Second chapter in a day!


It was not Raph's habit to remain silent for so long, let alone to keep his hands to himself. It was almost their last night together and the firefighter, who was very physical, should have enjoyed it. But on the contrary, Raph had kept his hands in his pockets when he returned from the office at Donnie's and it was certainly not to conceal an erection. Don had made the final adjustments and Leo seemed to feel the coldness that reigned in the room freezing him to the bones, setting his nerves on edge. He was wondering if his brother had been unpleasant with the fireman. Again.

He didn't understand this antipathy of the doctor towards the black man. Why were Don insisting on making such a big deal out of Leo's "friendship" with the fireman? His brother wasn't supposed to know that the kind of friendship they had came with "benefits". Yes, if Donnie would know that, he might be angry or upset, after all, he put a lot of efforts into helping Leo and Hazel to procreate. But Donnie didn't know... He couldn't know that he and Raph were lovers. And if he had a doubt, he would keep it silent, just like Leo pretended not to see the theft of scientific equipment in Don's lab.

But, for a moment, seeing that both of the genius' eyes seemed to dodge him, Leo was afraid, very afraid that Don would speak. Then he thought he was paranoid. No. Donnie would never meddle with his personal life, if it wasn't a matter of physical health. He tried to think about another reason to why Raph seemed so cold. Donnie had been harsh or rude. It wasn't in his nature to be kind and friendly. Leo would have to explain it to his lover, later.

They had left and Leo noticed that Raphael was tensed when he wrapped his arms around Raph's waist, as they were both getting on the motorcycle. Doubt was no longer permitted. Raph was angry at him and since Leo did nothing wrong, or well, nothing that his lover was aware of, it could only mean one thing: Donnie had, perhaps involuntarily, revealed something to Raph.

Raphael knew or, at least he was very suspicious that Leo was only a liar, a deceiver, and an unfaithful asshole.

Feeling the stiff body in front of him, Leo realized that his relationship with Raph had just taken a new turn: the death-end.

If Raph wasn't aware of everything, Leo would tell him the truth, anyway. Raphael deserved to know that he had given his body and heart to an ungrateful jerk. Now.

Leo could feel his anxiety growing, for he knew that whatever was going to happen would be rough, tough, violent. He was in front of the building that hosted their clandestine love, and according to how Raph dismounted roughly, throwing down Betty's kick with not the same care he would have always, Leo braced himself, thinking that knowing Raph, the scene would be as short as brutal. They were about to break up, Raph would yell at him that he would never want to see his damn bastard's face again and that would be over with his lover. He would never caress his young and muscular ebony body again.

Anyway, the situation, after that Hazel would return from Washington, would be unbearable. Raph wouldn't have understood why Leo suddenly wouldn't want to spend the night with him after they had such passionate nights, after all the cuddles and after the sweet kisses at breakfast. Raph would have been doubly unhappy. It was the best decision that Leo could make: although it would break his heart, this break-up with his lover would turn out to be a blessing for Raphael, for Hazel and for himself, despite his deep love for the fireman.

Raphael took his helmet off and picked up the one Leo handed to him, uncertain, without speaking nor looking at him, slowly heading for the building.

Raph - and Leo didn't know why, because the firefighter wasn't patient nor was he the kind that would hold back - was waiting for the intimacy of his apartment to call Leo a motherfucker full of shit player, to give him a hook square in the jaw, before telling him to take out his fucking things and kicking him out of his house.

Not knowing what to do, not daring to break the heavy silence, the policeman followed him inside, his heart pounding. Without precipitation, Raph put the key in the lock and entered without turning back. He went straight to the closet and took out his bottle of bourbon. He poured himself a full glass, swallowed it and still without looking at Leo, he asked in a neutral but trembling voice:

"Is it true? Yer a married man?"

This was it. Don, by purpose or not, it didn't matter, had said something and revealed his secret.

It was the decisive moment. Leo could no longer hide. He lowered his head and dropped a soft "yes".

He had no need of raising his head, for he could imagine very well the mixture of pain and anger which Raphael's features must express. The glass in the man's hands crashed on the wall, accompanied by a loud "shit".

Instinctively, and because he couldn't bear to be such a coward, especially in a situation he had himself provoked, Leo faced Raphael, ready to assume his anger to have been betrayed. Taking a defensive posture, the policeman was astonished to be faced with a defeated Raph who had slid into the closest chair.

"So… Ya don't really love me?" he asked slowly. Leo's heart broke at the sight of this spectacle and assertion.

He walked the steps separating him from the broken man on the chair, hugging him, without a second thought.

"Of course, Raph, that I love you. Deeply. And I care for you so much… I'm sorry… I never lied about my feelings, I swear, honey. I only omitted... the reasons why I can't stay with you at night, » he explained, with a soft kiss on his lover's head.

Raphael remained silent for two long minutes where Leo felt like agonizing. He didn't understand how Raph hadn't insulted him or thrown him out yet. This expectation, this delay of the ineluctable, was unbearable. He wanted to get over it quickly, to put an end to this painful situation for both. He knew that Raph wasn't the type to say that the fact that Leo was married didn't matter and he wouldn't agree to continue to be fucked in the shadows by a dirty liar like him. Raph was fiercely possessive. So, he didn't even cling to that hope. Raphael, once he realized his situation fully, would just punch him.

But Raph simply spoke, lifting his misty eyes and thickly grasping his hands, and it was more breathtaking than a direct blow to the stomach:

"So, if ya love me, yer gonna leave her, huh? Yer gonna divorce her?" he asked eagerly, waiting for his answer with so much hope.

His head was turned towards the captain who hadn't thought that this option could be a possible scenario of Raph's reactions. Divorce? On Hazel? He would never do that! Hazel loved him. That poor woman didn't deserve it.

A voice told him that Raph loved him just as much as Hazel did, and he didn't deserve to be abandoned. Leo was caught. In front of him, the stormy amber eyes questioned, begged, and the suffering behind these eyes of pure gold made him sick with self-loathe. He was a jerk, bringing so much pain to a man who had given him only love and himself.

He was the worst scum ever.

"Honey, things are complicated..." he started cautiously.

Raphael jumped up to his wooden box where his damn pipe was. Leo bit his lips. If he left Raph now, God knows under what conditions Raph's health would be. The fireman smoked weed as soon as the absence of a few hours of his boyfriend became too heavy. What would happen if Leo would turn his back to Raphael?

He didn't want to think about it. He loved Raphael too much to imagine him suffering and trying to forget this pain in even more drugs than now.

Raphael started to pack the pipe and to light it up, waiting for his answers, his promises of undying love, his… Lies.

Of course, Leo loved him, but not more and not less than Hazel. Say the truth and that, despite his real love for him, he would not divorce or, suggest that perhaps he could think about it? Maybe, after a while, Raph would be tired of waiting and that he would break with the policeman on his own.

"So…?" Raphael asked after his first puff, his voice full of irritation, but filled with anxiety.

Every second that he hesitated and wouldn't answer, had to be like a heated spike in the sensitive soul of the fireman. Leo, upset, nervously exclaimed the first thing that came to his mind in accordance with his feelings:

"I love you so much, honey, how could I live without you?" He said, avoiding the real question, hoping that, as usual, the sweet words would be enough to appease his lover, always hungry for praises and tenderness.

"This isn't what I asked ya," said the other man, harshly, refusing to let himself be distracted, "will ya leave her, yes or no? Answer. It's not difficult, for a man as clever as ya are, babe" Raph snorted. "If ya love me, as much as ya claim, you divorce her. If not, I'm done with yer shit and fucking disappear of my life." He took another puff, turned his head back and closed his eyes, as though he was exhausted or disgusted with the situation or the policeman himself. Leo couldn't blame him.

"Ya can't have both, Captain. Ya must make a choice. Hey! It reminds me of this damn Gone with the wind movie yesterday, with this stupid bitch who couldn't decide between two men, right?" exclaimed Raph with sarcasm, raising his head briefly to cast a contentious but also, painful look, at him. "Remember? When I stroked lovingly yer hairs on my lap, just fucking yesterday and just before I letted ya pound me senseless into the mattress, again!" he concluded bitterly, closing his eyes, again, after drawing a last puff: " Life is a bitch, man! I learned it the hard way. I just remembered it again".

Leo then remembered Raphael's past life: abandoned from birth, left in an orphanage, adopted in a home without a paternal figure and then, afterwards, his Peruvian boyfriend being deported. And then, the tragedy of last September, where they had met. Raph hadn't lost any limbs, but a friend and this medical leave pissed off the firefighter, depriving him of his pride and sense of utility. And there were no doubts that Leo didn't know yet all the dark secrets of his lover's life. He, too, had lived through hard times, with the murder of his mother and the loss of his arm. Leo too, couldn't go to the field, where he felt he was doing a more meaningful job, condemned to office work, to fill reports. So yes, Leo could understand that Raph's life had been tough and that his marriage takes the damn cake.

"I will never leave you, Raph" Leo promised, elusive. Raphael uttered a groan of derision and stood up, repulsing the black-haired man, who had thrown himself on his knees near the couch somewhere during the ultimatum of Raph.

Here it was: the ultimatum that he feared he had to face one day. Leo could have gotten up and leave, he could have put this madness briefly lived behind him. Raph was far too proud to chase him.

Desperate, for leaving wasn't what he wanted to do, but what he had to do, Leo looked sadly at Raphael bending over to take the broom the pieces of glass. Without paying too much attention to it at the time, the captain saw Raph taking the biggest glass shard apart, it was about the size of his thumb, and carrying the rest to the trash. Leo's trained eyes, used to track suspect behaviors, saw him slide the piece of glass in the pocket of his jeans.

Anguish filled him with that little gesture which, he assumed, had a frightful meaning. It couldn't be for anything else. Raph voluntarily kept the piece of glass, hidden. He had been quite discreet, enough so that another person, not in the police, wouldn't notice it and Raph probably believed that the gesture had not been seen by him, either. But Leo had seen and understood: his lover was going to hurt himself, but to what extent? Leo wouldn't wait to find out.

"I'm going to do it," he exclaimed and Raph turned quickly toward him, his eyes widened by surprise. Obviously, he thought it was over already, and it would probably have been without that piece of glass, but he couldn't tell him that.

"But you have to leave me a few weeks... I have to prepare her, she doesn't expect that at all, and..." He took a pause, searching for an unstoppable excuse, that would give him more time. More time to think about a solution. Then, breathless as if he had run the five miles to his home, Leo closed his eyes, not believing what he was going to say: "We have been trying to have a child for some time, now. She started taking hormones a while ago, so... I can't leave her if she's pregnant, you understand that, right?

"You want kids."

Leo flushed but held Rap's amber eye in his deep blue ones and licked his suddenly dry lips.

"Yes…I think so…" he replied with caution.

"Fuck!" Raphael cursed with feeling, looking at Leo in shock, but he recovered quite quickly, eager again:

"You think so ... but it's not necessary to yer happiness, right? If ya don't have biological children with me, ya will be satisfied, despite that?".

Leo frowned: Did Raph imply adoption with him as father as well by the term "biological"? He didn't want to approach this delicate matter. He repeated: "I can't leave her if she is pregnant. You understand?"

Raphael nodded, serious, then asked: "When was the last time you fucked her?"

Leo grinded his teeth, not only because he didn't like to hear his conjugal relationship with Hazel being called "fuck", but also because his answer wasn't going to please the fireman.

The last time happened less than three days ago, on the morning of Hazel's departure for her convention. So, only a few hours before he bends over Raph in the shower, fucking his brain out. But it was the truth and it would give him more time.

"Last Friday morning," he replied calmly, despite his heart beating and his throat tightening.

As expected, his lover's features twisted with rage at his answer, in a frightening way, and he cursed with feelings the captain in a whisper, balling his fists and closely shutting his eyes, surely to diminish the temptation to hit his unfaithful lover. Raph hadn't expected, until now, that his treachery extended so far, Leonardo observed, ashamed. Raph naively believed that Leo had only lied to him and hid his marriage. He hadn't thought that in the last three weeks Leo could be enough a sneaky son of a bitch to make love on the same day, successively, to his lover and his wife.

A heavy silence coated the room, and Raph broke it with a loud sigh. "So, how long will it take, uh? Because I suppose that now ya will not touch her anymore?"

Leo was again surprised. Accepting such an awful betrayal, wasn't like his fierce black lover.

Raphael must have loved him even more than he thought. This didn't make the situation any easier. He briefly wondered if Hazel, hearing that he was cheating on her, would be as tolerant as Raph but he drowned this thought, having more urgent matters. He had to give a credible answer to his lover: "I don't know, I think two months, maybe."

Raphael frowned: he didn't expect such a long time. But that wasn't what annoyed him the most in Leo's reply. Once again, he didn't let Leo dodge the question: "Are ya still going to fuck with her, Leo?" he snapped.

He didn't give him time to reply: instead, he sneered at his lover, lip snarling up, mocking, unable to restrain his rage and jealousy, throwing his arms up:

"Is it because I don't give ya enough sex? I don't think so! Ya suck my cock with a lot of appetite, for a married man". He pointed, with accusation, his finger towards Leo, spitting his rancor and sorrow. "Ya suck it like a man in the desert, greedily, tasting my cum! Ya swallow it until the last drop, as if it were fresh water! And my ass?" he shouted, increasingly furious and upset at the same time. "Ya love plowing my ass! You've been fucking me every fucking single day for three damn weeks, more than once a day. Yar a fucking cheating fag in a closet and a piece of shit, that what ya are, Captain!" he articulated, clearly, each of his words feeling as a hammer as for the policeman's conscience.

Leo put his head in his hands. He deserved all the insulting names Raph wanted to throw at him. He was going to wait until Raph finished with his attacks of justified jealousy, and go home in an empty bed for once.

But Raph was far from done;

"It was what ya meant, uh? When ya told me "Oh I love women too"" sneered Raph, imitating the policeman's voice. "Ya could have told me at that time: Oh no, I'm not as a fag as ya are, I bang my wife every fucking night. But, no! Ya couldn't tell me that. Ya had to wait for me to fall in love with ya, you scumbag motherfucker!"

Leo didn't say anything, shamefully, with his head bowed, waiting for the storm to pass. Raph, now seeing how much of a bastard full of shit he was, was going to kick his sorry ass out. But he didn't expect the loud sob that shook Raphael from head to foot, his golden eyes filled with tears. Never had Leo seen his lover cry, and the view annihilated him. Seeing a man so muscular, so strong, so male in tears, shook him.

Between two sobs, Raph continued;

"And this jealousy fit of yesterday? I now understand why ya dared not ask for my exclusivity. You cheated me every night with yer wife, from the beginning! While I was crying in loneliness at night. "

Leo had no words to express his shame, remorse and grief: "Honey ... I thought I was just a crutch for you, to get through the September events. I never mean to hurt you. "

" So, that's what I was, a crutch for you? " Raph asked, angry. Leo shook his head frankly: "No, I swear you're not. I love you. Too much. Deeply and sincerely."

"And her?" Raph wanted to know.

Leo sought a gentle, but true answer. "It's not the same kind of love. With you I have a raw passion. With her ... it's a sweet complicity, a pleasant and easy daily relationship and a tender affection." he answered honestly.

"I can give you that" Raph shot back, eyes glowing with intensity. "All this complicity and easy daily relationship. Let me prove myself. Be with me more often the next two months. Stay with me the night, even when she comes back." he pleaded.

Leo felt dizzy. The events were going too fast and he seemed to be watching a trainwreck, unable to stop it. But in front of the devastated gaze of his beloved lover, he felt even more helpless. Raph was suffering, because of him and it was unbearable. He wanted to bring comfort and tenderness to the fireman. Not the opposite.

"Ya don't want to… Ya don't love me as much as ya love her" accused Raph, taking Leo's silence as a refusal, tears run down his cheeks, his eyes red and puffy. It was heartbreaking and Leo, instinctively wanted to appease his lover. No matter the cost.

Leo's hands smoothed up and down Raph's wet cheek trying to smooth him. "Raph, I like being with you, I like it very much…I'm willing to give this a try, seriously, I can't promise you eternity for now. But…" Leo had a slight hesitation: "We can make this… exclusive from me as well, my sweet love."

"Ya only feel bad about me crying, that's all, ya lying son of a bitch. Tuesday, when she will return, ya will forget all of yer damn promises in her bed and ya will fuck her and ya will tell him all the sweet things ya say to me. Ya'll call her "my love" and "honey", stroke her hair and swear that ya belong to her body, heart and soul, and maybe, if I'm lucky, yar gonna come fuck with me two hours later "replied, Raph, madly upset and overwhelmed by the mental images he was making by himself.

"No." Leo corrected gently despite he was afraid it will turn a kind of true, "because I want you. And if to be with you, I can be with only you and never have sex with Hazel, again, I'm ok with that"

"Would ya do it for me"? asked Raph, still incredulous.

"Have you ever think I might be worried about losing you?" he stroked the back of his lover's neck softly.

"No", honestly replied the fireman, "ya didn't seem so preoccupied with my feelings, before. But if yar ready to divorce, if in two months yer wife is not pregnant, if ya do not touch her by then ... Leo, I will be patient and I will wait for ya, babe, because I love ya damn too much to bear to lose ya, too"

"But in exchange, don't be sad anymore, my love. Do we have a deal?" Leo asked gently, wiping the firefighter's tears.

"Yeah, deal", Raph answered with such a confident smile, pure as a child who believes his mother who tells him everything is going to go well, during the Titanic shipwreck.

The promise was sealed with a kiss and Leo made love very tenderly to his partner, very far from the possessive and brutal sex of the day before. He let himself be taken by Raph then, focusing on the well-being felt in his lover's arms and the rest of the Sunday went like an endless session of make-up sex.

He agreed to go out with Raph, in the evening, to a restaurant, which had never happened before. He managed to convince the black man to try the sushi and drowned the voice that screamed in his mind all day long: "What did you do?" with an entire bottle of Chardonnay.


This story had to be dramatic and I didn't intend to make a very conventional or happy ending. Those who know me and read my stories, know my inclination for parody or tragedy. I'm not a half-tone person. But if everyone wants an end, more "happy with a RXL" I can try. I hope my update is early enough;) Sorry, English slowed me down