Talker's Graduation

whole world went
    whiteblind, shattered fish and all.
    The aftershocks went on forever, long enough for Brian to pull
    himself up even and fold Tate in against his still broad shoulder. He
    reached over with a grunt of discomfort and dragged their top-quilt
    over Tate‟s shoulders, because the room wasn‟t that warm, and
    Tate shuddered in his embrace for a good long time.
    Tate looked up and kissed the side of Brian‟s neck, and then
    pushed up some more and kissed his cheek, his ear, and the
    corner of his mouth.
    “What?” Brian asked, closing his eyes and giving himself into
    the kiss.
    “You didn‟t come.”
    “I did a little.” Brian smiled, and Tate shivered, kissing down
    his neck. Yeah. Brian loved him that much.
    “Help me take off your shirt,” Tate muttered, and Brian did,
    careful not to move his shoulder too much. As it peeled over his
    body, Talker saw the things that he‟d tried hard not to see those
    first months when he‟d had to help Brian dress on a regular basis.
    (It was a good thing they had more pairs of sweats than anything
    else between the two of them, or Brian would have had to wander
    around the apartment naked just to take a leak.) Brian‟s shoulder
    was… damaged. It would always be. It looked like it had been used
    by a psychopath for pumpkin-carving practice. There were surgical
    scars on top of surgical scars, and swelling and weakness. His
    Talker’s Graduation | Amy Lane
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    muscle had deteriorated, in spite of his best efforts, and that side of
    his body was noticeably smaller than the other side.
    His ribs weren‟t in their natural place. There were lumps on
    them from healing and one of them had been dislocated—it had
    been popped back, but it was still not at a normal angle in his
    ribcage. There were three scars on his stomach, where they‟d had
    to go in and repair his internal organs and take out his spleen. His
    nose had been broken too, and there were a couple of fading
    surgical scars on his forehead, his cheek, above his eyebrow, and
    on his temple.
    And in spite of this—oh, God, in spite of everything—he was
    still the most beautiful boy Talker had ever seen. The scars didn‟t
    matter—they didn‟t even register. The asymmetry of his once-fit,
    perfect body was not even a thing. Talker kissed down his neck,
    down to his shoulder, and kissed every scar on the front, while
    moving his hand to the back and rubbing those scars with his
    thumb. He extended his tongue and dragged it down, down, down
    to Brian‟s nipple, suckling gently, while Brian “hmmd” and groaned
    and gasped above him. He kept kissing, down to the soft skin of
    Brian‟s stomach, touching those scars with his lips. Brian was
    wearing sweats, and Talker dragged those down too, finding that
    familiar, impressive erection waiting for him.
    It was beautiful, too—thick, long, curving ever-so-slightly
    toward Brian‟s belly button as it flexed there on Brian‟s stomach.
    Tate knew that Brian hadn‟t spent his boyhood dreaming about a
    man‟s body—he hadn‟t spent it dreaming about a woman‟s either—
    but Brian‟s lack of awareness had no effect on his body. Tate had
    seen enough photos to know that Brian‟s equipment was… lush. A
    bounty of riches. More manhood than any one boy should have. As
    he stroked his crippled hand over it, Talker thought about the last
    time he and Brian had made love, before the beating. (He could say
    those words now. Brian had been beaten. Talker had been raped.
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    They weren‟t powerful anymore. Talker was stronger than those
    words.) Brian had given himself—allowed himself to be penetrated,
    because Tate was all freaked out over not having „the big A‟. His
    fears, his complete denial over his trauma, all of it had made him
    afraid, terrified of having his body invaded, hurt, discarded.
    Talker had seen real fear since then, had lived his own
    memories thrown back into his face like iced acid and watched as
    Brian‟s life had hung ever so precariously, and he had prayed. His
    prayers had nothing to do with “Let me not be raped again,” and
    everything to do with “Let Brian live.”
    God, he wanted Brian to live, and live well, and have every
    good thing in the world.
    Talker dropped his head, lowering his lips to pull that
    magnificent, tender, hard, velvet flesh into his mouth and pull in his
    cheeks with suction. Brian stroked the side of his face, the one with
    the tattoos and the