Disclaimer: Sometimes I imagine myself on trial for my Digimon fan fiction and the prosecutor is reading a really dirty bit and I'm winking at the jury, licking my lips suggestively, thinking thank god I added that disclaimer. I don't own Digimon. Yaoi. Drugs.
Chapter One: It's Joe
Tai raised his head from his desk with a gurgle when the great white heartbreaker collapsed into the seat beside him with a gurgle of his own.
"Tai," came the teasing, lilting, arousing voice, "Kill me."
"I almost did," Tai answered, after one, two, three attempts to clear his scratchy throat, "In my dream last night. With my hands."
"You had a nightmare?" Bloodshot blue eyes wide and bright as galaxies.
"No," Tai answered. Matt laughed. Tai didn't. Matt stopped laughing.
"How'd I escape?"
"My alarm went off," Tai lied. In fact, in his dream he'd let go of Matt's neck only to force him down over his lap to spank and spank and spank until his ass was red as a berry and tears were streaming down his lovely face. Tai hadn't been sleeping very well lately. He only told Matt that last part.
"Me neither," the blond sympathized. He bit his lip, considering whether or not to explain why. Weighing the consequences.
"Yeah, you don't look great," Tai said, slumping back over onto his desk. Gurgle.
Matt ran his hands down his thin tie, lovingly, a great way to avoid eye contact. "Actually," little laugh, please don't be mad, "It's Joe. He's kind of a freak. I think it's the stress he's under."
"It's Joe." Statement. Period. Brown eyes aflame, but carefully averted from the pretty boy forcing an air of nonchalance beside him, but really stroking the hell out of that tie, nervous. Tai had been known to personally splinter the face of more than one of Matt's beaus, depending on his mood any given day.
10, 9, 8…Matt counted, preparing for the rocket launch of Tai from the room—off to give the other med students at Joe's school a fresh body.
1, 2, 3…Tai counted, breathing carefully, thinking flowers and beaches and little dinosaurs and ice cream and birthdays. And then he breathed in deeply with a mighty sniff and released a long, cleansing breath, aaaaaahhhhhhh. Then he snapped the pencil in his hand in half, thinking, Joe's about that skinny.
Matt, primed for an explosion, jumped a foot in the air regardless and hissed, "You scared the shit out of me!"
"So did you!" Tai hissed back, before snarling, "Joe?"
"What's your problem?" Blond hair indignantly flipped, "Of all the guys in the world I figured you'd be okay with Joe," This was a lie but expertly told. Matt knew no one was okay. No one ever would be. He just didn't understand why not, "I mean, he's one of us."
"Whatever."
Matt growled, squeezing his hands around an imaginary neck in a reenactment of Tai's dream, "Don't say whatever to me. I mean, it's Joe. You love Joe. Joe loves you."
Yes, he does. Tai's eyes lit up with an idea so brilliant, so wickedly brilliant he almost cackled out loud, but instead he kept a professional calm and released another resentful "Whatever."
Matt could argue forever with Tai, whether or not the brunette was participating, but just as he opened his mouth with a shout of "You're so childish!" The professor slammed a book on his podium with a glare in their direction. Though what class, exactly, they were sitting in, neither boy knew.
Old Reliable Joe waited, poised on motorcycle, for Matt, white-hot Matt, to get out of class. The bike had been acquired shortly before the blond, purely coincidence, and Joe couldn't decide which terrified him more during his fleeting moments of sanity. He supposed he was going through a mid-med school crisis, but the sex was so good he didn't care to analyze the strange new creature he'd become.
Life now was speed—in bike form, in pill form, in Matt form. When he wasn't in class he was taking greedy bites of the pale, perfect stomach of his pale, perfect lover, narrow hips arching to meet his teeth as he moved lower, lower, lower.
God, Joe loved Matt. He always had.
And there he was, the bombshell, the warhead, the poisoned dart, trailing—oh, god—trailing a scowling Tai. Joe's old friend Panic gripped his stomach momentarily—everyone knew that dating Matt came with a higher face-smashed-in risk than other nice boys you might meet around town. But Panic was replaced by a dizzying wave from Joe's new friend Lust as Matt said hi to Joe using the slightly unorthodox method of shoving his tongue into Joe's mouth. Thankfully, he spun Joe away from where Tai stood, arms crossed. Then it was helmets on, engine gunned, speed, speed, speed. It bugged him though: as good as he felt with Matt's arms wrapped around him, zero to sixty, he could only manage a feeble, anxious, don't-hate-me-do-you-hate-me wave goodbye to his former leader before he took off. Why'd he do that? Was he still that person underneath his new armor? And what was that strange expression on Tai's face called as he watched them speed away?
Joe's bike was sick. Tai, pissed, got more pissed when he saw it. But then. Then. Matt swung Joe around to kiss him and cracked those cruel eyes to lock with Tai's. Blue on wide, mad brown saying haha. Teasing. Looking him in the eyes with his tongue in another guy's mouth. Only a full-blown sociopath could be so spiteful. Then sweet Joe waved at him and Tai could've laughed, Matt's words echoing in his head. You love Joe and Joe loves you. Tai watched them speed away, eyes sparking with wicked joy, mouth twisted with jealousy.
Matt, you're going to pay for that stunt with the kiss, for that dick-hardening way you say my name, for making me scared to go to sleep at night. Today you crossed the line.
Joe fidgeted on a bar stool, fingering a rolled up bill, watching Matt chop peppers on the other side of the kitchen island. Dawn seeped in through the window, but they'd never gone to sleep. The teeth-grinding come down was upon them both. Speed was an empty baggie discarded on the floor, dust on a mirror, and Joe's anxiety was rearing its head, "Didn't he headbutt his teammate for kissing you?"
"Yeah, he did," Matt paused, knife in midair, remembering.
"Are you smiling?"
Matt fought down his grin. He'd been waiting on the sidelines for Tai after a last-second win when the guy ran up out of nowhere and grabbed him. A second later he was sprawled on the field unconscious, blood spurting liberally from his nose. Onlookers dashed toward the scene from all directions, shouting. And Tai, looking a little embarrassed at the fuss, shrugged innocently at a fuming Matt and just said, "Whoops."
"Sorry," Matt said, but it was funny, looking back, "I just…sorry."
"I mean, if he did that to his own teammate I don't see why he'd spare me."
"Joe, relax," Matt rounded the kitchen counter to drape himself over the back of his panicking lover, "If he tries anything I'll be the one to fight him. We've been fighting each other since we were twelve, you know." All this was purred into Joe's ear, fingers brushing long, dark hair back as lips nibbled at an earlobe.
"You'd think one of you would've won by now," Joe breathed.
Matt withdrew suddenly, back to the cutting board, leaving Joe half hard and half suspicious. "It's not that kind of fight," the blond said, losing his patience.
Nobody gave it much thought. Tai was protective of his friends. It made sense that he'd be especially protective of his best friend. Matt didn't think about it too deeply, he just knew he liked to piss Tai off. Joe didn't think so much as fear. He hoped his glasses would survive the inevitable beating. The others considered it quintessential Matt and Tai, just another track on the greatest hits compilation of their terrible behavior. And Tai, twisting in his sheets, waking up hard, waking up soaked in sweat, waking up screaming, waking up with a fist through the too thin wall, waking up with Matt's name on his lips, no. Tai didn't wring his hands over his impulse to pulverize the guys Matt liked. He was a doer, not a thinker, and he always did what he felt was right.
Tai lifted his head from his desk as Matt fell into the seat beside him.
"Tai," the long, playfully drawn out vowel, "You look terrible. What are you doing to yourself?"
Tai could only look back, eyes dull, bottom lip pushed forward. He was too scared to sleep. Matt lurked in his dreams, ready and willing to suck and to fuck and to spend dream hours crushed beneath Tai's weight, mouth open, hair wet with sweat and come, voice so real, all of it so real that Tai had to stay awake or else.
"Pathetic," Matt laughed, untangling the pull-strings of Tai's warm up jacket and pulling the hood off his head, "Is it Sora?" he asked, "Are you fighting?"
"No," Tai said, allowing himself to be fussed over, eyes half-closed.
"She used to keep me awake, fighting."
"'Cause you were cheating on her."
"Is that what you're doing? Are you up all night fucking someone else?" Matt whispered indecently, dodging the bear-like swat Tai aimed for his head.
I'm too scared to try. Tai put his head in his arms, miserable, turning away from the blond, "You're a terrible friend," he mumbled into his sleeve, "You always make me feel worse."
"That's not true."
When no response came, Matt, left staring at the back of Tai's head, felt bad. The silly jock was clearly suffering, in over his fluffy head with something. How many days now had he come to class with those nasty bags under his eyes? Matt hadn't been counting, too busy daydreaming about Joe's worshipful touch, the gentle torture that reduced Matt to pleading on his knees to be treated rougher, crueler, to be raked over the coals by him, just once.
Tai's eyes flew open when he felt Matt's hand touch his hair, but closed them again in pleasure as Matt massaged his head with deft fingers, playing idly with the great brown mass of it as their professor droned on, rumbling steadily like a distant airplane engine. What class was this, anyway? Tai sighed involuntarily. It felt so good. A warm spring breeze blew in through the open windows, saying hi to Tai, giving him kisses. He didn't wake up until class was over, blinking sleepily at the blond shaking him.
"Feel better?"
"Mm."
"See? I can be nice to you."
"Barely," Tai said, but rewarded Matt with the wide smile he'd been missing.
But the warm, cozy feeling in Tai's heart froze over when he saw Joe. He remembered with sudden stomach-dropping accuracy just exactly how mad he was.
"Get some sleep," Matt said, starting toward the bike.
Tai caught his hand, stopping him. For a moment they both stared down at their clasped fingers. Then Tai said, "You too," and let him go.
Matt didn't follow the advice.
"I love you," Joe said, lips against Matt's soft hair. Three? Four? Five in the morning? Naked but between orgasms, speeding but between lines, lazily kissing, rubbing, biting while they waited for the next wave of earnest lust to begin.
Matt found he couldn't make a sound in response. Instead he thought of golden brown skin, golden brown eyes, thick, wild hair, that hard fucking body—Matt sat up bolt straight, "WHAT?"
"I-I said I love you," Joe said, confused.
"I…" Matt tried, I was thinking of Tai.
"I…" He looked at Joe, helpless, and Joe laughed at his expression.
"Don't hurt yourself, Matt."
"Sorry," Matt said.
"It's okay."
"No, it's not. How can you say that?"
"Because I know you," Joe said, brushing the hair from Matt's angry face. I never dreamt I'd know you like this but here you are. I'm just too stupid to keep my mouth shut. Just remember what Izzy said.
"Matt…as in Ishida?" Izzy had asked, after hearing Joe's excited confession when he stopped by to drop off the med student's half of Daisuke's adderall prescription, a monthly tradition between the two scholars.
"Is there another Matt?"
Izzy sighed, not bothering to argue with Joe about the number of Matts in the whole wide world, "For our purposes, no. You and Matt, eh? Interesting," Izzy raised a fine eyebrow, considering the possibilities, "Want my advice, brain to brain?"
"Of course."
"Treat him like shit."
Joe stared back, unblinking.
"Genetic lottery winners like Matt—they don't respond to compliments. Presents bore them. The only way to keep them interested is to not give them what they're used to getting."
"I'm not going to treat him like shit, Iz. I've liked him since we were kids."
Izzy made a little face, but relented, "Of course you have. I'm sorry. I become more cynical every day. But if you do run into trouble with him—any kind of trouble at all—just say something mean. I promise it'll work."
It worked every time.
"It's not okay," Matt was repeating furiously, "I'm a fucking jerk."
"Shut up," Joe said, kissing him roughly. Matt arched against him, hands clenched in Joe's long hair as they slid their tongues together.
The sun rose, and Joe drifted in and out of consciousness, arm coiled around the beautiful boy who trailed his fingers in secret patterns over Joe's chest. The stained glass panel he'd hung in his tiny apartment's single window cast soft primary colors onto the bed.
"I love you, too," Matt said, softly, unprompted, sleepy crystalline eyes finding Joe's to prove he meant his words.
He staggered out a few hours later, back to sleep in his own bed for five or six years, maybe forever, leaving a zombified Joe to survey the wreckage in his apartment, a little studio meant for a serious student with no social life, not a sped-up freak and his oversexed rocker boyfriend. He picked up a few condom wrappers littering the floor among his scattered textbooks. Then he heard it.
KNOCK! KNOCK!
When the front door swung open Tai nearly fell over with shock. Joe, rumpled. Sex hair. Tensionless. Confident. Bags under his eyes the size of the bags under Tai's eyes. Jaw clenched, grinding his teeth.
"Heya, Joe."
"Oh god," Joe moaned, realization coming late, pulling off his glasses in preparation, "Please don't headbutt me."
Tai laughed, bright and loud, "Has Matt been scaring you? Mr. Overdramatic." Tai stretched, lacing his fingers behind his head, and strolled uninvited into Joe's apartment with the ease of someone who is always welcome, wherever they go.
Next up: Chapter Two: He Bites