AN: As mentioned, this piece takes place close to the beginning of Conrad's relationship with Luce, before there's been any anal sex. This is, ah, pretty much as nice as my Luce likes to get. And Conrad is clearly expecting him to be worse. I hope anyone reading can read between the lines; did you notice how in the last piece, while Luce is taunting Conrad about having him do chores/menial labor, he's also talking as if it is simply understood that he'd be willing to literally move Conrad in with him? Luce doesn't realize he's doing this. But that is so his subconscious implying that he expects Conrad to stick around for the numerous years that would pass before that would even be possible. Anyway, Hanna is Not a Boy's Name still belongs to the marvelous Tessa Stone. I am not making any money and mean no offense.

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PSYCHOLOGY OF A HUMMINGBIRD

-by: Lira-

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.003. - "Finger" - .Muscle Memory.

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Conrad couldn't come over to Luce's apartment any more. He remembered, such a sort while before – was it really just a few weeks? – when their activities had included things as mundane as Conrad's homework. He remembered meeting Lamont and only thinking that Luce's friends were just as suave and enticing as he was. He even remembered when he had first realized that maybe Luce's intentions towards him were not quite as pure and chivalrous as he had allowed himself to believe.

Conrad didn't even remember making it from the door to the couch.

Luce had him pinned to the arm of the couch, allowing him to keep his flimsy t-shirt as one last hurrah for his modesty. He couldn't say how much it meant to him to at least still have his narrow chest covered, even though he could see his sneakers by the door over Luce's shoulder, and knew his pants were on the floor at the other end of the couch. Luce was easing his underwear off of him one-handed, rather like unwrapping a present, except when Conrad met his eyes from behind his glasses the concentration there was something more than he'd seen in any gift recipient in his experience.

Conrad realized with a tight swallow that Luce wanted this perhaps more than he could really comprehend. Luce's long fingers were perfectly sure, peeling away the fabric in his precise manner that left Conrad without a single brush of flesh against his flesh. He remembered this, from those other times, precious few as they were. Precious. Conrad wasn't sure if that was the right word; whenever Luce tried to touch him now his body tried to shiver, before Luce even made contact. It was like an ingrained fear, and Conrad didn't know how he'd contracted it, how it had made an impression over his body's muscle memory. Even as he shivered, he always knew he would try and lean into the touch next.

In the past Luce had touched him, through his pants, reaching inside, in places where they surely shouldn't have. In Luce's car, flashy and fire-engine-strawberry-apple-red, in Conrad's school in those hidden away places where Luce was so certain no one would see, even in the apartment there was always the feel of "shouldn't." But this time Luce's fingers did not immediately wrap around him as soon as the underwear had been completely withdrawn from his body, Conrad as naked and bared as Luce ever managed to get him.

Conrad realized something was up, the look from Luce appraising, judging him. Luce's one slender finger trailed up along the inside of his thigh, so deliberate, pressing to a spot just behind his balls when it reached the end of its trajectory. Luce drew his finger back further, and Conrad almost flinched, realizing then what was up. Oh god. He knew, in the back of his head, that Luce wanted it. Luce would not be satisfied with his amateur handjobs, blowjobs, with pressing their flesh together so hot and tight that it made Conrad gasp simply from the contact. He was expecting Luce to simply try and take it, cajole him a little, press ahead so that Conrad would be carried with him and would not be able to say no. He didn't know if he could resist, not again.

"Luce," he murmured, the name coming out a plea. "Luce, are you-?"

Luce's gaze had dropped to where his finger was tracing, but he looked back up at Conrad then, still considering. Luce had been, at turns, so overwhelmingly kind that it made Conrad's heart hurt, endearing him to the man even as he attempted to resist the persistent charms. And then on the flipside when he was cruel, scathing, condescending, all of it, Conrad could forgive him. Remember the comments about his art, or the rare ones about his appearance that made him blush so hard he felt like a heat lamp radiating, and know that he couldn't swear Luce off for just that. He couldn't give up the encouragement that he could really do something with this, with his art, with himself as a person. Conrad couldn't tell which facet was being turned upon him then.

"Only 's much as yeh kin take, kiddo," Luce assured him, that smooth cadence despite the jarring sound of his accent. Conrad wanted to believe him.

"Just... Not..." Conrad tried, swallowing. He couldn't string together the correct words to ask. "It's going to hurt, right? Don't lie to me."

Conrad was an artist. He saw the little tightening around Luce's eyes that indicated his surprise. Luce wasn't expecting him to just... Just try and do it.

"Wot d'yeh think Aye wan' ter do ter yeh?" Luce asked, tone turning amused.

"You know," Conrad said, pointedly. He waved one hand, trying to scoot up farther against the arm of the couch. "The same thing you wanted last time, Luce, I haven't forgotten okay."

"Got sumthin' fer yeh kiddo," Luce said then, more gruffly than before.

"Luce has that just been sitting between the sofa cushions this entire time?" Conrad asked in disbelief, having no idea where Luce could have produced the small bottle from.

"Doan' worry 'bout that," Luce scoffed. "Jes' hush yer mouth. Yer gunna love this, kiddo, jes' trust me."

Oh god. As much as Conrad used Luce's name as a talisman against him, remembering that he had that personal detail and it wasn't just "mister Worth," Luce used his trust against him at every turn. Luce knew what those words did to him, Conrad was sure of it. He always made the jump, and it was never so bad as he imagined. The problem was, Conrad had quite the vivid imagination, so that wasn't saying much.

As Conrad watched, Luce drizzled a bit of the gel inside the bottle into his waiting palm. He ran one finger through it, and Conrad could see its slick glisten against the man's skin. When the finger relegated itself to between Conrad's legs the feel of the oil, or gel, was cool and almost unwelcome, but it quickly warmed to the temperature of the surface of his skin.

The finger traced back over that pucker of muscle there, Conrad knew full well what Luce was touching. His body tried to flinch away, tried to escape because it knew better than he what invasions were coming. But when the digit actually began to ease inside, the invasion was less than Conrad had expected. He shifted a little, trying to get more comfortable, his body trying to familiarize itself with that still entirely unfamiliar and puzzling sensation of a presence there. Luce pressed in farther and it began to feel distinctly weird and just a bit painful. He swore he could feel the knuckles, the first and then the second entering his body. All the way to the final knuckle. All the way.

Was this it? Was this going to be all the way?

"Luce!" Conrad gasped, when he felt the finger rotate, and then – something there, oh!

"Told yeh Connie," Luce crooned, his finger beginning to slowly work out and back in again, brushing against that spark of his need yet again.

"Okay, okay, I believe you," Conrad yelped then, when he realized Luce was starting to worm his second finger inside.

"Oh no kiddo," Luce said. "We ain't done yet."

Then the invasion burned a little, and then more strongly, Conrad swearing he could feel everything stretch, shift, trying to accommodate what Luce was forcing on him then. He gasped loud, knew he sounded desperate, pained, when he felt the fingers separate, surely widening things inside of him. But then they reached, crooking just so and he could feel it again, that spark of nerves, of pleasure, of sensations he could not deny even if he forced between tight lips the words necessary to get Luce to release him. He couldn't do it, wouldn't do it.

Luce was right. Conrad trusted him, and now he wanted this.

Conrad writhed wantonly beneath the presence that was Luce, two fingers stroking inside of him like Luce's promises, touching things they knew not within parts of Conrad that were most precious to him. Luce figured the angle so that he got that spot on every stroke, so that Conrad saw stars and couldn't even gasp out his name, could only grab the material of the couch and scrabble with fingers like dry twigs for all the use their grasping did him. He knew his cock was painful hard where Luce was neglecting it completely, could feel the light drip of precome against his stomach for those pains.

Conrad didn't have the cognizance to wonder beyond when the next deft touch would come, and when Luce finally chose to fit his third finger into Conrad as well he was not expecting it. He didn't know to tense up, and even though it hurt, oh yes it hurt, even though he could not imagine that his body was supposed to endure that much of a foreign body forcing its way inside of him, he could not reject it. His muscles tried to thrust Luce out but with no use, finally surrendering when Luce edged against that spot over and over until Conrad was nothing more than a twitching bundle of nerves, extending everywhere.

"Luce please," he finally managed, so softly he thought the man would not hear him.

"Please wot, Connie?" Luce asked, so sweetly Conrad knew it was poisoned.

"Please," Conrad insisted, desperate, almost brokenly. "Just do it."

"Do wot, kiddo?" Luce asked then. He twisted his wrist sharply, and Conrad gasped harder. "'M quite content wiv th' view here, if yeh catch m' drift."

Conrad blinked up at him, eyelids fluttering like a dreamer's, trying to grasp what Luce could possibly mean. Conrad knew what Luce wanted from him. He'd known last time, too, and could only imagine that Luce was disappointed in him for failing to satisfy quite completely enough. He couldn't imagine that Luce would tolerate his reticence this time, not without some recrimination. Didn't Luce want to have sex with him?

"Hush Connie," Luce told him.

It dawned on Conrad, so slowly, the first light of understanding creeping over him like the high blush already upon his cheeks, that maybe Luce wasn't doing that. Conrad knew Luce was hard in his pants, but the man hadn't even undone the button. Luce was paying his own body no heed, almost viciously. This was all about Conrad, opening Conrad's body up like some treasure.

Conrad wondered dimly what Luce hoped to find in there.

The answer came hard and fast on the thought, literally, Luce's continued motions inside of him playing on Conrad's body's carefully hidden wants. Conrad came hard across his stomach, and realized far too late that perhaps Luce had left him his t-shirt for a reason of Luce's own. He couldn't focus on that. His orgasm was rolling through him, dulling the edges of his confusion over Luce's behavior. Just let it feel nice.

Conrad would have to shed the shirt later, and he swore Luce had wanted him in one of the man's soft old t-shirts that he never wore for cryptic reasons still indecipherable. Conrad knew Luce was smug about having gotten him off without once touching his cock directly, but Conrad couldn't even think to be mad over that. How was he to be mad when Luce was the one who hadn't gotten off, who had introduced such care to Conrad's body just then? He couldn't, and he suspected he hated Luce for it, suspected he knew then how his muscle memory had been so completely tweaked.