Title: How Could He Resist
By: Julian Lee
Pairing: Speed/Delko
Summary: sequel to And Straight On 'Til Morning.

"Tell me what you did with the bag I handed you."

Not looking away from the TV (if he looks at Delko now he'll tackle him to the floor), Speed waves toward the closet. "It's on the closet floor."

Delko knows why Speed's avoiding his eyes, and he thinks it's pretty damned funny, since they pulled into this run-down motel with every intention of ravishing each other (that's Delko's intention, anyway; he thinks Speed expects they're going to sleep. Speed has a lot to learn about Delko).

Getting his toothbrush and toothpaste from the bag, Delko wanders into the bathroom and brushes his teeth. He washes his face and stands in front of the streaked mirror, tries to decide what he should be wearing when he goes back to the bedroom. Naked would get his point across the fastest, but he doesn't want to freak Speed out.

(A little farther than you've ventured before, eh, Tim?)

He settles for stripping to his boxers, glad beyond reason that they're a fairly new pair (not, with any luck, that they'll stay on long). He returns to the bedroom and sits on the bed next to Speed. Right next to Speed. "Hey."

(Still not looking. Still not trusting himself to look.)

"Hi."

Reaching across Speed - slowly, with lots of brushing - for the remote, Delko clicks off the television.

"Hey, man, I was watch - oh." Speed swallows, mouth suddenly dry. Delko. A vast expanse of naked Delko-skin pressed right up against him. "Hi."

Delko laughs, and the vibrations set Speed's entire body quavering. "There you go," Delko says.

"Listen, Eric, we don't have to - I mean, I know what a week it's been for you--"

(You, too, Speedle. Don't you deserve this after what you've put yourself through this week?)

"It has." Delko nods. "But I slept for two hours in the car." He wriggles himself closer. "I'm all rested up now."

Speed's hands grip the knees of his jeans. (Are you afraid to touch?) "Um, if you're sure..."

"Tim?" Delko draws back, considers. "Do you not want--"

(And, oh, what a fool you've been, Speed.) "Oh, I want." His eyes sweep down, then up, the well-muscled chest that's being offered to him like a buffet table. "I definitely want."

Delko's grin gone wicked and his pupils dilating make him look more like a creature from some folk tale than a man. He leans back on his hands and beckons with his head. "Then come take."

(Can it be this easy? Nothing he's wanted has ever been this easy.)

So Speed takes. Oh, God, he takes, and Delko lets him, and Delko gives back. And the state of Delko's underwear turns out not to matter after all, nor Speed's, and there's too much flesh, too much fire, and they're neither of them holding on to sanity, or control, or anything but each other's bodies.

(CSI should have bad weeks like this all the time.)

And the instant Delko threw the damned map in the damned ditch, Speed knew he was lost, but he was wrong, because the first time he tastes Delko's skin he knows he's finding his way back, and when Delko comes, gasping his name, he knows exactly where he is, and there's no map for it.

They lay like knots in illuminated texts, Delko pressing kisses into Speed's hair, Speed's cheek against Delko's chest, and it's not that there's no place Speed would rather be. There's no place else for him to be.