Salem groaned, and then flopped onto his back. He felt satiate. He'd learned the word while reading a worn out romance novel while waiting in the doctor's office for Rios. Satiated…fulfilled to excess. And he was. He was also hot, comfortably hot and that also pleased him immensely. After two weeks skulking around the freezing winter shrouded mountains of South Ossetia on a recon op, he was desperate to feel warmth. He shivered when Vasily slid from the tussled bed separating their sweat slick bodies and letting the cool night air dusting through the open sliding glass doors that made up the entire eastern wall of Vasily's eighteenth floor condo's bedroom.
"Fuck me twice, Old bear. The hell?"
The big man stopped, turned and smiled back at him. He'd love to fuck him twice, but since getting home Elliot had been un-naturally, for the lack of a better description, clingy. Despite that out of character behavior, it had still taken two days before they had finally had sex. Fantastic sex but once again behaving out of character Salem had led the way, with a bit more initiative then typical. No, Vasily thought, initiative wasn't quite correct, it was more akin to aggression. The older man just wanted to feel him out a bit, try to get to the root of Elliot's neediness. So he planned on slowing the evening down to make sure that the younger man wasn't just acting out because of some issue that may have occurred during the op. Salem fought and brawled in bars to forget his job, he drank and he railed against the world to forget the job and the last thing that Vasily wanted was for him to start using overly aggressive or assertive sex to escape his demons. He desperately wanted Elliot to enjoy sex for the intimacy, and the connection that it created between them. He wanted, for the first time in his life, for Elliot to experience the gentleness of the act.
"Towels, Barsuhk, we are a mess."
"Hurry." He hissed burrowing his aching, cold beleaguered feet under the covers bunched at the bottom of the bed.
Once Vasily had cleaned Elliot up, he slid back into the bed and drew the slate gray down comforter up and over them. Salem rolled onto his right side, slid his left leg in between Vasily's and then rested his head on the bigger man's broad chest. After a long, tired sigh, he scooted up a bit and nestled his head beneath Vasily's stubble coarsened chin. Finally, he wrapped his left arm around the stunned man's waist and scooting even closer made it the first time that Elliot had ever cuddled without Tyannikov pulling him into place.
"Warm again?" Vasily asked before tenderly kissing the top of Elliot's sweat dampened head.
"Yea, thank fuck. You're like a radiator. Might have to trade Tyse in for you for these cold ops. Do that again, the kiss, I like it."
Tyannikov craned his thick neck down a bit, studied him through squinty gray eyes, chuckled, and repeated the kiss lingering slightly longer this time, breathing in the sandalwood scent of Elliot's damp hair. Then, feeling Elliot relax into him even more, he began running the back of his right hand fingers along Salem's jaw and cheek. He hadn't shaved in nearly a month preferring the thicker beard for the cold weather, and his normal three day stubble was thick and soft. After a short while, Vasily shifted and pushed his fingers back through Elliot's hair tucking it behind his left ear. Then he ran his thumb across the scar bisecting his left eyebrow. Salem pressed up tighter beneath Vasily's chin wriggling even closer, yet. He didn't want the memory of how he'd gotten the scar to ruin his sense of contentment. Also, Elliot knew that this new behavior, cuddling closer, pleased the Russian, and pleasing Vasily was paramount for him sealing his place in Tyannikov's life. Still, despite Vasily's reciprocation, he couldn't shake his anxiety.
"Anything else that my Little Badger likes?"
"Just this. I…I missed you, Sily."
"Missed you too, Barsuhk. I am glad that you came home safe to me."
"No other way. Guess I'll lose the beard tomorrow."
"Nyet, Barsuhk. It suits you. Maybe just trim a bit, even it out. Like your usual scruff but a little bit thicker, nyet?"
"Hmm." Elliot hummed. Despite being well within SSC's guidelines, Rios would not be pleased with any more than his usual three days' worth of stubble. Scruff was not acceptable.
"So, no thoughts on what else pleases you?"
Salem squirmed and tightened his grasp round the bigger man's waist. Pleased him? For thirty-three years of his life, nothing about sex pleased him in any way. Pleasurable sex was all so new, desirable, and exciting but still fraught with terror and shame, and he didn't know how to voice, share that revelation of pleasure and engrained fear with Vasily. There were things that they hadn't done and probably, if he had his way, never would, and the thought of that soured his stomach with guilt and terror. He was a coward. Pushing the feeling aside, Elliot reached up with his left hand and without looking ran his thumb across Vasily's lips a few times before grasping his waist tightly again.
Elliot started to say that whatever pleased Vasily pleased him, but that was not how their relationship worked. That had been the old him, with Jennifer and Celia, with the women who hounded him in the bars because he was handsome and seemed dangerous. He was the bad guy every woman coveted and wanted to catch, lay claim to, tame and slake their needs with for the night. But now, with Vasily, he'd learned that sex was a two way street, and he had to work very hard at accepting his new role as an equal partner, at not falling back on old habits. He shrugged and yawned.
"Pleases me? Who cares. Don't have a fuck of a lot of experience to go by, Old Bear."
"I care," Tyannikov said. "Barsukh I love you and I care."
"Kissing. I like kissing. Being kissed," he offered quietly, then shrugged and shivered slightly, "You anyway, kissing you. Never kissed anyone else before so…yea, kissing."
Vasily sighed and tugged the smaller man closer. Experience. He had no concrete idea, aside from the bad stuff, as to what experience Salem actually had with sex. When Elliot turned up at his home in Osijek, Croatia six months ago and finally made his move toward further intimacy Tyannikov had been stunned to learn that Elliot had never actually kissed anyone before. The kissing admission truly surprised him, but then the younger man's reason for why shocked him even more; because he hadn't found anyone that he'd loved enough. Elliot's admission shattered Vasily's heart, and if he'd doubted his love for the troubled younger mercenary that simple truth had quashed it.
"You know, Barsuhk, this worries me," he said and felt Elliot tense slightly, "Shh, nothing is wrong, shh. But experience, I do not know what you do have," Vasily said shrugging, "so, I worry that I will…"
Salem shot up from the bed. Vasily, startled by the un-expected motion, slid back against the teak headboard and gapped at the naked, now furious man staring down at him, his hazel eyes full of fear and anger.
"Whoa, Barsukh. Что? What…"
"Fuck you. Что my ass! What! What? Worry what? That I'm not good enough, skilled enough for you!"
Tyannikov vaulted free of the blankets and stood in front of him. Salem backed away, holding up his right hand warning him off. How, Vasily wondered, had this simple conversation gone so sideways so fast?
"No, Barsuhk, no." Vasily said holding his hands out palms up in surrender, "I just do not want to cross line, hurt you, scare you and if I know more about…"
Salem shook his head violently side to side as if trying to clear his thoughts, then raised his right arm, shoulder high and pointed a gnarled, crooked trigger finger at Vasily. His eyes glistened with un-shed tears, and he shook.
"Not…another…word! You, you know my, my experience, you fucker. You know! How dare you…"
"Barsuhk, stop it. Listen to me. I do, I do, but I just wanted to ask about the good…"
"I don't need this shit!"
And then he was gone. Vasily followed him through the condo to the second bedroom where Salem was jamming his legs into a pair of tattered Levis and pulling on his socks and boots. Vasily threw his arms up into the air in dismay.
"Where are you going? Why are you going? Barsuhk please let me explain myself. Barsuhk?"
As he spoke the words, Tyannikov knew the utter futility of them. This was the broken Elliot, the terrified Elliot, the Elliot that he'd fought so hard for so long to heal. He had spooked him, and now he needed, despite what he knew would probably occur and the danger that it entailed, let him go out and find his center again.
"Just be careful. I love you." He said quietly, as Salem grabbed a shirt, his wallet, keys, and hat. "Come home to me safe."
"Fuck you!"