Part Four: Hospital Bed
Fred woke to feeling the bed shift around him, creaking the bedsprings and rustling the bedsheets.
"Mnh...?" The voice -- his own, he realized -- sounded hoarse and dry. He winced. "Whossit...?" Not fully awake, yet. He sounded like crap.
"S'me, Fred." Gene's voice, now. Something about hearing this voice struck a wrongness in Fred's sleep-muddled brain. His senses were still asleep, though, and he couldn't place exactly why this felt so strange.
"Are you in my bed, Gene?" Perhaps that was what was so odd, Fred mused to himself. Hmm. That was part of it, in any case.
"Apparen'ly so." And Gene's voice itself sounded wrong, not just hearing it. It was a little too slow, a little too slurred. It hit Fred suddenly, and knocked him awake quicker than a sucker punch to his stomach would have.
"Are you drunk, Gene?"
"Naw...not drunk."
Gene was drunk. Fred knew this for two reasons. Firstly, he could smell the beer on the air coming from the other body in the bed beside him. Secondly, he could tell by Gene's close proximity -- for if the man were sober, he would not be pressing their bodies together as he was. He would not be in Fred's bed, using Fred as a teddy bear.
Gene's hand moved over Fred's hip. He nuzzled lightly against the side of Fred's neck.
"Y'know," Gene said, "y'know," and he was stuck on that for a while, "y'know you smell good, anyone ever tell you you smell good, Fred?"
"No," Fred said carefully, "not as of late."
"Y'smell good, Fred," Gene reiterated.
"Thank you, Gene."
"I mean, you smell really good, Fred. Y'know?" Fred hissed in suddenly as Gene's hand tightened on his hip. It seemed as if the redhead were trying to hold him still. A moment later he felt Gene's lips against the back of his neck as Gene buried his face against it. It was intoxicating, while at the same time rather terrifying.
"Gene," Fred said. His voice rose at the end in a rather embarrassing squeak, but Gene didn't seem to notice.
"Got soft skin, too," he was murmuring against Fred's shoulder, "soft skin like a woman, maybe. Nice an'...an' real soft."
"I'm not sure if this--"
"Shut up, Fred."
"But really, Gene--"
"Said, shut up, Fred."
"Gene, I think you're--"
"Shut. the hell. up. Fred." Fred squeaked in acquiescence because he couldn't speak, because Gene had suddenly moved him around to kiss him fiercely on the lips. He tasted like alcohol. Fred would have been triumphant in this discovery if he had even given a damn, if his mind had thought to remember to think.
Oh. My. God.
It didn't really go much beyond that, his thought process. Just a whole lot of Oh. My. God. and a whole lot of wonderfully warm panic and not much else other than that sort of thing.
Because the thing was, Gene was kissing him and Fred's gut was writhing around telling him that this here was what he'd woken up to losing for years, now.
And then the other thing was, Gene was kissing him and obviously drunk off his very heterosexual ass, so that he was going to wake up and lose it again if it...
"Gene," he whispered into the junction of their mouths.
"I can do this, Fred," Gene muttered back absently, "I can do this because...fuck you. I can fuck you because you don't...mean...anythin'."
And that was it, then.
Fred couldn't say anything in reply, because Gene's mouth was still on his, this time crushed against it, giving him no room to breathe, much less to speak. Gene's hands turning him carelessly, pain in his shoulder. Gene's fingers at his hospital gown.
Gene in his hospital bed.
Oh. My. God.
He didn't try to stop it. What should he stop it for? He was pretty sure through the haze in his confused mind that Gene was taking off his clothes and wasn't this what he had been begging for not longer ago than yesterday?
This. Isn't. Right.
Gene pulled his pants down real quick and maneuvered Fred up into his arms, clutching tight at his shoulders, holding him close to his own body. Gene's legs were tensed and hard with muscles, pleasant, to say the least, and it felt nice despite that wrongness that was trying to infiltrate all of Fred's mind.
"Gene..."
Tearing at his hospital gown again, ripping it open finally in annoyance.
"Gene."
Not giving a shit that he was hurt, not like Gene, definitely not like him, despite how much of an asshole he could be.
"Gene."
Moving him down hard onto his lap, Fred bowing his head and his skin flushed, pressing his face into the familiar and nice side of Gene's neck.
And it wasn't so much to say that it hurt -- which it did -- but that it was a disappointment to those dreams, a miserable disappointment, while at the same time Fred knew it had to be real.
Still, he didn't try to stop it.
He made soft, muffled sounds in the side of Gene's neck as Gene moved against him and inside him. He could hear the sounds Gene was making, little intoxicatingly wonderful grunts of pleasure, soft and fast, and not too loud. Probably so he wouldn't disturb the nurses, if he was able to think that far ahead. Couldn't have a nurse coming in here and finding this. Bad for the patient. Bad for the patient's condition. Or maybe one of his men, coming in, lowering their sunglasses and raising their eyebrows in that way they had. Oddly fatherly. It was condescending, in its own right. The same way everyone was condescending to Fred Luo.
Not the same way Gene was condescending to him. Condescending like a friend. Like maybe the only friend he had thrusting in and pulling out of him now, the hospital bed creaking and the hospital bedsheets rustling around him. Gene's hands, which he could count on despite how rough they were, grasping his hips tight to move him as he pleased.
Fred, completely limp in his arms.
Okay. Do what you want with me.
Isn't any heaven, anyway. I've been looking too hard and too long for something that -- well, you know. It doesn't exist. Not for me, anyway. So, I get this. I'll take this. Go ahead, do what you want with me.
There wasn't anything particularly spectacular, in terms of pleasure. It hurt and a couple of times he whimpered a muffled "Stop" into the side of Gene's neck that Gene either heard and ignored or didn't even catch at all.
There wasn't anything new to this sort of sex that didn't mean anything, it was almost just like touching himself and whispering Gene's name to himself in a dark room and finding climax in a blinding, white-hot flash of perfect loneliness. Afterwards, shame would flush his cheeks and tinge his heart with regret.
It wasn't long, either, and that was fortunate. Gene's senses were slowed and blurred with alcohol, his stamina perhaps not up to par. It seemed like forever, Fred mused as Gene orgasmed and all his muscles tensed and he cried out, hands gripping Fred's hips so tight they'd leave bruises to be found in the morning.
"Oh, God--!"
But it wasn't forever. It probably was around fifteen minutes.
A while later Fred realized Gene had fallen asleep because he had started snoring and his body had relaxed and that tight grip had slipped away. Fred's shoulder ached and his ass ached and his chest ached to the point of utter numbness to protect him from just what he was feeling. Yeah, okay, so it hurt. So Gene had hurt him, deeper than he had ever expected/
It was one thing to be ignored and mocked.
It was quite another to be handed this.
"Oh," Fred whispered softly, eyes closing, tears suddenly burning hot and dry at his eyelids.
"Oh, Gene."
It tensed up in his heart and made him want to cry but he wasn't going to let himself.
The pain in the backs of his eyes was intense and he fell asleep with his hands clenched into fists, his dreams a tangled knot of darkness and sweat.