Chapter Forty-Nine: So What's It Like?
Everyone always asked the same question of him, in the end, no matter how they phrased it:
What's it like to be Doctor Jeb Batchelder?
"What's it like to be you?" he usually restrained himself from snapping. (But that was his dark side showing, and he answered instead with pleasant lies.)
Because the truth would never satisfy them: being someone who happened to be world-famous (well, in his field, anyway) was just like being anyone else. You still breathed. You still hit snooze on the alarm clock when you didn't want to crawl out of bed. You still had to iron your clothes when they got wrinkled (although somehow Jeb had never been able to manage that on a regular basis, and so he always looked a little rumpled).
But in some ways, it was different. Getting recognized, occasionally, when you walked down the street. Being asked to give talks at colleges (although that didn't happen much anymore).
Jeb didn't really care for either of those -- they were all right, really, but nothing special.
The thing he liked, though, was waking up in the morning to Roland smiling sleepily at him -- or awaking from a nightmare to find Roland there next to him, alive and real and... sometimes that was all Jeb needed, a link back to the physical world, rather than the one inside his head that sometimes threatened to drown him, or to swallow him whole.
He'd gotten so used to obsessing over his work, so used to dreaming it, living it, existing only for it, that this felt like an exception to the rule, not getting up so early in the morning, or working all night. But sleeping in a little in the morning... well, it was the only option, sometimes, when Roland smiled at him like that and said, "You need to sleep more."
He smiled back and didn't say anything, sure that if he tried his tongue would betray him and he wouldn't be able to say anything at all. (Besides, he was perfectly content to just lie there with his eyes half-shut and look into Roland's eyes and oh dear God when had he turned into such a sap?)
Being Doctor Jeb Batchelder wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Moments like that made it almost worth it.
Almost because Roland's expression went strange and distant after a moment, and he got out of bed without a word of explanation (and Jeb didn't dare to ask, afraid of offending him somehow, afraid of losing what he'd worked so hard to gain -- closeness, intimacy with someone). It had been another hot August night, and even though he was shirtless he didn't stop to put his shirt on before leaving -- he barely paused to pick it up before disappearing out the door.
Jeb sat up in bed, instantly awake. What did I do wrong this time? he thought.
And for once, instead of brooding over it, he actually asked Roland what was wrong. (His therapist would have been so proud.)
Well, to be more specific, he stopped Roland in the hall.
"What the hell is wrong?" he demanded.
"What do you mean?" Jeb knew he was just pretending not to know what he was asking -- sure, his expression was cool, but his arms were crossed, which definitely meant something was up. "Nothing's wrong."
"You're not acting like yourself."
"Really." His expression went more mask-like, and Jeb wondered what he was hiding -- what he thought he couldn't say. "I feel fine."
"You don't act like it." Jeb glanced around. There was no one else in the hall. Good.
"What do I act like, then?" He sounded cold and distant -- but not honestly so. He sounded as if he were trying very hard to seem cold and distant.
"I don't know." Jeb forced himself to smile. "How -- how do you feel?" he offered lamely.
"Honestly?" His façade seemed to crack for a moment, and Jeb glimpsed something dark, almost animal, there before the cool, cold look came back.
"Of course," Jeb said, feeling helpless as always. "Is there something you want?"
"Yeah." He licked his lips, and then the façade broke. "You."
"Oh," Jeb said, and had no time for anything else before Roland pushed him up against the wall and kissed him.
Jeb had gotten more or less used to the way Roland kissed -- he knew that he preferred to be gentle, that he always broke it off too soon.
This was... different. Rougher. More intimate, more exactly what Jeb wanted, what he needed -- what he'd been afraid to say he wanted, in case Roland wasn't willing to give it.
Fuck. It was just more.
And Roland tended to be strangely still when he kissed, as if it took up all his attention (which was rather sweet, or at least that was how Jeb found it).
This... this went against all Jeb's memories and collected data (except for a fragment from sometime after the Christmas party, a memory of Roland's hands hot and urgent, pressing against Jeb's bare skin).
He liked it.
Another thing he found was different: where Roland had once, all that time ago, been almost rushing and clumsy, now he seemed willing to take his time.
It was with difficulty that Jeb remembered they were standing in the hall.
He arched away from Roland, broke his silence and said only, "Inside."
He understood, and they stumbled (you could really only call it stumbling -- it certainly wasn't anything as coordinated as walking) through the still-open door into Jeb's room.
Roland had the presence of mind to kick the door most of the way shut, which gave Jeb a moment to thank God (or whatever higher power watched over scientists -- perhaps a very ashamed Heisenberg or Turing or someone) that now only a very determined voyeur would be able to catch him making out with Roland like they were in high school.
Not that Jeb didn't like it -- he'd be damned if he could remember the last time someone had made him feel like this, this strange emotional rush of oh-please-God-touch-me-now-yes-there. Well. Someone who wasn't Roland.
That meant, he knew, that it had been far, far too long.
And Roland was just looking at him, which Jeb wasn't about to stand for -- not on his life.
So Jeb jumped him.
Well. Not literally.
Bit he didn't say anything -- didn't ask "Is this all right?" or whatever stupid fucking thing you were maybe supposed to ask -- just jumped in feet-first and kissed him deeply.
"Fuck," Roland said, justifiably breathless, when Jeb pulled away from him again. "How did you -- where did you learn that?"
"From you." Jeb grinned. "Where else?" He was perfectly aware he wasn't making very much sense, but also perfectly aware he didn't give a damn.
"Val, I thought -- maybe?"
"She hates kissing," Jeb said. (Which had been part of the reason he'd responded so, well, eagerly to Roland at the party -- sure, Jeb was OK with the fact that Val didn't like kissing, it just wasn't her thing, but dammit, it sure as hell was his, and Roland happened to be good at it.)
"That -- explains a lot, really," Roland said, and bit his lip delicately. (Jeb had no idea how he pulled that off, but oh fuck it turned him on.)
"Really? Why did you think I was all over you at that party?" Stop talking, Jeb was too polite to say. Kiss me again. Touch me. Throw me down on the bed and fuck me. Anything. Please. Just stop looking at me like that.
"You were drunk, remember?" He grinned, and to his shock Jeb saw that he was holding back deliberately. Why would you do that?
"And you weren't?"
"Not as drunk."
Jeb remembered he didn't have to stand for this, and said, "I hate it when you're a tease."
"Why, what do you mean?" Roland said innocently.
You're just standing there, and I can tell you want the same thing I do.
"If either one of us is a tease, I think it's you," he continued, grinning more and more wickedly. "Did it really take you this long?"
"I'm a little slow on the uptake," Jeb breathed, pressing closer to him, remembering that Roland had loved that when they were together after the party, that he'd loved when Jeb wasn't afraid to be physically closer to him.
"You could have just asked."
Well, fuck you too. Jeb gathered up the rags of both courage and rational thought. "You could have just asked me how I felt."
"All right then." He grinned, pressing his body closer to Jeb's. You are a minx, Jeb thought. And you are going to suffer for it. "How do you feel about me?"
"I want you to stop fucking teasing me," Jeb said, shocked by his own brazenness. "Don't make a promise you can't follow through."
"What promise have I made?"
Well, you didn't say it.
Jeb couldn't answer that one.
"I like teasing you," Roland said. "It's fun."
"You're horrible."
"I'm a mad scientist, dear," he said, and he was so achingly close, and he wasn't doing anything, he wouldn't move.
"So am I." Can we just get to the fucking part now? a rather brash, impudent part of Jeb's subconscious piped up.
Roland made a noise that was half sigh, half impossibly hot moan. "If that's what you want."
I just said that out loud, Jeb realized, then thought, Fuck that, and abandoned rational thought completely.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Being with Roland -- making out with him like they were both horny high school kids again -- was more fun anyway.
