Long Way Down
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Warnings: SMUT (of a graphic sense)! Mentions infanticide. Angsty. Kind of Dark!Fic. Please mind the rating, because I'm not kidding about the rating. You have been warned.
Author's Note: First bit of smut in like, eight years. Please let me know how it turned out!
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He knew it was Tim pounding away on his front door, even before he opened it. Why he was there, shivering even in the hot and balmy night at just past midnight, was something he hoped Tim would get to quickly. The last three cases had been hard, physically and emotionally, with no breaks in between and he was so tired, defenses down. He didn't think he could hold himself back from doing something about his attraction to the man.
A good look at him though, at Tim's wild eyes and rumple t-shirt and jeans, spooked and the barely discernible tremors... Jethro doubted he'd see his bed tonight. "You could have just walked in, McGee. You know my door's unlocked." Something was desperately wrong.
"I've hit bottom, Boss." He almost wasn't surprised at Tim's admittance, happened to every agent at some point, so he held the door wide and hustled Tim into his living room. Tim didn't bother to sit, just started pacing. Entryway, around the coffee table, fireplace and back. A few times. Jethro watched.
"Beer?"
"No, Boss. I need a clear head for this."
"For what, Tim? Get to it."
A couple more rounds of pacing before he came to a stop, close enough for Jethro to reach for him if he wanted. So tempted.
"You need to understand Boss, and it's not going to come out right." Bright green eyes drifted, gaze finally settled on the floor. "I've been doing this crazy, self-destructive down spiral. Binging to the point of alcohol-induced blackouts and I can't remember what happened. Wake up the next morning and my apartment would be in shambles. Neighbors giving me strange looks." The laugh he offered was quiet, bitter, hysterical. "Thank God I'm smart enough to stay home and drink like that. Can't focus at work. Can't sleep. Can't eat. Nightmares..."
Jethro huffed out a thoughtful breath. "What brought this on?"
"Month or so ago, the Bronson case?"
He remembered. That case had been brutal, even by his standards. Marine wife, eight months pregnant. She had been butchered by her husband's best friend because she didn't marry his instead. They had gotten there just in time to catch him pulling the screaming baby out of her cooling body, claiming the new-born boy was his.
The standoff to get the child away to safety and care had taken too long, but finally, the man had given the baby to Tim, who wrapped the child in his jacket and rushed out to the paramedics. Died in Tim's arms from shock as they worked on him. It had been a devastating loss.
"Tim, things like that happen. You have to give it up and move on."
He shook his head, voice tight when he answered, "I can't. He was warm, alive, and a second later, he was gone. Didn't even get a chance! I can still feel the birth-blood he was covered in on my hands, no matter how many times I wash them." Clenched those large, elegant hands into fists as he said it. Eyes finally lifting to look at him, despair making them seem almost supernaturally bright. Jethro's heart jumped into his throat, aching for something he knew and wasn't quite willing put a name to.
"What can I do to help?"
"Now, this is the part that won't make sense." Jethro could see the fight to keep eye-contact. Staying on him, just barely. "You can say no, at any time, and I will leave. And, no matter what happens tonight, my resignation will be on your desk before you even go into work tomorrow."
The suspense was starting to eat away at his nerves. "What are you talking about?"
Tim gave him that quiet and bitter laugh again. Jethro wanted to gag him just to stop that sound from coming out his mouth. "I can't ask this of you and keep my job. Because, if I did this and stayed, I'd never be able to let you go. You're the only one I trust though. Since that child, I don't feel human and I need to." For a moment after that, it seemed like he was talking himself out of whatever he came to ask. Jethro didn't let him, stepping closer and grabbing his wrists firmly, waiting for him to continue and watching his thoughts flit past his eyes.
Jethro's patience was rewarded with a jumbled, whispered confession. "You see, I don't want that baby's last minutes on Earth in my memory anymore. I want to burn them away and I've loved you for so long and I was hoping, praying, that maybe, just for tonight, you could pretend you loved me too?"
Suddenly, unexpectedly, he could but a name to the ache in his chest. Could allow himself to feel both lust and love for Tim. "I could easily love you for the rest of my life. It's just, I've never..." He bit off the rest of that, snapping his mouth shut, not wanting to own up to his ignorance.
But Tim was too damn smart for his own good, sometimes. Gently shaking off Jethro's hands, he reached up to cup his jaw and pulled him into a soothing kind of kiss that seemed to say, I do. You just relax and I'll do the rest.
Tim started stripping them both down immediately, each kiss as they came back to each other more intimate than the last, Jethro's cock hardening quickly enough to surprise him and he hissed in a breath every time the damn thing brushed against Tim. A haze of desire settling over his mind as Tim pulled something out of his own pants pocket before they where sliding off. Gave a chuckle that was little more than a whisper when he noticed Tim hadn't worn any socks or shoes.
Amusement was quickly abandoned once Tim had forced him to sit on the couch. Let himself be stared at for a minute and then Tim was moving again, finally showing the thing he'd pulled out of his pocket not even a minute ago. Watched Tim pour a very liberal amount of lubricant into his palm and discarding the bottle. Gave Jethro a couple of lazy strokes to spread it on before straddling his hips.
Confused, Jethro asked, "Don't you need to..." Looked to Tim for the word he wanted.
A blink of those bright eyes. "Stretch? No. But please hold still."
Jethro nodded. Tim licked his lips before reaching between them to take Jethro in hand and a deep breath as he lowered himself down. The going was tortuously slow, but he watched Tim, fascinated, as he worked himself down on Jethro's cock, gasping and panting, rolling his hips to take him deeper, millimeter by solid millimeter. Decided halfway into the descent that he couldn't watch Tim continue to impale himself and keep hold of his fraying composure.
Instead, Jethro threw his head back and groaned, giving himself permission to feel it. The almost painfully tight heat that felt like a creeping fire, hell bent on consuming him from the top down. Realized too late that he should have stuck to watching as he brought his hands back behind his head, grasping the top of the couch in a grip so strong the wooden frame under the cloth creaked in his hands.
Coming undone at a frightening pace.
He was panting just as hard as Tim by the time he was finished pulling all of Jethro into him, reaching to brush his fingers across the stark white knuckles. "Easy." He leaned in, pressing a lingering, chaste kiss to Jethro's lips.
Finally opening his eyes, he marveled. No other word for it. Tim, in his lap, a very fine sheen of sweat covering neck and chest, flushed in the same places. Knees pressing firmly against Jethro's hips, back almost painfully straight. Milky white skin radiant in the dim light of the living room. Those supernaturally green eyes blazing. Long and lean and hard, trembling again, like a finely tuned harp string. Beautiful.
One more kiss, this time hungry and obscene, more intimate than anything else that's happened tonight and then Tim rolled his hips forward, slow and grinding, cock trapped between them. Back arching every time as he came forward, trying to pull Jethro deeper, hands clenching the couch back as well. Panting and moaning so quietly, they almost couldn't be heard over the sweat-slick slide of flesh.
They never looked away. Bittersweet and mind-blowing.
Jethro finally settled into the rhythm, wrapping an arm around Tim's waist, pulling as Tim moved forward and relaxing to roll back, other hand ghosting up and down his chest and stomach. He knew how rough his hands were, and even though he couldn't help it, Tim seemed to need that touch, working himself harder on Jethro's cock every time the callouses rubbed across some sensitive patch of skin.
Tim rode him, kissed him, touched him for an eternity, before, finally, all too soon, the sky started to fall apart. "Tim, I need..." Breathless.
Gasping when Tim ground down on him harder than before, Jethro grasped his hips so tightly he could almost feel the bruises he would undoubtedly leave behind and came with a sound that was deep and primal and animal.
Watched, sated but still hungry, as Tim stroked himself once, twice and cried out as he came, looking like he was seeing God. Both panting uncontrollably as Tim slumped against Jethro's chest, burying his face into the side of Jethro's neck and finally cried, gut-wrenching sobs shaking them both. Both holding on for dear life.
"You're not resigning." His voice was fierce and quiet in Tim's ear. "You're not transferring, or getting fired. I wasn't lying when I told you I could love you, but you have to let me." Tim held on tighter, held his breath. Jethro was not above asking, "Please, let me?"
A nod.
"Good. Now, we are going upstairs to rinse off and sleep. And you are staying. We can figure the rest out tomorrow, including what got you here tonight."
Tim's chuckle was quiet, relieved, stuffy. "Ok."