AN: Hi guys! I want to thank everyone who reviewed the last chapter; this one's for you guys! :) I think there will be maybe one more chapter after this one, but I may surprise myself and write a couple more. And if you guys would like to see this turned into a bigger relationship study then game on. But for now, enjoy chapter 2. :) Leave a review please!
You wipe some sweat off your brow, and sigh as the sun's unrelenting rays shine down harshly on your shoulders.
Honestly you hadn't thought there would be much of a difference in heat, the distance from the ground to the top of your roof but there really is. It's smeltering up here. You have dark skin, and it's been burnt before and roughened before and smoothed out all over again. You know not to fear the sun, you've lived beneath it for far too long. You've traveled the world underneath its rays.
Yet, today, it seems a lot hotter.
"Gonna get anything to drink or what?"
His voice calls out to you from below and you look over the edge of your soon-to-be-tiled roof. "Huh?"
"Are you thirsty. It's gotta be like fuckin' 40 degrees, get off the roof for awhile."
He has a point. It's been awhile since you drank something. Nodding both to him and to yourself you take the ladder down; jump gracefully from the last couple of rungs. He gives you an eyebrow for that, but in your mind you rationalize it as never needing to stop impressing him.
He walks back inside your house and you follow him in.
You find yourself doing that a lot... Following him.
Because that's the kind of person he was. So emotional, so ready to take or leave the world that if you didn't make the same choices sometimes it felt like he would walk straight off a cliff and you would be the one left hanging, trying to pull both of you back to salvation.
"I'll have a-"
A brown glass bottle gets pressed into your hand and you blink down at it. "Beer? I thought you were going to get me a bottle of water!"
That wide grin.
"Nobody said a damn thing about water. Drink up." He clanged his bottle against yours unceremoniously, and as he tipped his head back to take a few greedy gulps you couldn't help but smile as you watched him.. Shaking your head.
He didn't surprise you at all. Yet, in some ways he always did.
You put the beer bottle to your lips and took a couple gulps of the bitter taste. You were never much of a drinker; he'd always detested that a little. He used every opportunity possible to get some form of alcohol into your unwilling hands and eventually, it became a game.
(You drew the line that one time he spiked your morning tea. Face-first into a practice dirt beydish and the children still haven't let you live it down.)
Bryan always seems to win.
"The roof is lookin' pretty damn good." You look at him and nod.
"It really is. I have to thank you for all your help; Gary has so much work of his own to do this summer, Kevin doesn't know a thing about carpentry and Lee isn't here. If it weren't for you I would've never gotten this far."
"Don't thank me." He made a scoffish sound and took another swig. He hated compliments, he hated 'thank yous'... It took you a long time to figure out that Bryan didn't think he deserved all those fancy measures that 'normal people' (his words; not yours) gave each other. Heck, a well-placed comment about how good he looked and Bryan even blushed.
Hmmmmm... Come to think of it...
"...You know what else is looking pretty good?"
Bryan paused; bottle still at his lips and you watched the slow movement of his throat as he finally swallowed the beer. Hanging on your words, he loved it when you talked dirty. His eyes were on you but he didn't dare move. Not yet.
"You, up there... Sweating, the sun on your back..." Your golden eyes traced the outline of Bryan's shoulders. Pale no more; at least not this week. The sun has burned them and tanned them and even given him a freckle or two. Bryan had been working hard for you up there, and when you weren't working yourself you boldly enjoyed a glance at his rippling muscles; at the way he pursed his lips when he would lift a heavy bucket or a box of tiles. Narrow his eyes in concentration as he nailed and tarred.
Another swallow.
"I have to be honest with you Bryan. There were a couple of times up there... I thought about asking you to fuck me on the new tiles. If only I didn't have so many neighbors."
The bottle was left abandoned on the countertop within seconds and you heard the door slam shut. You were being pushed backward, backward out of sight of the windows (Kevin had a nasty habit of glancing inside before he knocked), into the bedroom, that door closed behind you two as well until your legs hit the back of your bed and you fell onto your sheets with a laugh.
Your hands were already shoving down your gym pants, taking your boxers with it. His hands were undoing his jeans. But you have different plans. He didn't let you finish what you had been saying out in the kitchen.
"Bryan... I want on top." He barely takes notice of your words and as he flips you over, hand reaching for the lube in your drawer you know it's time to make your voice a little louder. "Ugh, Bryan!"
That telltale grunt of annoyance. "What?"
"I want to fuck you..."
Now he paused.
See, it's not that you haven't done it like this before. You have. He lets you take the lead, even though he's pushy as all hell underneath you.
'Do it harder.'
'Speed up.'
'You call that rough?'
Very pushy. But he felt amazing squeezing around you.
You were okay being beneath Bryan most of the time. But you were strong too. And, sometimes you wanted to prove it. Honestly you had never bought in to that whole masculine-feminine gay stereotype and you still don't. It's very much a Bryan stereotype with you.. That he always has to be the strong one, the one on top.
See, if you let him keep getting away with that, he would get too used to it.
You wanted Bryan vulnerable. Inside you knew he wanted it too... He was just so unused to not having control. Vulnerability made Bryan very uncomfortable.
After he told you all about his life at the Abbey... You understood why.
So it took some time. And you had to admit that even though you were doing the fucking, he still had to do the commanding and the pace-setting. You've been a team captain. You've been a leader in your village and a role model to thousands. You've been guiding the youths of your neighborhood to growing up and living their own lives.
Never being the boss isn't always easy for you. And Bryan appreciates that. But you've accepted it. You've accepted that, as long as you were in a relationship with Bryan Kuznetsov, that you can't be the one in control. His brain and his heart just don't work that way.
But when Bryan was in an amazingly good mood he did let you share it. So that brings you to here.
Bryan is all rough grunts and reaching backwards, digging his fingers into your asscheeks to make you move into him harder. He won't let you push his head down any farther than it is and he needs to know that if he tells you to stop, you stop. It works for you. You're still awkward sometimes in bed; you have a lot of learning to do. And the role-switching makes it easier and harder sometimes. But whatever you do, it works. And knowing Bryan is letting you have him, see him, this way... It works for you too.
It always brings you off screaming.
Somewhere, in that post-coital haze of 'I'm so warm I'm so sticky it's too hot for this but this is comfortable I'm thirsty should we shower? this is perfect I want to stay like this the roof can wait he even lets me cuddle him' you lose yourself and your constant stream of blissed-out thoughts finally comes to an end.
He is here, with you.
He is happy.
You look at him lying beside you, arms above his head. His flesh is hot against your cheek and he looks very relaxed as he stares out at nothing. Usually this would be about the time you poked and prodded him to shower with you because while you aren't sterile and unfeeling about sex, you do believe in cleanliness and it's not fun to bask in sweat or be scratching at dried cum.
But for now you're quiet, and he's quiet. You don't ponder too much about his thoughts because Bryan always tells you how he feels.
That's why you have nothing to worry about.
Right?
From his bag, in the closet, you hear the muffled chime of an incoming text.
You glance in that direction, and for a moment you wonder if his own eyes look down at you and follow your line of sight. You wonder if he knows that you're curious. But if he thought you were, Bryan would throw his phone at you and tell you to put your fears to rest.
You have nothing to worry about. Bryan is too open. Bryan is too untrusting of other people.
You know the only people he talks to closely. Yuriy. Sergei. Ian. If it's not them, it's probably Kai. Bryan only really talks to his teammates when he's visiting here with you. You know being away from them is difficult for him. Being away from home is difficult for him... He'd ventured far once before and he was hurt for it. Bryan is putting his trust in you, by coming to stay. He trusts you in all things.
He deserves the same in that respect, and not to have your mind wandering with little paranoid delusions about where he goes and who he talks to when you're not around.
You like to think it's the sly side of you; Driger, the hunter. The tiger. Wanting to be all-seeing.
"Rei?"
You raise your eyes. "What? Sorry. I must have been dozing off."
"With your eyes open?"
"Huh.. Uh, I guess so." His chest huffed in a weird, scoffy laugh.
"Whatever. Wanna get in the shower 'er what?"
Mind back on the present... Back on him. God, it is pretty hot here...
"That sounds great." You peel yourself away from his side, he pushes himself out of bed and your routine becomes real again.
Water. Rinse. You force him to cuddle. You clean him. He cleans you. Rinse. Water off. Steam. His hand is out, holding your towel. You take it from him with a smile to dry that hair of yours; he knows you so well.
"Got me feelin' hungry now." You grin at him over your shoulder as he towel-dries his own hair; you watch the silver strands grow impossibly fluffy for a moment and you so want to tease him. But, you refrain.
"Is that a request to start dinner?"
"Is that your invitation to lie around and have a beer while you cook dinner?"
He's grinning and you laugh. You love this. These moments of home-grown mentality. Normality. You're cooking and he's cleaning your blades or watching some kind of movie that you have absolutely no interest in; all of your interest is in listening to him as he reacts. The small chuckles, the winces, the sarcastic comments (apparently people in horror movies are idiots?). It all feels so right and normal to you. Then he comes to the table and you take off the apron and you talk for hours straight and eat good food.
"Go ahead and relax for awhile. We worked hard today. I'll get changed and start us something for dinner." Bryan reaches out and pulls a couple strands of your hair to show his affection (even though it drives you nuts) and you grimace and smack his hand away, then watch him walk out of the bathroom in his towel to hit up the refrigerator for a drink.
You finish drying your hair, and realize you need a new cloth to wrap it. You tie your own towel and walk back out to the bedroom. As you approach the closet, your eyes fall on Bryan's bag.
It sits there, almost taunting you.
Would it make you a bad person if you...?
Your hands are unzipping the polyester and pulling out the cell phone before you can really determine an answer. You open his messages.
And... You feel like a jackass.
It's Yuriy.
'Ian wants more of that weird Chinese tea. Tell Kon he's turning our teammate into a pansy.'
You take a deep breath, try to wipe the smile off your face and slip the phone back into the bag where it belongs. You rewrap your hair.
You go out and cook dinner, you sit down and talk and you make lame jokes just to watch that 'are you fuckin' crazy?' face of his that he always makes at you. Then you clean up, he helps. He goes outside for a couple minutes to smoke because he knows you hate the smell. He comes back in, spritzes himself with an aftershave you have fallen in love with and then you both go to bed. With a kiss of course. He tells you that he should leave and fly home soon, might be busy job-hunting for a couple of days.
You have nothing to worry about.