Talker

tattoo began, then up to his neck and his chin.
    He felt the places where the skin was so thin, he couldn’t imagine
    putting needles and ink there, or the pain it would entail. He felt the
    rough, lumpy parts, and the twisted parts, where skin and flesh had
    fought in the healing. By the time he’d made it to Tate’s chin, Tate
    was whimpering. Brian kissed the scar where Tate’s lip piercing
    had been, before it had gotten infected, and then stroked his
    tongue along Talker’s lips with a tease.
    Before Brian claimed his mouth, he said, “You are all beautiful,
    Tate Walker. You hear me?”
    Tate nodded and opened his mouth under Brian’s. The kiss
    went on a long time, and al of Brian’s urgency, al of that glorious,
    gimme gimme gimme, need it need it need it omigod gotta gotta
    have it ba-bee was back when Tate’s warm mouth broke off from
    his.
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    Tate didn’t go for subtle—there was no kissing his way down
    Brian’s body. O ne minute they were kissing, and the next, his open
    mouth was engulfing Brian’s swollen cock. Brian about came off the
    bed, it was so sudden, and then Tate’s mouth tightened and he
    sucked in his cheeks and bobbed his head up and down so his lips
    massaged the ridge of Brian’s circumcised cockhead. His fist came
    up to the base and squeezed, and within seconds, Brian was
    seeing stars.
    As blow jobs went, it was not the most expertly given—no
    foreplay, no tasting, no licking or teasing—it was all about Tate’s
    craving to have Brian’s flesh down his throat.
    Brian could live with that.
    It took a minute, maybe two, before Brian thrust into Tate’s
    mouth hard, moaned “C oming.…” with just enough time to give
    Tate some warning, and started shaking with gimme gimme gimme
    gotta have it ba-bee before he groaned hard and came. His entire
    body came off the bed, and he clutched Tate to his groin as he
    shook and shuddered and groaned some more, curling around his
    dream boy as he dumped come into his mouth.
    His dream boy swallowed like it was something he’d dreamed
    about too.
    When the convulsions of climax had stopped, Tate pushed
    himself back up to face to face, wiped his mouth with the back of
    his hand, and grinned.
    “No one’s let me do that before.”
    Brian nodded. “I can see why,” he breathed, stil trembling.
    “Your technique’s sort of dangerous. You suck me any harder and
    you’l be choking on my eyebal s.”
    Tate’s grin widened and he chortled softly, and Brian kissed
    him because he had to.
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    They fell asleep, practically in the middle of the kiss. Brian
    woke up a little later and reached down to arrange the covers over
    both of them, and while he was doing that, Tate mumbled
    something about “little spoon” and rolled over on his side. Brian
    took him up on it, and they fel asleep, Brian’s front to Tate’s back,
    so Brian could engulf Tate in his arms and his wide shoulders and
    keep his dream boy safe.
    It didn’t work. Tate twitched in his sleep. Not constantly, but
    occasional y. And he almost woke up twice with bad dreams. E ach
    time, Brian thought about al the times no one had been there for
    Talker when he’d had bad dreams, and his chest hurt.
    It hurt bad enough to wake him up about half an hour before
    his alarm. He laid there, snuggling into Talker’s body and peering
    thoughtfully at his shoulder tattoo in the gray light coming in from
    his window, and thought very carefully about what he wanted for
    himself, and what he wanted for Talker.
    He was slow on the uptake sometimes, but he did get shit
    eventual y, when he had some quiet in his own skull to figure them
    out.
    “What are you thinking about?” Talker’s voice was sleepy, and
    Brian kissed the skin on his shoulder with a small smile.
    “How do you know I’m thinking?”
    “Dunno. Just do. It’s like the silence changes.”
    That made Brian smile, too, and he rubbed his cheek on that
    decorated rough and smooth shoulder. He liked the feeling—mostly
    because it was Tate’s skin.
    “I’m thinking that I’m not enough,” he said after a moment. “I
    can try to be—I’l die trying to be enough. I’m thinking that so many
    people have let you down, you need more than just me.”
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    Tate grunted a negative. “You’re all I need,” he said
    confidently, but Brian thought that maybe it was the same sort of
    confidence that had led him out the door with Trevor and