Archive of Our Own

“Could you at least close the door quietly when you get home?”

Marvin’s voice, irritated, rang out through the apartment. Whizzer’s head hurt. He just wanted Marvin to leave him alone and quit going after him for every little thing he did. Just for today, at least. He’d had a rough day already. He didn’t need Marvin making it worse.

Marvin rounded the corner, eyes narrowed, looking like he was spoiling for a fight. “I was in the middle of something and you just had to— What’s wrong?”

His body language shifted as he noticed the disappointment that was surely splashed across Whizzer’s face. He no longer looked so angry. Whizzer shook his head, his headache pounding behind his eyes, and tried to walk past Marvin, heading for the bathroom to take some painkillers and then maybe sleep off the headache and the disappointment about not getting the job he’d interviewed for. It had been one that he felt was perfect for him, and he hadn’t gotten it. And now he just wanted to sleep.

Marvin reached out and grabbed his wrist, and Whizzer yanked his hand out of his grip. “Just— don’t touch me.”

Marvin stepped back, hands up in surrender. Then Marvin smiled at him, and the smile itself... it wasn’t malicious or conniving or smug in anyway—it was genuine. Tender, even. And… kind? Whizzer’s eyebrows were knitted together in confusion. This wasn’t Marvin.

“Yeah. Okay,” Marvin said, sending another smile his way. “If you want to tell me what’s wrong, you can. But I will leave you be if you want.”

Whizzer nodded, surprised. He didn’t acknowledge Marvin’s offer but appreciated it. He went to the bathroom, swallowed a couple Tylenol capsules, then went to lie down, hoping his headache would be gone in a couple hours.

He woke up to a dark room. He sat up, a bit disoriented, and realized he’d been asleep for nearly three and a half hours when he looked blearily at the clock. He went to the bathroom to wash his face, only realizing when he saw the Tylenol on the counter that his headache was mercifully gone. When he went out to the kitchen to get a snack, as he hadn’t eaten since mid-morning, he saw that Marvin was sitting in the living room, studying a book on chess and moving pieces around the board he’d set up on the coffee table. Whizzer grabbed an apple and a couple granola bars from the kitchen and tentatively went to join him in the living room.

Marvin looked up when he walked in but didn’t speak.

“I didn’t get the job I interviewed for,” Whizzer said finally, looking away from Marvin and opening one of the granola bars. It suddenly didn’t seem all that appetizing anymore.

He half expected Marvin to be sarcastic, tell him of course he didn’t get the job, tell him he was only good for housewifery, not work, but… he didn’t.

“That’s too bad.” He looked genuinely sympathetic. “Play with me?” He gestured to the chess board. “Maybe cheer you up some?”

Whizzer’s stomach churned. Marvin had never tried to cheer him up. Whenever Whizzer was feeling bad, Marvin just ignored him and went on with life as usual. He sat down across from Marvin, the board between them, but he didn’t really have the heart to play. Marvin would just needle him about his subpar skills.

After about ten minutes of playing chess in silence, Marvin said, “This isn’t helping, is it?”

Whizzer moved the pawn he had been pinching between his fingers forward and pushed Marvin’s knight off the board. He sat back in his chair. “No.”

Marvin stood up and left the room. Whizzer rubbed the center of his forehead with two fingers. He could feel his headache threatening to return. Feelings were always an awkward topic when Marvin was involved. Marvin was terrible when it came to dealing with other people’s emotions. Whizzer guessed that it was because he didn’t know how to empathize or even sympathize. Or maybe he just didn’t care. Whizzer hoped that Marvin had the capacity to care about someone other than himself, but it was hard to imagine when Marvin raged and swore and demanded he get his way and disregarded everyone around him.

Marvin still hadn’t come back, and the growing headache was starting to apply pressure behind his eyes.

It was moments like these that Whizzer felt bad for Jason and thankful that the kid had one parent that was at least partly emotionally available. It was so goddamn frustrating that Marvin seemed to lack the capacity to comfort anyone. Whizzer remembered one of his first real boyfriends, and how wonderful he’d been when Whizzer’s grandmother had died. He’d known exactly what to say and what to do, and Whizzer ached to be comforted sometimes, but Marvin just couldn’t do it. The thing was, he wanted Marvin to do it. More than anything. But Marvin never managed. Sometimes Whizzer got the sense he wasn’t even trying.

Marvin came back, leaning against the doorframe. Something heavy reared up in Whizzer’s chest and he felt like crying. He looked away.

“Whizzer.”

He swallowed and didn’t answer.

“Whizzer.”

He closed his eyes and tried to wish Marvin away. Leaving him alone would probably just be less painful for all involved.

“Whizzer.” Marvin was starting to sound mildly irritated now.

Whizzer finally looked up. “What?”

Marvin tilted his head and smiled at him. He was even more surprised when Marvin walked across the room, took his wrist gently, and tugged him out of the chair and into the bedroom.

Marvin had occasional moments of tenderness, but they were few and far between, and they were only when Marvin wanted something from him. So Whizzer was wary as Marvin led Whizzer to the bed and gave him an encouraging push toward it.

“What?” Whizzer said.

Marvin stepped up to him, and they just looked at each other for a moment before Marvin curled a hand around the back of his neck and tugged him down into a kiss.

“Let me take care of you.”

“How?” Whizzer found himself asking, stalling for time, trying to wrap his mind around what on earth Marvin could possibly mean. Marvin could hardly take care of himself, let alone someone else.

Marvin wrapped his arms around him and walked him backwards until his knees hit the back of the bed.

“Let me massage your back.” He tugged at Whizzer’s shirt. “You’re always so tense there.”

Whizzer let him pull the shirt off over his head and toss it aside. Butterflies were rippling through his stomach. He had a pretty good feeling that this massage was going to lead to something more, and he was not opposed to that at all. Though he had a sense that this might be different than usual. Marvin tended to be a little on the rough side, but he was displaying none of the usual signs that that was what he had in mind today.

Whizzer let Marvin tug his pants down.

“Get on the bed. Lie on your stomach,” Marvin said, letting him go and stepping back a bit.

Whizzer made the last minute decision to strip off his underwear as well before climbing on the bed and getting comfortable on his stomach. He lay with his head resting on a pillow, one arm out to the side, the other above his head, curled around the top of the pillow, holding the corner. The blankets were cool against his skin. He was really comfortable.

He heard Marvin moving around the room and jumped when Marvin’s hand touched his shoulder.

“Relax.”

Marvin’s voice was surprisingly soothing. As Marvin climbed on the bed after him and started touching him—using his thumbs to press into his muscles, working out some of the knots there—Whizzer wondered vaguely where this side of Marvin’s personality had come from, and why he kept it hidden most of the time.

Marvin worked his hands across Whizzer’s shoulders and upper back and then pressed his thumbs on either side of Whizzer’s spine and started moving down his spine to the dimples in his lower back. As he repeated this movement again and again, Whizzer felt a warmth growing in his abdomen. This was the most comfort Marvin had ever offered him, and he was starting to feel a lot better after the day he’d had. He hadn’t known Marvin had it in him to be like this.

When Marvin worked his way down each of Whizzer’s arms, squeezing and pressing as he went. He spent extra time massaging each of Whizzer’s hands, pressing each fingertip between his fingers, and then alternately digging his thumb into the center of his hand and then using two fingers to lightly rub circles around the edges of his palms.

Whizzer’s palms were extremely sensitive, and the tingling that shot up his arms traveled down his torso to his pelvis, where it gathered, growing every time Marvin caressed his palms. He realized he was hard when Marvin moved back to his waist and hips and shifted him slightly to the left.

Because he was lying on his front, his cock was trapped between the bed and his body, and it felt good. Marvin stopped touching him for a few moments and Whizzer sighed heavily, feeling like he was beginning to melt into the mattress, completely relaxed. Marvin’s hand brushed his hip and then the bed shook a bit as Marvin straddled him, sitting on the backs of his thighs, his hands going back to kneading Whizzer’s lower back, and then his ass. Whizzer realized belatedly that Marvin was now naked, and knowing that sent blood rushing to his cock. He hoped Marvin was getting as much out of this as he was.

Marvin pressed the heels of his palms firmly into both of Whizzer’s hips, which distracted him from focusing on the fact that Marvin was perched naked atop him, and Whizzer felt the last bits of tension he was carrying just drain away. After Marvin repeated this a few times—digging the heels of his hands into Whizzer’s hips—the massage felt so nice he hardly remembered he was hard and started to doze off. But then he felt Marvin’s fingers graze his hole and a little jolt shot through his body. He shifted slightly against the bed and Marvin’s hands stopped touching him abruptly.

He let out a quiet wine in protest and then Marvin’s hands were touching the back of his head and stroking the delicate hairs at the base of his neck; he felt a surge of emotion rise up inside him at the sweetness with which Marvin was touching him. It felt as though his chest was suddenly hollowed out.

Marvin was usually pretty rough—he’d yank Whizzer around and dig his nails into his skin and pull his hair during sex—but right now he was handling Whizzer incredibly delicately, and it was making Whizzer feel things he wasn’t used to feeling when he was with Marvin. They weren’t bad feelings, exactly. He just hadn’t known Marvin had it in him to be gentle. Marvin wasn’t like that. He began wishing for him to be like this more often. Everything had been so nice so far.

“This is going to be cold, sorry,” Marvin murmured, and touched a lubed finger to the sensitive skin between Whizzer’s balls and his hole. He shivered, and his stomach churned. Marvin never apologized for the lube being cold. He just went for it.

Marvin applied a little pressure and rubbed him there. His skin was zinging. Marvin moved up to rub his thumb rhythmically against his hole, catching the tip of his finger on it every once in a while, which made Whizzer make a series of soft little noises every time. Marvin slipped a finger in easily, and then another after a while, and fingered him lazily, deliberately pressing on his prostate every so often.

Marvin, always the impatient one, always trying to skip the foreplay and get right to the sex, was taking his time, and he was taking such a long time now that Whizzer was on the verge of asking Marvin to please fuck him already when Marvin finally, finally pulled his fingers out and shifted up so that his cock was nestled between Whizzer’s cheeks.

“Marvin… please…”

He was not above begging. Marvin rubbed the head of his cock against his hole, teasing, and Whizzer let out another soft whine. His body was aching. He needed Marvin.

Marvin slid in with a quiet grunt and Whizzer groaned at the sensation. Nothing could compare to this—the feeling of having another person inside him, touching him in ways he could never quite achieve on his own, making him feel incredibly full and breathless.

Marvin started thrusting slowly, his hand pressing down on Whizzer’s lower back, firm and warm, and each thrust was sending sparks of electricity shooting through his body.

A friend had described it that way once—trying to explain to a young and inexperienced Whizzer exactly how really good sex should feel. Whizzer hadn’t understood what that was supposed to mean at the time and had mulled over those words with disdain—sex was just sex: it felt good, yes, especially when it resulted in orgasm, but it was a very grounded, human urge; it wasn’t transcendent—but as Marvin had slipped inside him and started moving just now, those words had materialized in his mind.

He suddenly understood what they meant. For the first time in his life, sex went beyond the purely physical sensations. It transcended the physical and reached him spiritually, in a way that had never happened before. His body was on fire but now so was his mind. He was feeling, for the first time, complete physical, mental, and emotional pleasure. His entire being was lighting up from the inside with every thrust of Marvin’s hips.

“Don’t stop,” Whizzer whispered, as though Marvin had indicated that he would. “Don’t stop.”

Marvin fitted his hands around Whizzer’s hips and pressed down, using them for leverage, and didn’t falter in his rhythm at all. Whizzer felt light-headed and faint. He was trying not to come undone, trying not to fall apart. He had never experienced such intense feeling before, and it was consuming him.

“What did you say?” Marvin asked, a bit delayed, voice thick.

The thought hit Whizzer out of nowhere, but once it had, it just felt right; it was the culmination of everything he’d been feeling—the perfect alignment of physical, mental, and emotional pleasure and connection—and now that that thought that been brought into existence, he couldn’t shake it. He felt an underlying truth hidden somewhere within those words, even if his sex-addled brain wasn’t thinking completely clearly.

His face pressed into the pillow, he allowed the tears to spill silently out of his eyes, overwhelmed. Thank god Marvin couldn’t see his face.

Whizzer clutched desperately at the pillow, choking on his tears when Marvin shifted slightly, pulling Whizzer’s hips up just a bit, and Whizzer’s body was suddenly thrown into overdrive—instead of Marvin brushing up against his prostate every once in a while, he was now hitting it directly every time—and now, instead of sporadic sparks of electricity, his entire body was electrified, tingling and humming with energy.

“I’m gonna come,” Marvin grunted, his hands tightening on Whizzer’s hips. “Come for me, baby. Please come for me.”

Whizzer gripped the pillow as a crippling wave of arousal hit him. Marvin had never, never told him to come before, and he’d never called him “baby” before, and that, coupled with the “I love you” still ricocheting in his mind and the intensity with which he was feeling every little sensation right now, was the final, unexpected push he needed.

He had the most curious sensation of falling, his stomach dropping suddenly as though he was tethered and had just hit the end of the rope, and then a moment of stillness, feeling like he was floating, before the full force of his orgasm hit him. He felt like he had no control anymore—his entire body tensed and then released suddenly as he came, like a dam bursting, his skin prickling, his limbs shaking uncontrollably, splotches of light blooming behind his eyelids, a heavy fuzziness spreading outward from his abdomen, extending to his fingers and chest and finally, up to his head. It was then that he blacked out.

When he came to—and it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds later—Marvin was leaning over him, breathing heavily, his forehead resting between Whizzer’s shoulder blades, mumbling something Whizzer couldn’t make out. Whizzer was still a little out of it, a little dazed and feeling like his limbs were jelly, and he couldn’t do much but just lay there comfortably beneath Marvin.

The words swam back into focus in the forefront of his mind, clearer than before. Marvin could destroy him in every way and Whizzer would let him. And that terrified him. But it also comforted him, in some convoluted way. Love was such a foreign concept. And yet here he was, feeling it intimately.

Marvin pulled out slowly. He must have come while Whizzer was out of it. He half expected Marvin to get up and leave, but then gentle hands were nudging Whizzer up and turning him over onto his back. He wondered if Marvin could tell he had been crying. His limbs still felt like jelly and he flopped onto his back, completely worn out.

Marvin leaned down to mouth at Whizzer’s neck, and he made an involuntary noise. Marvin pulled back, lips a pretty cherry red, a smile blossoming across his face.

“Sensitive?”

Whizzer didn’t know how to respond to that question. His neck wasn’t very sensitive. He was feeling emotionally sensitive and he had been responding to that feeling when Marvin had kissed his neck. He decided not to answer at all. He didn’t know what to say.

Marvin frowned slightly. “You’re usually more talkative after you come. Chatty Cathy.”

Whizzer’s chest felt hollowed out again. He rolled onto his side and curled up in a ball, his knees up to his chest, feeling very vulnerable. Marvin scooted up behind him, brushing a hand up the back of his thigh. He fitted his arm snugly around Whizzer’s waist and kissed behind his ear.

“Hey— Did you not like something we did?”

Whizzer blinked rapidly. Marvin rarely checked in on him after sex either. He couldn’t figure out what had prompted this sudden, drastic personality change. He knew it wouldn’t last. They’d go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow and Marvin would be just like he usually was—irritable and impatient and mean. This Marvin, right here, wasn’t real.

“Hey— What’s going on?”

He could never tell Marvin. He had a niggling sense that Marvin might be manipulating him—pretending to care and be sweet in order to use it against him later, or to hurt him with his own vulnerability later. He wouldn’t put it past him to do something like that, as horrible as it sounded. So he was afraid of letting Marvin in. He wasn’t laying his heart on the table for Marvin to take what he wanted from it, but he knew love always began with a crack—a hairline fracture—and if left exposed, Marvin would find it and break him open little by little until he had no defenses left.

“Whizzer?” Marvin’s voice was soft. Gentle.

Love. What a little word. A noun to describe a feeling. Nouns were passive—you couldn’t control how you felt. Sometimes love snuck up on you. But the word had another, far more nefarious trick up its sleeve: it was also a verb. Verbs were active—you controlled what you did. Loving someone meant putting yourself forward, putting yourself on the line, caring about someone else much more than your own being. Maybe at first love was uncontrollable, but if you were going to spend your life with someone, you couldn’t depend on having that same, static feeling to carry you along. Right now his love could be passive. But he knew that if he let it fester long enough, it would demand action, and he didn’t want that. He wanted love but not love. He wouldn’t know how to love.

“Whizzer, you’re scaring me—”

“I blacked out,” Whizzer said quietly, deflecting.

“You what?”

“When I came. I blacked out. Everything went dark and when I woke up you had come already.”

Marvin sat up and pulled Whizzer’s shoulder to make him roll over. He put his hands on his face and studied him intently.

“You passed out?” Whizzer nodded and Marvin looked stricken. “Do we need to go to the hospital?”

Whizzer shook his head. “It’s happened before.”

Well, that wasn’t completely true. All those nights he’d spent breaking in his first real dildo on the floor beside the bed, he’d always felt on the verge of passing out when he came. He’d never completely blacked out before, and he’d never even felt like he was going to pass out with a partner before. He was probably just so overwhelmed by everything that he lost consciousness. He was probably fine. He felt fine now.

Marvin nodded. “If you’re sure you’re alright.”

“Like you care.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them, and as soon as they’d left his lips he desperately wanted to reel them back in and bury them deep in his throat, never to escape.

Marvin looked betrayed. “Of course I care. I—” He stopped himself, looking as though he had a sour taste in his mouth. He shook his head. He moved away from Whizzer and slid off the bed. “I’m going to shower.”

A hint of Marvin’s sharp, biting, irascible tongue was back, and Whizzer’s heart plummeted. He’d blown it. He’d ruined the one good evening he and Marvin had ever had together.

“I’m sorry.”

Marvin stopped halfway across the room at those words and turned back to look at him. “I do care for you, Whizzer. A lot,” he said, and then he disappeared into the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind him.

Marvin never admitted that he cared about anyone, and if Whizzer didn’t know any better, he’d think those words were a confession of love. But Whizzer knew Marvin. Marvin was incapable of loving anyone but himself. Marvin’s love, if or when he ever chose to give it, would come with all sorts of terms and conditions. Whizzer didn’t want Marvin to love him. But some twisted part of him wanted him to, though. He wanted the sick satisfaction of knowing he had the power to hurt Marvin, just like Marvin had the power to hurt him, not that Marvin fully realized this yet. He wanted to be able to dangle something over Marvin’s head and laugh as Marvin tried desperately to reach it but Whizzer wouldn’t let him. It was an awful image, but a satisfying one.

He realized he was clutching a pillow to his chest, and feeling the sudden need to destroy something, he pulled the pillowcase halfway off and tore the tag off the pillow with a satisfying rip. He tossed the tag over the edge of the bed, onto the floor, and lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

He heard the shower shut off but didn’t get up. He heard the bathroom door open and still didn’t move. He felt Marvin get on the bed, and then a warm hand touched his knee. He flicked his eyes away from the ceiling. Marvin was sitting beside him, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“I care for you.”

Whizzer could hardly believe it. Marvin telling him he cared about him two times in one night? He sat up and kissed him, the potent scent of his shampoo filling his nose. Marvin’s hands slid down to his ass, and then lower, and then—

“You’re dripping.”

A laugh bubbled out of Whizzer’s throat. He wiped his hand down the inside of his thigh. A mixture of come and lube was slowly making its way down his leg.

“I’ll go wash off,” he said, and left the bed.

He was about to step into the bathroom when he heard footsteps rushing across the room and Marvin swung him around and kissed him. For the third time that night, his chest felt suddenly hollowed out. It was almost painful, how empty his chest felt, and the only thing he was aware of was his heart pounding in his ribcage and Marvin’s lips pressed against his.

Marvin pulled back just as abruptly as he had kissed him, and Whizzer sucked in a deep breath, hardly aware that he hadn’t been breathing at all.

“I care for you so much, Whizzer. I hope you knew that.”

Whizzer’s mind was reeling. It was so hard not to love him when he did and said things like that.

“I didn’t,” he said quietly, breaking eye contact and looking away. He really hadn’t had any idea that Marvin cared about him enough to lower himself to admitting it. Marvin was never emotionally accessible, and certainly not emotionally vulnerable, which was how he seemed to be right now.

Something flickered behind Marvin’s eyes. He reached out to touch Whizzer’s shoulders briefly before withdrawing his hand, as though it wasn’t permitted.

“How are you feeling?”

Whizzer wracked his brain for a moment, trying to figure out what Marin meant, before realizing that this had all started because Marvin had tried and failed to make him feel better playing chess, and then he’d taken him to bed instead. Whizzer asked himself how he was feeling. He’d forgotten about being sad, but now… he was dealing with a host of other emotions that he wasn’t sure were positive. He’d realized he was in love with Marvin—that was the big one—and that was toeing the line between being positive and negative.

“Better.” That could mean a lot of things. It was sufficient.

Marvin nodded and sent a smile his way. “Good.” He stepped close enough to lay a kiss on Whizzer’s left collarbone before backing up and gesturing to the bathroom. “I’ll just be in bed.”

Whizzer nodded. He went to shower and clean himself up, and when he was dressed, he went back out into the bedroom. Marvin was sprawled on his stomach, fast asleep. For the first time, Whizzer saw an opportunity to do something he’d always wanted. He turned off the lights and got into bed, pulling a couple blankets over top of both him and Marvin, and then cuddled up to Marvin, throwing his arm over him and burying his face in his hair. Marvin never let him be the big spoon at night, but Whizzer figured that if he’d fallen asleep already (he was never asleep before Whizzer for this exact reason—to make sure Whizzer was always the little spoon), he was comfortable with Whizzer putting his arm around him. And Marvin’s hair smelled wonderful. He wasn’t about to let this opportunity slide past him.

In his mind, he imagined that Marvin would say it back, always be just as sweet as he was now, and always be just as soft and gentle and kind, but the only thing ringing in his ears was something Marvin had said to him earlier:

For now, he could live with that.