching the towel, he takes a step away from the wall, telling himself that if he can just get outside he can make the thoughts go away again the way he's managed to make them disappear so many times before – and that's when a hand touches his face. "No," he says, trying to turn away from the touch, but he's frozen. "Don't, you don't know..."

"Look at me," Luke says, his hand moving to curve round the back of Nick's head, and then he's silent; Nick eventually lifts his head, realising how close their faces are, and a handful of seconds later Luke's mouth brushes across his. There's a whisper of, "Open your mouth, Nick," and before he can do more than think can't, instinct wins out and he parts his lips to allow Luke's tongue between them; he meets it with his own, and the jolt that runs down his spine threatens to make his knees give way as the towel drops from fingers that have suddenly gone numb. He presses his hands flat against the wall for support, afraid of whatever might happen next but wanting it at the same time, and when he feels the inside of his top lip traced by the stud in Luke's tongue he's unable to hold back a soft whimper. They pull back from each other, and Nick takes a deep breath and holds it while he closes his eyes again; he's shivering despite the muggy late-afternoon heat, and as he keeps his hands pressed against the wall there's a whispered command against his lips.

"Breathe, Nick..."

...and when he lets out the breath he's been holding he's kissed again. It's harder this time, his lips drawn into Luke's mouth in turn and bitten, and even though he knows this is the missing piece he's still overshadowed by his father - because when one of his hands is grasped and pulled away from the wall he freezes again, trying to tell himself that even now he can take this back. "No," he gasps as he tears his head back,
"No, stop, I can't," but eyes that seem to have turned a deeper blue lock themselves on his face while his hand is placed over a heated, rigid length of flesh. He drags shaking fingertips down Luke's cock, feeling it pulse like a second heart, and when he lets his hand encircle it there is a ragged sigh that ignites a liquid heat at his core; his touch is hesitant, exploratory, but he feels Luke arch forward against him, and Nick's heart is hammering so hard he fears it will burst through his ribs. Another kiss then, drawing nearly all the air from his lungs, and as his head starts to spin he's thinking please, touch me but before he can say it a hand takes hold of him. He groans against Luke's mouth and Cisco's shadow is completely gone now, because the fact that he wants this is far outweighing the fact he was raised to believe it's wrong; the way he's being touched just feels right, and he knows instinctively that no matter how many girls he goes out with it'll never be like this.

The kiss breaks and he leans back against the wall in a near-faint, breathing in gasps, all the strength gone from his legs; he stares helplessly at Luke, their hands still on each other, and then a whisper reaches him through the pounding in his head.

"Don't move."

Nick's hands are grasped and gently placed against the wall, and then kisses are laid in a trail from the corner of his mouth along his jaw line; they move slowly down his neck and then to his chest, and almost without realising he's doing it he brings one of his hands round to cradle the back of Luke's head. He closes his eyes again, and his sense of touch is heightened instantly; he feels strands of hair brushing his ribcage and then his stomach, the contrast in sensation as his skin is licked and then blown on, and his soft panting sounds impossibly loud in the half-darkness of the pool house. His legs are nudged further apart, and when the crease between his belly and his upper thigh is licked he tightens his grip on the tangled hair under his hand; he's breathing harder now, he knows what's coming, and as he feels warm breath against his inner thigh he knows he'd rather die than have this stop now.

"Oh...God," he gasps breathlessly, and then he presses his lips tightly together to suppress a moan; a hand cups his balls, the index finger stroking the tender skin just behind them, and his cock is traced from base to tip by Luke's tongue before the head is engulfed in the warm wetness of his mouth. He's beyond speech now, his fingers tightening and relaxing in Luke's hair and his hips arching away from the wall to meet the slow descent of lips and tongue onto his cock; his head's flung back, he's drowning in sensation, and all he can think is no, can't let go before he comes hard, his legs nearly giving way, and he's only dimly aware of hands at his hips holding him upright against the wall.

*************************

Nick lay in the dark, his throat tight from the memory of what he had just recounted, and he let his lips come to rest against Greg's motionless head; the younger man had not moved in some time, and just as Nick was closing his eyes in the belief that Greg was finally asleep there was a faint murmur against his neck.

"Nick? Why'd you stop?"

"Nothing to tell, man, like I said," but Nick realised with a sinking heart that his lover knew him too well to believe that, and that he would have to finish the story now he'd begun it.

He lies in the centre of the bed that's been his for the past three weeks, his head resting against Luke's stomach, as the soft whirring of the ceiling fan echoes in his ears. Fingers run through his hair, scratching gently at his scalp, and he closes his eyes involuntarily; the fact that someone he's known for less than half a day already has the ability to make him feel like this is still hard for him to grasp when he thinks of all the times he tried...

"You fall asleep on me?"

"Not yet," he says, bringing his hand up to allow a fingertip to trace the dragon's tail that curves around Luke's right hip. Try as he might, he can't remember leaving the pool house or making his way up the circular staircase, but everything that has happened since the door to this room closed can be recalled with total clarity. He can still feel the pulse that was beating beneath his lips as he sucked at the hollow of Luke's throat, beginning an exploration that was excruciatingly slow by virtue of apprehension and uncertainty; but the little voice inside him saying can't do this became more and more distant with every response to one of his tentative caresses - and as he lies here now, drained and drifting towards sleep, he lets each one of these reactions rise to the forefront of his mind in turn. He thinks of the soft hitches of breath that gradually deepened into harsh sighs, the hands that clutched at his hair and then released it to clench white-knuckled fingers around fistfuls of crumpled bedding; he thinks of the way Luke's body felt, pliant like molten wax except for his cock – and there will be times for the rest of Nick's life when he will be caught unawares by the memory of what it felt like when he had Luke in his mouth for the first time, the realisation that the knowledge of how to do this had been at his core waiting for this moment, as a choked whisper of, "Jesus, Nicky, please," echoed in his ears and imprinted itself on his heart.

"You want something to eat?"

"Yeah," Nick says, not moving. "What time is it?"

"Don't know, but it's dark," is the answer, and the hand leaves his hair before a gentle slap is delivered to his back. "Go get us something, then, you're the one on top."

***********************

"I know you're not asleep," Luke says some time later, when the light has been turned off and an empty ice cream carton is on the floor next to the bed with two spoons in it. "You can't keep still for more than five minutes at a time, what are you thinking?"

"Nothing," Nick says, staring into the darkness. "I never slept in the same bed with anyone before, okay?" Even as he prays inwardly that his answer will be accepted, the quiet chuckle behind him tells him it hasn't been, and the words that come next make his face flush.

"You want to know why we stopped where we did, right?"

"No," he says, his voice even fainter at the knowledge that he's been read so easily, and that's when the light on the nightstand comes on. "Turn that off, man."

"Look at me first," is the quiet response, and when he obeys he's instantly swallowed up by Luke's eyes again even though they're half-closed with the onset of sleep. "I didn't plan on any of this happening this afternoon, okay?"

"Does that mean you're sorry it did?"

"No," Luke says, letting his hand rest on Nick's shoulder. "It means I didn't bring protection with me, and I don't ride bareback," and a sheepish smile spreads across his lips. "I might be the kind of guy your folks wouldn't like you hanging around with, but I'm not reckless," he continues, and then his eyes darken a shade. "Also, I was never anyone's – uh – first before, either, and I don't want to push you if you're not sure you want this."

"I'm sure," Nick says in a whisper, the response springing unbidden from the same secret place that contained the knowledge he so recently put to use, and the two of them look at each other without saying anything for a long time before the light is turned off again; he closes his eyes then, and when sleep beckons a short while later he doesn't fight it.

**************************

"He was gone when I woke up in the morning," Nick said. "He left a note in the kitchen, said he'd gone into work - he was working at an auto body shop clear across town," and he looked up towards the ceiling in the dark as he continued the story. "Told me I should go pick him up at six ‘cause he was gonna have to leave his car there overnight to get something fixed on it, but..."

"He wanted to see if you could go through with it," Greg said, his voice soft and sleep-laden.

"Yeah," Nick said, trailing the fingertips of one hand up and down Greg's back. "He'd brought this backpack with him to the house and that was gone too, I knew he was going to find somewhere else to crash that night if I didn't go and get him."

"Bastard."

"No, man, he wasn't," Nick said, wishing with all his heart that he'd stuck to his guns and not even begun to tell this. "I knew I wasn't going to see him again once I went home, and he wanted to be sure I could deal with that before we went any further..."

He parks the car and then sits with his hands clenched on the steering wheel, torn even now between wanting this and walking away from it. He has been like this since he got up and found himself alone - restless and unable to settle, as he cleared the litter of beer cans from the deck next to the pool and retrieved the clothes he left there the previous afternoon, before finding pointless things to fill the rest of his day.

He keeps his eyes fixed on the garage door, hoping that Luke will realise it's past six o'clock and come outside, but eventually he removes his hands from the steering wheel and takes the keys from the ignition; he locks the car and then walks the few yards to the door, taking a deep breath before pushing it open.

"Sorry, man, we're closed." The speaker is almost a foot taller than Nick, his forearms plastered in tattoos and his long red hair secured in a ponytail. "Come back tomorrow, we open at eight thirty."

"No, I -" and then Nick clears his throat. "I came to pick Luke up, is he here?"

"Luke!" the red-headed man yells over the sound of machinery and the ACDC track coming from the battered tape deck near the door, but there is no response. "Wait there and don't touch nothing," he says uncompromisingly, and Nick watches him head for the far corner of the cavernous garage where sparks are flying from the side of a partly-dismantled Chevy; moments later, the mechanical whirring dies and he sees Luke rise to his feet as he flips up the safety visor clamped to his head. Words are exchanged between the two men that Nick cannot make out, followed by a snort of laughter from Luke's boss as the three of them draw level with each other. "You sure you're old enough to drive, son?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Nick says defensively. "I'll be outside," and he leaves the garage followed by more laughter; he is unlocking the driver's side door and swinging himself into the car when his name is called behind him, and he looks round to see Luke jogging towards him.

"Don't mind Pete, he's just kidding," Luke says, sinking into the passenger seat. "He's just an asshole, actually, but I've only got another week there anyway." His T shirt is soaked with sweat under the arms, there's a smudge of grease on his forehead and as he reaches to fasten his seatbelt Nick sees a scrape on the back of his right hand that's welling blood. "Did I tell you about Florida?"

"Florida? No," Nick says as he starts the car. "You going on vacation?"

"Moving there," Luke says matter-of-factly. "Buddy of mine has a motorcycle restoring business near Daytona Beach, he offered me a job," and he leans back in his seat and closes his eyes; Nick keeps driving in silence, forcing himself not to glance sideways at his passenger as the information he was just given sinks in. I really won't see him again, he tell himself silently, and for the thousandth time that day he wonders whether he can do this and walk away from it – but then he thinks of everything that happened the previous day, and he has his answer.

The early evening traffic has been negotiated, and the sky is darkening as Nick parks the car in John and Mary's driveway; he turns to look at his passenger, and sees that Luke is asleep. He watches him for a long time, taking in the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, and he has an overpowering urge to reach across and wipe the smudge of grease from his forehead; but what he wants and what he actually does are entirely different, and when he opens the driver's side door with more force than necessary the sound makes Luke stir and mumble under his breath before he opens his eyes.

"We home?"

"Yeah," Nick says, unfastening his seatbelt. "You want something to eat?"

"I want a shower first," Luke says, running a hand through his hair as he climbs out of the car; the two of them walk towards the house, and when Nick rummages for the front door key something falls from the pocket of his jeans; he bends to retrieve it, his face burning, and when he straightens up Luke is staring straight at him. "Aren't you the little Boy Scout," he says, plucking the packet of condoms from Nick's fingers, and even though he's smiling his voice is slightly hoarse. "Give me those," and the keys are taken from Nick's hand too when he finally manages to bring them from his pocket; a few moments later, the two of them are in the house and the front door is locked behind them.

**************************

Fingernails rake over skin already sensitised by the near-scalding water of the shower he so recently emerged from, and he presses his head back against the pillows; he's spread eagled on the bed, the memory of how he got there once again a blur, his ears tuned to the breathing of the man leaning over him and his body tuned to the fingertips trailing over it. He feels the scrape of stubble against his neck as Luke's mouth comes to rest there, and when teeth sink into his skin he is unable to hold back a low moan; the bite deepens, the line between pleasure and pain crossed the way it will sometimes be with Greg years from now, and the little voice saying he shouldn't want this is silenced by the louder one saying that he does. He arches up, his heels digging into the mattress as his hand moves to the back of Luke's head and his fingers lace in tangled dark hair; words escape his lips, ones he doesn't understand, but his lover seems to, because in the next instant Luke lifts his head just far enough to allow his tongue to outline the bite mark before he speaks.

"Ssh," comes the whisper, and when two fingers are laid across Nick's lips he is guided by instinct; he draws them into his mouth, curling his tongue around them, and he sees Luke's eyelids flicker downwards. "Jesus, Nicky," Luke breathes, and the shortening of his name fires Nick's blood in a way it has never done before; he's been with three girls, and at some point they all called him Nicky, but it hasn't ever made him feel the way he does at this moment. The fingers press gently on his tongue before slipping from his mouth to brush along his lower lip; he shivers at the touch, but when he tries to lift himself up he's pushed down again. There's a murmured command to stay there and he obeys, lying back against the crumpled sheets of his unmade bed as kisses are trailed down his neck and torso – and with every flick of the stud embedded in Luke's tongue, the world outside this room and what he will have to deal with when he re-enters it become more and more distant. A hand pushes at the back of his thigh and he draws his leg back reflexively, sucking in a ragged breath when he feels a fingertip coated in something slick brushing between his buttocks; it flicks at the taut ring of muscle before breaching it slowly, and the sensation makes him bite his lower lip to hold back a moan.

"That's it, Nicky, open up..." and while the murmured words seem to come from a long way off, he can feel the warmth of Luke's breath against his skin. He lets himself go limp, feeling the finger working its way deeper inside him - and then suddenly all he can think is god what's he doing to me as something inside him is brushed with a fingertip and a wave of heat races through him. He gasps breathlessly, lifting himself up towards the touch, and when the caress is repeated he grabs convulsively at Luke's hair again. "Please," he tries to say, but the word dissolves into a helpless whimper that is almost immediately swallowed up when Luke's mouth latches onto his; he's pressed back against the pillows, the kiss deepening rapidly, and then another finger is slowly eased into him. He's so hard now that it's painful, everything's becoming too much, and he yanks at Luke's hair to break the kiss - and the two of them stare at each other in silence for a long time, their harsh breathing the only sound in the room, and the intensity in the blue eyes gazing down at Nick is almost feral now. "Don't want to hurt you," Luke mutters fiercely, the words slurred by desire, and when all Nick can do in response is whisper, "Please," there's another kiss that steals nearly all his breath. The fingers inside him are slowly eased back, the loss of contact eliciting a low moan, and Nick watches through half-closed eyes as Luke rises up on his knees; he sees him roll on a condom with hands that tremble slightly, and he barely has time to think this is really happening before his neck is brushed by strands of long hair as Luke leans back down over him. He allows himself to be manoeuvred, his legs parted and hooked back, and when the tip of Luke's cock presses against him he arches forward - and suddenly every nerve in his body seems to begin and end in the same place, tiny needles seem to be drilling into his skin, and as his free hand claws up a handful of the sheet beneath him a mewling sound that he can't believe he is making echoes in a room lit only by the dying sun filtering through the window.

"You want me to stop?" comes the whispered voice that is even further away now, and a hand smooths back the hair stuck to his forehead with perspiration. He doesn't open his eyes, he knows that if he sees the face inches from his in this moment he'll come and this will all be over; he whips his head from side to side on the pillow as a wavering "n - no" emerges from his lips, and it's the last word he manages to form. Luke shifts back a fraction, hands move beneath Nick to lift him up, and then suddenly everything seems to fit - and Nick lies there with Luke's weight on him and inside him, inexplicable tears behind his closed eyelids as he is in the grip of a flood of sensation that is completely alien to him and yet feels so perfect.

"Look at me, Nicky, look at me..." and when he does those blue eyes are staring straight into his; hands cup his face, thumbs brushing away the tears that leak from the outer edges of his eyes. "Fuck, you're beautiful," Luke says in a hushed whisper, and stubble scrapes along Nick's face before their lips meet again; then it begins in earnest, the almost tentative rocking forward and then back as they find their rhythm - and before he can help himself Nick's digging his nails into Luke's back, drawing blood even though he will never know it, the heat and the friction spiralling out of control as he feels his climax ripped from him and his mind fills with white light.

*********************

"No...ssh... keep still..." and he is manoeuvred again, laid flat against the bed as Luke eases away from him; lips touch his, the kiss gentle and drained of its previous intensity, and he feels a hand run lightly over his head. "You okay?"

"Mm," he says faintly, tiny aftershocks of sensation still rippling through him as he lies unable to move.

"I'll be right back," Luke says. "You want a drink?"

"Coke," Nick says without opening his eyes, and there is a soft chuckle before a kiss is planted on his forehead; the bed creaks as Luke gets up and leaves the room, and Nick draws in a deep, trembling breath. He is exhausted, the images of what has just happened playing in a loop behind his eyes, and he reaches down to draw the sheet over himself before rolling onto his side; he is asleep within seconds, and so he has no idea of how long Luke stands by the side of the bed watching him when he returns to the room minutes later.

"He'd gone by the time I woke up," Nick said softly. "Well, we'd agreed it was just gonna be that one time, right? So I went around and picked up the house before John and Mary got back, I washed my sheets so the housekeeper wouldn't realise what had been going on-" and a shaky laugh escaped his lips. "I knew I wasn't gonna be able to do anything about it once I got back home, so I just tried not to think about it, but it was so hard - oh, I broke it off with Beth when I got back to Dallas, but I didn't tell her why, how could I?" he went on, the lump in his throat getting bigger with every word. "I just threw myself into my studying, I figured that way if I wasn't seeing anyone I'd have an excuse - and if only he hadn't sent that letter..."

The envelope bears a Daytona Beach postmark, and he knows instinctively who it's from; he excuses himself from the breakfast table and makes his way up to his room, where he opens it with shaking fingers. There's a postcard inside, a picture of a restored Harley on the front and a handful of scribbled words on the back.

"Call me when you're alone - I need to talk to you."

So he waits until his mom's gone for groceries and his dad's out with one of the horses, and he dials the number on the card; with every ring the urge to just hang up becomes stronger, and then it's picked up at the other end. "H'lo?"

"Luke?"

"Nicky..." and the voice makes him close his eyes; he swallows hard around the lump in his throat, and the silence before he finds his voice seems to last a long time.

"How are you?"

"The shop's doing good," is the answer, and there's a long silence then; Nick's about to say something, but then Luke speaks again. "I want you to come out here."

"What?"

"Pack a bag, man, come out here," Luke says. "Are you happy there?"

"Wait a second," he says, the postcard falling from fingers that have suddenly gone numb. "No, you said..."

"Never mind what I said - are you happy?"

"No," he manages to reply, pinching the bridge of his nose as something prickles behind his eyes. "No, I'm not, but..."

"I don't know why I'm doing this," Luke says, and his voice is tight. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, man-" and there's another long silence. "What did that night mean to you?"

"I..."

"I saw it in your face," Luke says. "I know what I said to you, but I could still see it in your face, you can't take it back," and there is a gentle sigh. "Come out here, please."

"How? How can I?" Nick says. "I don't have any money, I..."

"You can manage a Greyhound ticket, right?" is the answer. "You tell me you'll get on a bus and come here, and we'll work everything else out." Another silence, and Nick leans his head back, sucking in a deep breath as tears fill his eyes. "Nick?"

"I can't just pack up and go today," he says helplessly. "Don't make me say that, I can't."

"Just tell me you'll do it," comes the reply, and Nick realises that Luke is on the verge of tears too. "Doesn't have to be today, I just need to know I'm not wrong about this," and the raw emotion in Luke's voice takes Nick straight back to that night in his room with the evening sun coming through the windows; and his studies, what his parents would say, how he'd even tell them, are all blotted out by that memory, and the words are out before he can stop them.

"I'll do it."

"I waited a week," Nick said, his arm tightening around Greg as he continued. "I kept thinking that if I ignored everything I was feeling, it'd go away - if only he hadn't written me, damn it," and he drew in a deep breath before he went on. "I got my backpack and I put as much stuff as I could in it, I had the money I needed for my bus ticket and about fifty bucks past that..."

The bus terminal is crammed with people on this Saturday afternoon, and he has disappeared among them; he sits in a plastic chair scarred with cigarette burns, his backpack on the floor between his legs and his bus ticket crammed in his jacket pocket as he watches the departure board with haunted eyes - then he sees the line of text announcing that his bus is on Stand 8 and will leave in twenty minutes, and he rises to his feet.

He grabs his backpack and walks to the rank of payphones before reaching into his pocket for the postcard bearing Luke's phone number in Daytona Beach - and as he looks at the scrawled message, his eyes brim with tears. He thinks of his father, the man who held him moments after he was born, the man who loves him with such a fierce devotion; he thinks of the lie he told to get Cisco to drive him downtown, he thinks of what he will invariably have to tell him to explain why he isn't coming home again -

Dad, I need to tell you...

Dad, I'm not coming home...

Dad, I'm gay...

- and he knows he can't do this, that whatever was awakened in him this summer has got to be wrong, because it would hurt his father so much if he found out. He knows that however right it may have felt with Luke, he would be lost without his father's love; and the postcard drops from his hand as he runs from the bus terminal, the backpack thumping against his side and tears running down his cheeks.

"How the hell did you manage to do it?" Greg asked quietly after a long silence. "Hold it in all that time?"

"I don't know," Nick said. "It just seemed easier to do that than take the risk, you know? I love my dad, man, and I just didn't want to lose that," and he sighed into Greg's hair. "Don't know what you must think of me."

"What for? Thinking about getting on a bus to go live with a beach bum in Florida?" and Greg laughed softly, twisting around so that their faces were level. "I wouldn't have met you then, would I?" and even though he smiled his eyes were grave in the darkness of the room. He thought of how it had been with Nick in the beginning, of what he had been able to see long before Nick had admitted it, and the thought of how Nick had had to live with it for so long and say nothing made his throat tighten. "Here," he said, leaning up to let his lips touch Nick's, and he felt himself drawn into a hug. "Sorry if I upset you," he said awakwardly. "You know, bringing it all back."

"It's not that," Nick said softly, drifting towards sleep, and what he said next was delivered in a whisper that Greg could barely make out. "I just wish it had been you first, that's all."