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fellowshippers2004-10-31 10:57 am
arabia764.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2004-10-31 10:57 am
Fic: Damaged Part Seven
We’re nearly at the end now folks, only one more part after this.
A big thank you to everyone for such amazing, thoughtful, interesting feedback. I have loved ever moment of it. Thank you also for the pictures, icons and even the music recommendations, (the music rec is in my current music box below. You see if you think it fits!!) They have all been brilliant. Lastly thank you for the questions people have asked, it made me realise that I *know* these two characters inside and out. It’s really weird, so far any question that has been asked about them I knew the answer without having to think about it. Now I suppose someone will catch me out!
Details bit...
Title: Damaged
Author: Arabia
Pairing: Elijah/Orli
Rating N17
Disclaimer: Total fiction
Notes: An AU set in modern day South London. It's a bit angsty but there's nothing really nasty in it. It is all finished and it will be posted as it’s beta’ed.
Part Seven
Orli sat on the edge of his bed for a long time, the photo he kept of Shane on the bedside table clasped in his hands. He didn’t really understand how he had got here but he was clear about how he felt. He loved Shane, he always would do, but he also loved Elijah. Maybe he had loved him for weeks now, he wasn’t sure, but it had taken some girl in a short skirt to make him see it.
The difference was Shane was dead and Elijah was right here.
He ran a finger over the contours of Shane’s face, remembering how each bone and feature had felt for real. He didn’t feel guilty, a little sad as always, but not guilty. Shane would understand and he would want this for Orli. Shane would hate him to always be alone.
A smile crossed his face when he thought about what Shane would have made of Elijah, what he would have said about him. Suddenly Orli had an overwhelming need; he needed to talk to his best friend about Elijah. He needed to talk to Shane.
He put the picture back on the table, angling it and leaving a bedside light on so he could clearly see it, and climbed into bed. He had just started to fall asleep looking up at Shane, when the door opened and Elijah stood, dressed only in a ratty old t-shirt and yellow teddy bear patterned boxers, at the end of the bed.
“I can’t go to sleep. I have to say this first,” Elijah said as though he’d rehearsed it a dozen times. “I do love you, I may be stupid and not know about stuff but I know I love you. You can’t argue with that. When we talk we have to do it with that as a given.”
“I’m not going to argue with you,” Orli said slowly. “I’m sure you think you love me.”
“What the hell does that mean, I ‘think’ I love you? Are you saying I’m too thick to know how I feel?” Elijah hadn’t wanted to get angry but here it was, bubbling up again. “How patronising can you get?”
Orli sat up. “I’m not being patronising, I’m being realistic. Hardly anyone has ever loved you and those that did were only after what they could get, including your mum. You don’t know about love, you know all there is to know about sex and manipulation but nothing about love. You can’t just say you love me.”
“Oh that’s great, isn’t it? I’ve never known love therefore I can’t feel it, so I never get a first time.” Pink fire flared at the top of his cheeks as he stared down, hands on hips, at Orli. “That kinda ruins things for the rest of my life.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic. I’m not saying you’re ruined, you’ll get there. But you admit yourself you don’t know how to get along with people, how to make friends,” Orli was trying hard to be reasonable. “How do you know what you feel for me isn’t just friendship?”
“You arrogant bastard, how dare you tell me what I’m feeling.” Elijah wasn’t being reasonable back.
“I’m only saying you’re learning, that this is all new to you.”
“No,” Elijah stalked back across the room. “You’re just talking a pile of horse shit.” He slammed the door so hard it made Orli’s teeth shake.
An hour later the pounding in Orli’s chest and the questions in his head had just about begun to fade. He figured if he lay very still and thought about cows grazing in a field he might just get to sleep before the birds started to sing.
He didn’t have a chance to prove his theory right before Elijah opened the door again. Orli groaned into the pillow. He wished Elijah would at least knock, rather than just turning up like that.
“So let me get this right, you think I only love you like a friend?”
“You have to admit it’s a possibility,” Orli said, rolling onto his back. “I’m saying, give yourself time to find out.”
Elijah ignored the second part of what Orli had said. “Okay.” He sorted out in his own mind what he wanted to say. “You make me feel safe and cared about, which I know could be down to being friends and the cancer, but I think it says something. I wanna be near you, not just that I like you being around but I truly miss you when you’re not.”
He smiled over at Orli, a warm, silly sort of smile. “I like doing things for you; I make sure there’s enough hot water when you get in, that there’s cold beer in the fridge, that I don’t eat all the chocolate biscuits. Fuck Orli, I’d give you my last Rolo, I even gave up smoking ‘cos you didn’t like it, not that you noticed, and I…”
He looked at Orli’s face. “And apart from the last one, maybe, none of that means anything other than I care about you as a friend, does it?”
“Why do you have to push it?” Orli asked gently. “Why don’t you just see how things go?”
Elijah climbed onto the bed and sat crossed legged in the corner. He was quiet for a long, long time and Orli could see him making a decision.
“When I got the all clear from the cancer I decided to ring my mum. I haven’t had any contact with her since I’ve got here, not a two second phone call or a card or anything.” He twisted round a little, pulling further back from Orli.
“But I figured that if I wasn’t sick anymore she might not… want rid of me so badly. Also, now I’m deformed I might not be such a threat to her with her boyfriends. After all who wants a guy with one ball?”
“You’re not deformed,” Orli said, shocked that he hadn’t known Elijah felt like that.
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” Elijah dismissed it out of hand. “The point is I thought she might let me go back, that we could be a family again. But,” He looked up at Orli, his fingers pulling and twisting at the hairs on his calf. “When it came to it I couldn’t make the call. I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here or anywhere else that you are.”
“Is that because I make you feel safe?” Orli had to ask.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Elijah tilted his head to one side, staring. “I want to be with you more than I ever wanted to be with my mum. She was all I’ve ever had but I want you more. If that doesn’t prove I love you, I don’t know what will.”
“Oh god,” Orli whispered.
“Just… don’t treat me like a child or an idiot. I do know how I feel.”
“I only want what’s best for you,” Orli tried to explain. “I never meant to be insulting.”
“I know,” Elijah nodded. “And I promise I will try and do anything, be anything, you want. I only want you to be happy.”
“Elijah no,” Orli cried. “I don’t want you to ‘be’ anything. I love you just the way you are, for fuck’s sake. Don’t change
“Even with all my faults, with all the hassle that comes with me?”
“Christ, yes.”
“You can accept me as me?”
“Yes.”
“Then accept the fact that I love you.”
For a minute Orli sat there, open mouthed. Elijah had stitched him up but… Elijah loved him.
He pushed back the covers, slipped out of bed and stood up, the cool air making goosebumps rise up on his bare legs. He pulled Elijah up onto his feet in front of him and gently he took each of Elijah’s hands and placed them on his own chest, sighing in pleasure as small fingers twisted into the fabric of his t-shirt.
Orli reached out and let his fingers curl around Elijah’s jaw, letting them ghost over soft skin in a feather light touch, feeling the fragility of the bones underneath. Lifting slightly he tilted Elijah’s head back, pressing with his forefingers on the joint of his jaw, making Elijah’s mouth open.
Then he made the fatal mistake of looking down. Elijah’s eyelashes lay thick and heavy against pale skin, his breath puffed almost imperceptibly between reddened lips, moist as the tip of a rounded pink tongue ghosted over them, the angle of his jaw sharp and cutting, the long white column of his neck inviting.
Orli looked down and fell even further.
So slowly, so carefully he closed the last short distance between them and pressed his lips against Elijah’s. Oh… So soft, like padded cushions at the entrance to paradise. Fucking awful phrase, but that was exactly what it felt like. He let the fingers of one hand drift to the back of Elijah’s skull, searching between the dark strands of hair to map the contours of his skull, the other stayed fixed to his jaw, his thumb travelling over silken skin, as he pushed his tongue forward to take his first taste.
Toothpaste.
Somehow the taste of mint toothpaste penetrated his mind. With all the chaos and turmoil of the evening, Elijah had remembered to clean his teeth. Orli was astonished at how pleased he was. Elijah was taking care of himself and would have healthy teeth and…
He tasted the flavour under the toothpaste. He tasted Elijah and couldn’t help but groan, a small helpless little sound as he tumbled head over heels to fall even deeper.
This is what he wanted; this feeling of… he didn’t quite know what it was. Something he hadn’t felt since Shane. No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t the same as with Shane but it was the same type of feeling and it was something there’d been no trace of with anyone else. And he wanted more, much more. He could become a junkie for this, he wanted….
Right now he wanted more of Elijah.
His hand moved down the back of Elijah’s neck, grazed across hard tendons; so close to the surface, so vulnerable. His fingers rested against the bones of Elijah’s spinal column at the base of his neck. Orli wanted to dig them in deep, feel the give and pull of them, memorise their shape. But he couldn’t hurt Elijah.
Never, ever hurt Elijah.
He let his fingers rest on a rounded shoulder and dared push his tongue a little deeper, his lips a little harder. Not too hard, just enough to feel the fleshiness of Elijah’s lips compressed against his own, just enough to let Elijah know how he felt.
Elijah pulled his mouth away, just a fraction.
Fuck, Orli thought. What had he done wrong?
He’d taken it too fast.
Elijah’s hand went up to the back of Orli’s head, his fingers tangling in deep, pulling. “Come on Orlando, you can do better than that, I just know you can.” He laughed softly, the sound deep and husky, as he pulled Orli in for a much deeper, harder kiss.
Next second Elijah’s tongue was scraping against the back of Orli’s mouth; his knee hooked out around Orli’s thigh as he ground their bodies together. Orli groaned again, a pathetic whimper of a sound, as his cock scraped over the unyielding bulge in Elijah’s boxers and… when did they both get that hard?
Elijah altered the angle of his head, his nose scraping past Orli’s, and licked around the roof of Orli’s mouth as he rolled his hips in tiny circles… his cock slip sliding over and over Orli’s. This time they both groaned, the sound bumping off teeth, falling into mouths.
Elijah pulled back again, just a little, his eyes glinting, his smile wide. “Shit, that’s better,” the words came out on breathy little giggled gasps. “But can we get to the fucking now?”
“What?” Orli felt slightly dazed, like his knees wouldn’t quite hold him upright, like he wasn’t quite sure what was real.
Elijah grabbed Orli’s upper arm and started dragging him towards the bed, kneeling up on it after the couple of short steps needed. “Kissing is good, kissing is very good,” he said trying to pull Orli’s t-shirt up. “But fucking is better. Now it’s time for fucking.”
“No,” Orli took a step back, his hands batting Elijah’s out of the way, as he remembered who he was and, more importantly, who Elijah was.
“No?” Elijah looked confused. “Oh shit, I don’t know what you like, I just kinda assumed, I can top or bottom, I don’t care.” He looked at Orli’s shocked face. “You don’t like fucking? Now that’s a shame but… okay… there’s other stuff we can do. Not as much fun maybe, but I’ll give anything a go. What you got in mind?”
“Nothing. We’re not doing anything Elijah.”
“Nothing?” Elijah looked amazed. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I’m not going to jump straight into bed with you.”
“We can use the floor,” Elijah tried to sound suggestive as he raised an eyebrow and almost winked, changing it at the last second for a quick flash of a smile.
“No. I’m not using you.”
“Why all of a sudden are you using me?” Lust was fast turning to out-and-out confusion.
“You need to think about this, decide if it’s what you really want,” Orli said decisively. “You have to…”
But he wasn’t allowed to finish. “Jesus shit, don’t start this again,” Elijah said reaching out for Orli again. “Orli baby, come on, let’s go to bed.”
Orli took another step back. “No.”
Elijah rubbed at the anger he could feel gathering behind his eyes. “We talked about this already. I love you, you love me, now what’s the bloody problem?” He tried desperately to keep his voice calm.
“You need to separate love from sex. Don’t go to bed with me because you think it’s what I expect.”
“You think I’m doing it because you expect it? How about I bloody well want it?” Elijah said, falling back on the bed.
“But do you want it? Do you really want it or is it just an automatic response?”
“Does this look like an automatic response!” Elijah waved a hand vaguely in the direction of his groin.
“Yes, actually it does,” Orli had moved back almost half way across the room now, his heels catching on the chest of drawers. “You’ve never reacted to me before, I… I’m not even sure if you fancy me. This is just…”
“I don’t fancy you?” Elijah repeated, incredulously. “Now I’ve heard just about everything, of course I fancy you. What kind of sicko do you take me for?”
Orli stayed silent, unable to look at Elijah.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You think this whole thing is me doing my normal thing, out for what I can get,” Elijah said climbing off the bed. “Well fuck you Orli. You’ve got nothing I want, you’ve already said I can stay. What am I supposed to be after?”
“It’s not that,” Orli tried to evade the anger.
“Yes it is, it’s exactly that. You don’t trust me.”
“I do trust you,” Orli cried plaintively. “I’m just not sure if you really do want me.”
“If I want you?” Elijah shook his head, making for the door. “If getting a hard on as soon as you touch me and trying to stick my tongue down your throat isn’t enough to convince you then, let’s face it, nothing I say is going to make any fucking difference.”
He opened the door and stood there for a moment. “I can’t believe I’m doing this again. Thank you Orlando, for bloody well screwing things up again.”
When Elijah slammed the door this time dust fell out of the frame.
+
He didn’t come back for almost another hour.
By this time Orli, surprising himself, was fast asleep. Sleep or no sleep as soon as Elijah pulled the stool up to the bed, dumping the pile of clothes that was on top of it on the floor, and sat down, his body tense, Orli was wide awake.
“I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this,” Elijah started. “I must be out of my tiny mind because you sure as hell are gonna kick me out after this, but…” his eyes flicked quickly to Orli. “If I don’t say this now I never will and ours will be the shortest love affair of all time. I’ll tell you one thing, having the guts to say it must prove I love you.”
“You don’t have to…” Orli started to say softly.
“Oh shut up,” Elijah cut him off. “I do have to say it, you won’t understand unless I do.” He puffed out a long breath. “Okay, here goes. You know the bathroom door doesn’t shut properly anymore?”
“Yeah?” Orli couldn’t think where this was heading.
“Well that’s ‘cos I fixed it so it wouldn’t.”
“What? Why?”
“Here’s the bad bit,” Elijah rushed on, determined to say it before he changed his mind. “So I could watch you get out of the shower all naked and wet.”
“You’ve been spying on me?” Orli’s voice went up at least two octaves.
“Yeah.” The blush was creeping down Elijah’s cheeks to his throat. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve wanked off to the thought of the water running down your arse.”
“Elijah!”
“What?” He tried for a cheeky grin but hit lustful. “You really do have a great arse. That little dimple right below the small of your back has to be perfect for licking.”
“Shut up!” it was Orli’s turn to blush now.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Orli trying to process this new information, Elijah trying not to think about Orli naked and wet.
“You really do wank to the thought of me?”
Elijah nodded, adding a smile at the last second.
“How long you been doing it for?”
Elijah grinned. “Since I could get it up again.”
“Oh…”
“But I used to look before that. I started when I was throwing up, it was a great distraction.”
It was quiet again for a moment. “You’ve a pervert. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Probably,” Elijah agreed. “But a pervert that fancies the arse off you.”
“Shit,” Orli pulled himself up against the headboard, hugging his bare knees to his chest.
“Your cock’s quite nice as well and I like the way you have just the right amount of hair on your arms and at the very bottom of your belly and you have a great chest…”
“Elijah?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Do you realise how many times you’ve told me to shut up tonight?”
“Well, sometimes you need to, to give me a chance to think.”
Elijah shifted back on the stool for a bit, putting his feet up on the bed. “Have you thought now?”
“Yeah.”
“So,” he drew the sound out until it was almost a sentence on its own. “What are we gonna do now?”
“I guess,” Orli held his breath for a long, long moment. “I guess I’d better take the pervert to bed.”
“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Elijah’s face split into the biggest grin ever as he crawled up the bed towards Orli. He stopped, resting his chin on Orli’s bent up knees. “Will there be fucking?”
“Oh I don’t know!” Orli exclaimed with half a laugh. “Can’t you just leave me alone and stop pushing for a bit?”
Elijah cocked his head and thought about it. “Nah, you know I don’t think I can.” He leaned forward and, very deliberately, bit Orli’s bottom lip.
Orli sighed, his hands going up to Elijah’s hair as his mouth was pressed gently open and a warm tongue licked its way inside. It felt so amazingly, so fuckingly… right. He pulled Elijah onto his chest a little more, his knees opening naturally, until Elijah was half lying on him, hands desperately clutching at Orli’s t-shirt.
Elijah tilted his head, his tongue moving deeper, exploring, learning, memorising . The feeling was intoxicating, almost overwhelming and Orli wasn’t quite sure what was happening when Elijah pulled back.
“Take it off,” Elijah panted, little breaths puffing out through red-slicked lips.
“Huh?”
“Take it off, your t-shirt,” Elijah started pulling at it. Frantic hands making a mess of the job. “Take it off. I want to see you.”
Orli felt his cheeks redden at the desperation in Elijah’s voice and the lust in his eyes. He pulled the worn piece of clothing over his head, conscious of his own near nakedness and Elijah’s eyes burning a path back and forth across his skin.
Abruptly Elijah’s hand shot out, fingertips stopping to hover for a second over a nipple, and then he was touching, welts of fire that went straight to Orli’s cock. Elijah seemed to come alive then, frenzied movements as he leaned in to kiss Orli again – hot tongue making Orli press up for more – and just as suddenly to move away again while he pulled his own t-shirt off.
A shared groan of pleasure as naked skin met for the first time, hard nipples rubbing like coarse sand paper over too sensitive skin. Orli’s hands found Elijah’s spine as his mouth was covered again, his fingers against each vertebrae, rubbing and pressing each knobbly bone, holding him tight, pulling him in.
Elijah whimpered softly into Orli’s mouth, hitched up, and suddenly two hard, weeping cocks met. At the first contact Elijah shuddered and his cock slipped over Orli’s, pressing into the side. Neither man was sure who the resulting groan belonged to.
Somehow, from somewhere Elijah found the impetus to move back again. “Take the rest off, I gotta feel you,” as he spoke he pulled at his own boxers, trying to wriggle out of them without losing contact with Orli. “Be even better if you were wet but naked will do… for now.”
His eyes flickered up to Orli, where he was still half-sitting, half-lying against the headboard, not moving. Elijah smiled, his face full of lecherous intent. “Get ‘em off or I’ll do it with my teeth.”
Orli tried desperately not to embarrass himself by whimpering. He didn’t doubt for a second, as he scrambled to get his damp-fronted boxers off, that Elijah could and indeed would do it. Embarrassment wouldn’t even begin to cover it if he came right there and then.
Tugging at them to get them over his foot, Orli was just about to throw his boxers in a corner when Elijah grabbed them. He crushed them into a ball, lifted them to his face and, eyes closed, sniffed them.
“Fuck…” Orli couldn’t help the whimper that went with the word.
Elijah flicked the boxers away and was reaching for Orli’s hip when there was a clattering sound. The boxers had caught on the alarm clock that sat next to the lamp on the bedside table, knocking it to the floor.
Elijah was just about to dismiss it and get on with things when the photograph of Shane on the table caught his eye. He only hesitated for a moment before his hand started to slide up Orli’s inner thigh, but Orli saw it.
“Hold on,” Orli twisted under him. “I’ll put it in the drawer.”
“No,” Elijah said, his hand grabbing onto Orli’s wrist, stopping it. “Leave it. Shane is part of you and he shouldn’t be hidden away.”
“But…”
“But nothing,” Elijah said seriously. “If Shane was half the man you say he was, he’ll be pleased for you.”
Orli pulled Elijah down so they were lying face to face, close but not quite touching, his hand tracing the contours of Elijah’s face. “He’ll be more than pleased, he always said I had great taste. I’ve proved him right again.” He slid in closer, his hand cupping the back of Elijah’s head as his slid his mouth over Elijah’s.
Elijah melted.
There really was no other way to describe it, under Orli’s hands and mouth he seemed to soften, become more malleable, before finally yielding completely. A feeling he had never known before. He’d always, always, always been in control when it came to sex, but now, here with Orli, it was different. It was as if his body had lost its cohesion, was reacting without restraint in a way he hadn’t known he was capable of.
Orli felt each shudder and shiver as long tendoned hands scrabbled at his back, their sole purpose apparently to pull him closer.
And then there was a change, Elijah became more frantic as he pushed Orli over a little, his own body still glued close till he was on top. His hips hitched and bucked, thrusts faltering into Orli’s body, but lacking the final friction needed for release.
Orli tried desperately to suck in some air around Elijah’s mouth as he pushed a hand between their bodies, holding their cocks in a single tight grip. He pulled his head back a little, gulping in oxygen with fluttering staccato breaths, but Elijah mouth simply followed, his tongue pushing deep inside.
No rhythm, no rhythm.
Somewhere at the back of Elijah’s mind a voice was screaming there was no rhythm, this wasn’t right… it wasn’t how it was supposed to be… he wasn’t doing it right… But all he could focus on was the feel of Orli’s body pressed against his, the grip of Orli’s hands on his skin and most of all the way that Orli kissed him.
Elijah felt the white hot heat start at the base of his spine and slam towards his cock. Even if he had wanted it to be different, this was beyond his control. An inevitability that flowed around him, drowning him in its intensity.
Orli’s hand tightened on their cocks, Elijah pushed forward, his mouth smearing over Orli’s, and he came, every fibre of his body shaking with the pull of it.
As the last shudder drifted away Elijah let his face slide into the curve of Orli’s neck, his nose scratching over the stubble on Orli’s Adam’s apple. He should move, he knew he should, but he needed a minute to gather himself.
That had been unlike anything he’d ever known and… so not what he’d planned. He’d wanted to make it so amazingly special for Orli that the man would be hooked for life. Instead he’d…. he looked down. Fuck. Orli had come and Elijah didn’t even know when, he’d been so caught up in himself.
Fuck.
That wasn’t right. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He didn’t do things like that.
He pulled himself up onto his hands and slid a path down Orli’s body, licking at his skin till he got to the puddle of cum. “Sorry, I’ll make sure it’s better next time,”
“Huh?” Orli lifted a dazed head and looked at Elijah.
“I was pretty self-absorbed there, I promise I’ll do better next time.”
Orli’s hand shot out grabbing Elijah’s bicep in a painfully tight grip, stopping him moving. “What the fuck are you talking about? That was perfect, don’t you dare try and say it wasn’t.”
“I know it was good,” Elijah stroked at Orli’s belly. “I’m just saying I can do better. You have a lot to look forward to.”
For a moment the anger that flashed across Orli’s face was so hot Elijah thought he was going to be hit. But then it was gone, and instead he was pulled up and into an enormous hug, Orli’s arms so tight he couldn’t draw breath.
“When are you going to understand,” Orli said, his face buried in Elijah’s hair. “I don’t what you as a trick-performing sex toy, I can buy any whore for that. I want you, for you. Just you.”
“But I…”
“No Elijah,” Orli pulled him up, gripping the side of Elijah’s face with one hand so he had no choice but to look. “I don’t want tricks, I don’t want you….” he searched wildly for the right words, “working on me. You can have everything I’ve got already, there’s no need for you to use all the skills you’ve learned. I don’t want them and you’ll really piss me off if you start doing it.”
The hand still on Elijah’s arm gripped tighter still. “In fact you promise me,” Orli said, his eyes blazing. “No tricks, not with me. Not ever.”
“We can have fun and…”
“No!” Orli clutched both of Elijah’s arms, holding him up, knowing there would be finger shaped bruises on the soft skin the following morning. “You promise me right now or get out of my bed. I won’t kick you out of the flat, I’ll still love you, but I have to be sure I only get the real you. Like the one just now.”
“You liked that?” Elijah was unsure. He could do so much better than that selfish performance.
“That was you, the real you. And that’s the only one I’m going to bed with. Now promise.”
“You sure?”
Orli nodded. “Promise.”
Elijah wasn’t sure but… “I promise.”
Orli let go of Elijah’s arms and he fell back on top, held tight.
Elijah tilted his head back, opened his lips a little and offered himself for the kiss he prayed would come. He wasn’t disappointed. Orli’s lips slid over his and the kiss was slow, wet and tender. Elijah rolled further up onto Orli, angling his head in different ways so that he could enjoy every part of Orli’s mouth. Each time Orli tried to turn his head to kiss the rest of Elijah’s face or his neck, Elijah’s hand came up and turned him back, reaching in for more kisses.
A firm hand stroked across Elijah’s back and he wriggled into the touch, pushing up and encouraging whenever the speed of Orli’s hand slowed. When Orli’s other hand dropped from the back of Elijah’s head to rest on the mattress, Elijah reached out and lifted it to his hip, nudging it into movement with his elbow.
All the time Elijah’s mouth worked on Orli’s.
“You like kissing, don’t you?” Orli laughed gently, their lips barely a millimetre apart.
“We can do something else if you want,” Elijah said quickly, his hand reaching down towards Orli’s groin.
“Oh shut up, there’s nothing wrong with kissing,” Orli laughed again, leaning in for a long liquid kiss before pulling back and licking his lips. “I think it’s nice that you like just kissing and touching so much. I don’t know, it’s not what I expected and… it’s good.”
“Well, I …” Elijah was serious. “I like kissing you.”
“Only me?” Orli smiled.
“Yeah, only you,” Elijah looked away. “No one has ever kissed me like you do; they always did it to get somewhere else. But you… you kiss me like I matter.”
“Christ Elijah,” Orli’s arms tightened around him. “You do matter, you matter to me.”
“And you matter to me,” Elijah pushed himself up, eyes blazing down at Orli. “I don’t want you to ever go out again. You have to stay right here with me so you can’t see anyone else, can’t meet anyone else, can’t fall for anyone else.”
Orli realised with amazement that Elijah actually meant it. How could he be that unconfident about himself? “I couldn’t fall for anyone else, not after you. But,” a horrible thought suddenly struck him. “You can’t go out either, no meeting or falling for anyone else.”
“Deal” Elijah said, eyes wide. “Now kiss me again.”
“I will,” Orli matched deed to words and then pulled back a little. “I’m going to spend hours kissing you but first,” he eased out from under Elijah. “I’m going to clean us both up a bit. Hang on while I get a towel.”
As Orli padded off towards the bathroom Elijah lay back, hands behind his head. He couldn’t believe what had happened tonight, how so much had changed. Everything was different, and all of it was good, but how the hell had it happened? He couldn’t get his mind to process the events, it was too much, way too much… and maybe it would all disappear in a puff of smoke in the morning.
When Orli woke up in the light of day he was bound to change his mind. He’d realise what Elijah was, what a mistake he’d made and go screaming for the hills.
And Elijah would let him. With a sudden jolt he realised just how much he did love Orli. No matter how much he wanted and needed Orli, Elijah wasn’t going to try and hold onto him if it wasn’t what Orli wanted. He loved Orli so much that all he wanted was for him to be happy. If that was with him then that would be… But if it was without him, Elijah would let him go.
He glanced over towards the hall, Orli was still in the bathroom. Elijah rolled over onto his belly and looked up at the picture of Shane.
“I won’t hurt him, I promise. I’ll do everything I can to make sure he’s happy,” he whispered. “He’s a good man and he loves you, I won’t let him forget that, but… we both want the same thing now, you and me. We want Orli to be happy and I swear to you, I’ll do my best to make sure he is.”
A big thank you to everyone for such amazing, thoughtful, interesting feedback. I have loved ever moment of it. Thank you also for the pictures, icons and even the music recommendations, (the music rec is in my current music box below. You see if you think it fits!!) They have all been brilliant. Lastly thank you for the questions people have asked, it made me realise that I *know* these two characters inside and out. It’s really weird, so far any question that has been asked about them I knew the answer without having to think about it. Now I suppose someone will catch me out!
Details bit...
Title: Damaged
Author: Arabia
Pairing: Elijah/Orli
Rating N17
Disclaimer: Total fiction
Notes: An AU set in modern day South London. It's a bit angsty but there's nothing really nasty in it. It is all finished and it will be posted as it’s beta’ed.
Part Seven
Orli sat on the edge of his bed for a long time, the photo he kept of Shane on the bedside table clasped in his hands. He didn’t really understand how he had got here but he was clear about how he felt. He loved Shane, he always would do, but he also loved Elijah. Maybe he had loved him for weeks now, he wasn’t sure, but it had taken some girl in a short skirt to make him see it.
The difference was Shane was dead and Elijah was right here.
He ran a finger over the contours of Shane’s face, remembering how each bone and feature had felt for real. He didn’t feel guilty, a little sad as always, but not guilty. Shane would understand and he would want this for Orli. Shane would hate him to always be alone.
A smile crossed his face when he thought about what Shane would have made of Elijah, what he would have said about him. Suddenly Orli had an overwhelming need; he needed to talk to his best friend about Elijah. He needed to talk to Shane.
He put the picture back on the table, angling it and leaving a bedside light on so he could clearly see it, and climbed into bed. He had just started to fall asleep looking up at Shane, when the door opened and Elijah stood, dressed only in a ratty old t-shirt and yellow teddy bear patterned boxers, at the end of the bed.
“I can’t go to sleep. I have to say this first,” Elijah said as though he’d rehearsed it a dozen times. “I do love you, I may be stupid and not know about stuff but I know I love you. You can’t argue with that. When we talk we have to do it with that as a given.”
“I’m not going to argue with you,” Orli said slowly. “I’m sure you think you love me.”
“What the hell does that mean, I ‘think’ I love you? Are you saying I’m too thick to know how I feel?” Elijah hadn’t wanted to get angry but here it was, bubbling up again. “How patronising can you get?”
Orli sat up. “I’m not being patronising, I’m being realistic. Hardly anyone has ever loved you and those that did were only after what they could get, including your mum. You don’t know about love, you know all there is to know about sex and manipulation but nothing about love. You can’t just say you love me.”
“Oh that’s great, isn’t it? I’ve never known love therefore I can’t feel it, so I never get a first time.” Pink fire flared at the top of his cheeks as he stared down, hands on hips, at Orli. “That kinda ruins things for the rest of my life.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic. I’m not saying you’re ruined, you’ll get there. But you admit yourself you don’t know how to get along with people, how to make friends,” Orli was trying hard to be reasonable. “How do you know what you feel for me isn’t just friendship?”
“You arrogant bastard, how dare you tell me what I’m feeling.” Elijah wasn’t being reasonable back.
“I’m only saying you’re learning, that this is all new to you.”
“No,” Elijah stalked back across the room. “You’re just talking a pile of horse shit.” He slammed the door so hard it made Orli’s teeth shake.
An hour later the pounding in Orli’s chest and the questions in his head had just about begun to fade. He figured if he lay very still and thought about cows grazing in a field he might just get to sleep before the birds started to sing.
He didn’t have a chance to prove his theory right before Elijah opened the door again. Orli groaned into the pillow. He wished Elijah would at least knock, rather than just turning up like that.
“So let me get this right, you think I only love you like a friend?”
“You have to admit it’s a possibility,” Orli said, rolling onto his back. “I’m saying, give yourself time to find out.”
Elijah ignored the second part of what Orli had said. “Okay.” He sorted out in his own mind what he wanted to say. “You make me feel safe and cared about, which I know could be down to being friends and the cancer, but I think it says something. I wanna be near you, not just that I like you being around but I truly miss you when you’re not.”
He smiled over at Orli, a warm, silly sort of smile. “I like doing things for you; I make sure there’s enough hot water when you get in, that there’s cold beer in the fridge, that I don’t eat all the chocolate biscuits. Fuck Orli, I’d give you my last Rolo, I even gave up smoking ‘cos you didn’t like it, not that you noticed, and I…”
He looked at Orli’s face. “And apart from the last one, maybe, none of that means anything other than I care about you as a friend, does it?”
“Why do you have to push it?” Orli asked gently. “Why don’t you just see how things go?”
Elijah climbed onto the bed and sat crossed legged in the corner. He was quiet for a long, long time and Orli could see him making a decision.
“When I got the all clear from the cancer I decided to ring my mum. I haven’t had any contact with her since I’ve got here, not a two second phone call or a card or anything.” He twisted round a little, pulling further back from Orli.
“But I figured that if I wasn’t sick anymore she might not… want rid of me so badly. Also, now I’m deformed I might not be such a threat to her with her boyfriends. After all who wants a guy with one ball?”
“You’re not deformed,” Orli said, shocked that he hadn’t known Elijah felt like that.
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” Elijah dismissed it out of hand. “The point is I thought she might let me go back, that we could be a family again. But,” He looked up at Orli, his fingers pulling and twisting at the hairs on his calf. “When it came to it I couldn’t make the call. I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here or anywhere else that you are.”
“Is that because I make you feel safe?” Orli had to ask.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Elijah tilted his head to one side, staring. “I want to be with you more than I ever wanted to be with my mum. She was all I’ve ever had but I want you more. If that doesn’t prove I love you, I don’t know what will.”
“Oh god,” Orli whispered.
“Just… don’t treat me like a child or an idiot. I do know how I feel.”
“I only want what’s best for you,” Orli tried to explain. “I never meant to be insulting.”
“I know,” Elijah nodded. “And I promise I will try and do anything, be anything, you want. I only want you to be happy.”
“Elijah no,” Orli cried. “I don’t want you to ‘be’ anything. I love you just the way you are, for fuck’s sake. Don’t change
“Even with all my faults, with all the hassle that comes with me?”
“Christ, yes.”
“You can accept me as me?”
“Yes.”
“Then accept the fact that I love you.”
For a minute Orli sat there, open mouthed. Elijah had stitched him up but… Elijah loved him.
He pushed back the covers, slipped out of bed and stood up, the cool air making goosebumps rise up on his bare legs. He pulled Elijah up onto his feet in front of him and gently he took each of Elijah’s hands and placed them on his own chest, sighing in pleasure as small fingers twisted into the fabric of his t-shirt.
Orli reached out and let his fingers curl around Elijah’s jaw, letting them ghost over soft skin in a feather light touch, feeling the fragility of the bones underneath. Lifting slightly he tilted Elijah’s head back, pressing with his forefingers on the joint of his jaw, making Elijah’s mouth open.
Then he made the fatal mistake of looking down. Elijah’s eyelashes lay thick and heavy against pale skin, his breath puffed almost imperceptibly between reddened lips, moist as the tip of a rounded pink tongue ghosted over them, the angle of his jaw sharp and cutting, the long white column of his neck inviting.
Orli looked down and fell even further.
So slowly, so carefully he closed the last short distance between them and pressed his lips against Elijah’s. Oh… So soft, like padded cushions at the entrance to paradise. Fucking awful phrase, but that was exactly what it felt like. He let the fingers of one hand drift to the back of Elijah’s skull, searching between the dark strands of hair to map the contours of his skull, the other stayed fixed to his jaw, his thumb travelling over silken skin, as he pushed his tongue forward to take his first taste.
Toothpaste.
Somehow the taste of mint toothpaste penetrated his mind. With all the chaos and turmoil of the evening, Elijah had remembered to clean his teeth. Orli was astonished at how pleased he was. Elijah was taking care of himself and would have healthy teeth and…
He tasted the flavour under the toothpaste. He tasted Elijah and couldn’t help but groan, a small helpless little sound as he tumbled head over heels to fall even deeper.
This is what he wanted; this feeling of… he didn’t quite know what it was. Something he hadn’t felt since Shane. No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t the same as with Shane but it was the same type of feeling and it was something there’d been no trace of with anyone else. And he wanted more, much more. He could become a junkie for this, he wanted….
Right now he wanted more of Elijah.
His hand moved down the back of Elijah’s neck, grazed across hard tendons; so close to the surface, so vulnerable. His fingers rested against the bones of Elijah’s spinal column at the base of his neck. Orli wanted to dig them in deep, feel the give and pull of them, memorise their shape. But he couldn’t hurt Elijah.
Never, ever hurt Elijah.
He let his fingers rest on a rounded shoulder and dared push his tongue a little deeper, his lips a little harder. Not too hard, just enough to feel the fleshiness of Elijah’s lips compressed against his own, just enough to let Elijah know how he felt.
Elijah pulled his mouth away, just a fraction.
Fuck, Orli thought. What had he done wrong?
He’d taken it too fast.
Elijah’s hand went up to the back of Orli’s head, his fingers tangling in deep, pulling. “Come on Orlando, you can do better than that, I just know you can.” He laughed softly, the sound deep and husky, as he pulled Orli in for a much deeper, harder kiss.
Next second Elijah’s tongue was scraping against the back of Orli’s mouth; his knee hooked out around Orli’s thigh as he ground their bodies together. Orli groaned again, a pathetic whimper of a sound, as his cock scraped over the unyielding bulge in Elijah’s boxers and… when did they both get that hard?
Elijah altered the angle of his head, his nose scraping past Orli’s, and licked around the roof of Orli’s mouth as he rolled his hips in tiny circles… his cock slip sliding over and over Orli’s. This time they both groaned, the sound bumping off teeth, falling into mouths.
Elijah pulled back again, just a little, his eyes glinting, his smile wide. “Shit, that’s better,” the words came out on breathy little giggled gasps. “But can we get to the fucking now?”
“What?” Orli felt slightly dazed, like his knees wouldn’t quite hold him upright, like he wasn’t quite sure what was real.
Elijah grabbed Orli’s upper arm and started dragging him towards the bed, kneeling up on it after the couple of short steps needed. “Kissing is good, kissing is very good,” he said trying to pull Orli’s t-shirt up. “But fucking is better. Now it’s time for fucking.”
“No,” Orli took a step back, his hands batting Elijah’s out of the way, as he remembered who he was and, more importantly, who Elijah was.
“No?” Elijah looked confused. “Oh shit, I don’t know what you like, I just kinda assumed, I can top or bottom, I don’t care.” He looked at Orli’s shocked face. “You don’t like fucking? Now that’s a shame but… okay… there’s other stuff we can do. Not as much fun maybe, but I’ll give anything a go. What you got in mind?”
“Nothing. We’re not doing anything Elijah.”
“Nothing?” Elijah looked amazed. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I’m not going to jump straight into bed with you.”
“We can use the floor,” Elijah tried to sound suggestive as he raised an eyebrow and almost winked, changing it at the last second for a quick flash of a smile.
“No. I’m not using you.”
“Why all of a sudden are you using me?” Lust was fast turning to out-and-out confusion.
“You need to think about this, decide if it’s what you really want,” Orli said decisively. “You have to…”
But he wasn’t allowed to finish. “Jesus shit, don’t start this again,” Elijah said reaching out for Orli again. “Orli baby, come on, let’s go to bed.”
Orli took another step back. “No.”
Elijah rubbed at the anger he could feel gathering behind his eyes. “We talked about this already. I love you, you love me, now what’s the bloody problem?” He tried desperately to keep his voice calm.
“You need to separate love from sex. Don’t go to bed with me because you think it’s what I expect.”
“You think I’m doing it because you expect it? How about I bloody well want it?” Elijah said, falling back on the bed.
“But do you want it? Do you really want it or is it just an automatic response?”
“Does this look like an automatic response!” Elijah waved a hand vaguely in the direction of his groin.
“Yes, actually it does,” Orli had moved back almost half way across the room now, his heels catching on the chest of drawers. “You’ve never reacted to me before, I… I’m not even sure if you fancy me. This is just…”
“I don’t fancy you?” Elijah repeated, incredulously. “Now I’ve heard just about everything, of course I fancy you. What kind of sicko do you take me for?”
Orli stayed silent, unable to look at Elijah.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You think this whole thing is me doing my normal thing, out for what I can get,” Elijah said climbing off the bed. “Well fuck you Orli. You’ve got nothing I want, you’ve already said I can stay. What am I supposed to be after?”
“It’s not that,” Orli tried to evade the anger.
“Yes it is, it’s exactly that. You don’t trust me.”
“I do trust you,” Orli cried plaintively. “I’m just not sure if you really do want me.”
“If I want you?” Elijah shook his head, making for the door. “If getting a hard on as soon as you touch me and trying to stick my tongue down your throat isn’t enough to convince you then, let’s face it, nothing I say is going to make any fucking difference.”
He opened the door and stood there for a moment. “I can’t believe I’m doing this again. Thank you Orlando, for bloody well screwing things up again.”
When Elijah slammed the door this time dust fell out of the frame.
+
He didn’t come back for almost another hour.
By this time Orli, surprising himself, was fast asleep. Sleep or no sleep as soon as Elijah pulled the stool up to the bed, dumping the pile of clothes that was on top of it on the floor, and sat down, his body tense, Orli was wide awake.
“I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this,” Elijah started. “I must be out of my tiny mind because you sure as hell are gonna kick me out after this, but…” his eyes flicked quickly to Orli. “If I don’t say this now I never will and ours will be the shortest love affair of all time. I’ll tell you one thing, having the guts to say it must prove I love you.”
“You don’t have to…” Orli started to say softly.
“Oh shut up,” Elijah cut him off. “I do have to say it, you won’t understand unless I do.” He puffed out a long breath. “Okay, here goes. You know the bathroom door doesn’t shut properly anymore?”
“Yeah?” Orli couldn’t think where this was heading.
“Well that’s ‘cos I fixed it so it wouldn’t.”
“What? Why?”
“Here’s the bad bit,” Elijah rushed on, determined to say it before he changed his mind. “So I could watch you get out of the shower all naked and wet.”
“You’ve been spying on me?” Orli’s voice went up at least two octaves.
“Yeah.” The blush was creeping down Elijah’s cheeks to his throat. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve wanked off to the thought of the water running down your arse.”
“Elijah!”
“What?” He tried for a cheeky grin but hit lustful. “You really do have a great arse. That little dimple right below the small of your back has to be perfect for licking.”
“Shut up!” it was Orli’s turn to blush now.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Orli trying to process this new information, Elijah trying not to think about Orli naked and wet.
“You really do wank to the thought of me?”
Elijah nodded, adding a smile at the last second.
“How long you been doing it for?”
Elijah grinned. “Since I could get it up again.”
“Oh…”
“But I used to look before that. I started when I was throwing up, it was a great distraction.”
It was quiet again for a moment. “You’ve a pervert. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Probably,” Elijah agreed. “But a pervert that fancies the arse off you.”
“Shit,” Orli pulled himself up against the headboard, hugging his bare knees to his chest.
“Your cock’s quite nice as well and I like the way you have just the right amount of hair on your arms and at the very bottom of your belly and you have a great chest…”
“Elijah?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Do you realise how many times you’ve told me to shut up tonight?”
“Well, sometimes you need to, to give me a chance to think.”
Elijah shifted back on the stool for a bit, putting his feet up on the bed. “Have you thought now?”
“Yeah.”
“So,” he drew the sound out until it was almost a sentence on its own. “What are we gonna do now?”
“I guess,” Orli held his breath for a long, long moment. “I guess I’d better take the pervert to bed.”
“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Elijah’s face split into the biggest grin ever as he crawled up the bed towards Orli. He stopped, resting his chin on Orli’s bent up knees. “Will there be fucking?”
“Oh I don’t know!” Orli exclaimed with half a laugh. “Can’t you just leave me alone and stop pushing for a bit?”
Elijah cocked his head and thought about it. “Nah, you know I don’t think I can.” He leaned forward and, very deliberately, bit Orli’s bottom lip.
Orli sighed, his hands going up to Elijah’s hair as his mouth was pressed gently open and a warm tongue licked its way inside. It felt so amazingly, so fuckingly… right. He pulled Elijah onto his chest a little more, his knees opening naturally, until Elijah was half lying on him, hands desperately clutching at Orli’s t-shirt.
Elijah tilted his head, his tongue moving deeper, exploring, learning, memorising . The feeling was intoxicating, almost overwhelming and Orli wasn’t quite sure what was happening when Elijah pulled back.
“Take it off,” Elijah panted, little breaths puffing out through red-slicked lips.
“Huh?”
“Take it off, your t-shirt,” Elijah started pulling at it. Frantic hands making a mess of the job. “Take it off. I want to see you.”
Orli felt his cheeks redden at the desperation in Elijah’s voice and the lust in his eyes. He pulled the worn piece of clothing over his head, conscious of his own near nakedness and Elijah’s eyes burning a path back and forth across his skin.
Abruptly Elijah’s hand shot out, fingertips stopping to hover for a second over a nipple, and then he was touching, welts of fire that went straight to Orli’s cock. Elijah seemed to come alive then, frenzied movements as he leaned in to kiss Orli again – hot tongue making Orli press up for more – and just as suddenly to move away again while he pulled his own t-shirt off.
A shared groan of pleasure as naked skin met for the first time, hard nipples rubbing like coarse sand paper over too sensitive skin. Orli’s hands found Elijah’s spine as his mouth was covered again, his fingers against each vertebrae, rubbing and pressing each knobbly bone, holding him tight, pulling him in.
Elijah whimpered softly into Orli’s mouth, hitched up, and suddenly two hard, weeping cocks met. At the first contact Elijah shuddered and his cock slipped over Orli’s, pressing into the side. Neither man was sure who the resulting groan belonged to.
Somehow, from somewhere Elijah found the impetus to move back again. “Take the rest off, I gotta feel you,” as he spoke he pulled at his own boxers, trying to wriggle out of them without losing contact with Orli. “Be even better if you were wet but naked will do… for now.”
His eyes flickered up to Orli, where he was still half-sitting, half-lying against the headboard, not moving. Elijah smiled, his face full of lecherous intent. “Get ‘em off or I’ll do it with my teeth.”
Orli tried desperately not to embarrass himself by whimpering. He didn’t doubt for a second, as he scrambled to get his damp-fronted boxers off, that Elijah could and indeed would do it. Embarrassment wouldn’t even begin to cover it if he came right there and then.
Tugging at them to get them over his foot, Orli was just about to throw his boxers in a corner when Elijah grabbed them. He crushed them into a ball, lifted them to his face and, eyes closed, sniffed them.
“Fuck…” Orli couldn’t help the whimper that went with the word.
Elijah flicked the boxers away and was reaching for Orli’s hip when there was a clattering sound. The boxers had caught on the alarm clock that sat next to the lamp on the bedside table, knocking it to the floor.
Elijah was just about to dismiss it and get on with things when the photograph of Shane on the table caught his eye. He only hesitated for a moment before his hand started to slide up Orli’s inner thigh, but Orli saw it.
“Hold on,” Orli twisted under him. “I’ll put it in the drawer.”
“No,” Elijah said, his hand grabbing onto Orli’s wrist, stopping it. “Leave it. Shane is part of you and he shouldn’t be hidden away.”
“But…”
“But nothing,” Elijah said seriously. “If Shane was half the man you say he was, he’ll be pleased for you.”
Orli pulled Elijah down so they were lying face to face, close but not quite touching, his hand tracing the contours of Elijah’s face. “He’ll be more than pleased, he always said I had great taste. I’ve proved him right again.” He slid in closer, his hand cupping the back of Elijah’s head as his slid his mouth over Elijah’s.
Elijah melted.
There really was no other way to describe it, under Orli’s hands and mouth he seemed to soften, become more malleable, before finally yielding completely. A feeling he had never known before. He’d always, always, always been in control when it came to sex, but now, here with Orli, it was different. It was as if his body had lost its cohesion, was reacting without restraint in a way he hadn’t known he was capable of.
Orli felt each shudder and shiver as long tendoned hands scrabbled at his back, their sole purpose apparently to pull him closer.
And then there was a change, Elijah became more frantic as he pushed Orli over a little, his own body still glued close till he was on top. His hips hitched and bucked, thrusts faltering into Orli’s body, but lacking the final friction needed for release.
Orli tried desperately to suck in some air around Elijah’s mouth as he pushed a hand between their bodies, holding their cocks in a single tight grip. He pulled his head back a little, gulping in oxygen with fluttering staccato breaths, but Elijah mouth simply followed, his tongue pushing deep inside.
No rhythm, no rhythm.
Somewhere at the back of Elijah’s mind a voice was screaming there was no rhythm, this wasn’t right… it wasn’t how it was supposed to be… he wasn’t doing it right… But all he could focus on was the feel of Orli’s body pressed against his, the grip of Orli’s hands on his skin and most of all the way that Orli kissed him.
Elijah felt the white hot heat start at the base of his spine and slam towards his cock. Even if he had wanted it to be different, this was beyond his control. An inevitability that flowed around him, drowning him in its intensity.
Orli’s hand tightened on their cocks, Elijah pushed forward, his mouth smearing over Orli’s, and he came, every fibre of his body shaking with the pull of it.
As the last shudder drifted away Elijah let his face slide into the curve of Orli’s neck, his nose scratching over the stubble on Orli’s Adam’s apple. He should move, he knew he should, but he needed a minute to gather himself.
That had been unlike anything he’d ever known and… so not what he’d planned. He’d wanted to make it so amazingly special for Orli that the man would be hooked for life. Instead he’d…. he looked down. Fuck. Orli had come and Elijah didn’t even know when, he’d been so caught up in himself.
Fuck.
That wasn’t right. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He didn’t do things like that.
He pulled himself up onto his hands and slid a path down Orli’s body, licking at his skin till he got to the puddle of cum. “Sorry, I’ll make sure it’s better next time,”
“Huh?” Orli lifted a dazed head and looked at Elijah.
“I was pretty self-absorbed there, I promise I’ll do better next time.”
Orli’s hand shot out grabbing Elijah’s bicep in a painfully tight grip, stopping him moving. “What the fuck are you talking about? That was perfect, don’t you dare try and say it wasn’t.”
“I know it was good,” Elijah stroked at Orli’s belly. “I’m just saying I can do better. You have a lot to look forward to.”
For a moment the anger that flashed across Orli’s face was so hot Elijah thought he was going to be hit. But then it was gone, and instead he was pulled up and into an enormous hug, Orli’s arms so tight he couldn’t draw breath.
“When are you going to understand,” Orli said, his face buried in Elijah’s hair. “I don’t what you as a trick-performing sex toy, I can buy any whore for that. I want you, for you. Just you.”
“But I…”
“No Elijah,” Orli pulled him up, gripping the side of Elijah’s face with one hand so he had no choice but to look. “I don’t want tricks, I don’t want you….” he searched wildly for the right words, “working on me. You can have everything I’ve got already, there’s no need for you to use all the skills you’ve learned. I don’t want them and you’ll really piss me off if you start doing it.”
The hand still on Elijah’s arm gripped tighter still. “In fact you promise me,” Orli said, his eyes blazing. “No tricks, not with me. Not ever.”
“We can have fun and…”
“No!” Orli clutched both of Elijah’s arms, holding him up, knowing there would be finger shaped bruises on the soft skin the following morning. “You promise me right now or get out of my bed. I won’t kick you out of the flat, I’ll still love you, but I have to be sure I only get the real you. Like the one just now.”
“You liked that?” Elijah was unsure. He could do so much better than that selfish performance.
“That was you, the real you. And that’s the only one I’m going to bed with. Now promise.”
“You sure?”
Orli nodded. “Promise.”
Elijah wasn’t sure but… “I promise.”
Orli let go of Elijah’s arms and he fell back on top, held tight.
Elijah tilted his head back, opened his lips a little and offered himself for the kiss he prayed would come. He wasn’t disappointed. Orli’s lips slid over his and the kiss was slow, wet and tender. Elijah rolled further up onto Orli, angling his head in different ways so that he could enjoy every part of Orli’s mouth. Each time Orli tried to turn his head to kiss the rest of Elijah’s face or his neck, Elijah’s hand came up and turned him back, reaching in for more kisses.
A firm hand stroked across Elijah’s back and he wriggled into the touch, pushing up and encouraging whenever the speed of Orli’s hand slowed. When Orli’s other hand dropped from the back of Elijah’s head to rest on the mattress, Elijah reached out and lifted it to his hip, nudging it into movement with his elbow.
All the time Elijah’s mouth worked on Orli’s.
“You like kissing, don’t you?” Orli laughed gently, their lips barely a millimetre apart.
“We can do something else if you want,” Elijah said quickly, his hand reaching down towards Orli’s groin.
“Oh shut up, there’s nothing wrong with kissing,” Orli laughed again, leaning in for a long liquid kiss before pulling back and licking his lips. “I think it’s nice that you like just kissing and touching so much. I don’t know, it’s not what I expected and… it’s good.”
“Well, I …” Elijah was serious. “I like kissing you.”
“Only me?” Orli smiled.
“Yeah, only you,” Elijah looked away. “No one has ever kissed me like you do; they always did it to get somewhere else. But you… you kiss me like I matter.”
“Christ Elijah,” Orli’s arms tightened around him. “You do matter, you matter to me.”
“And you matter to me,” Elijah pushed himself up, eyes blazing down at Orli. “I don’t want you to ever go out again. You have to stay right here with me so you can’t see anyone else, can’t meet anyone else, can’t fall for anyone else.”
Orli realised with amazement that Elijah actually meant it. How could he be that unconfident about himself? “I couldn’t fall for anyone else, not after you. But,” a horrible thought suddenly struck him. “You can’t go out either, no meeting or falling for anyone else.”
“Deal” Elijah said, eyes wide. “Now kiss me again.”
“I will,” Orli matched deed to words and then pulled back a little. “I’m going to spend hours kissing you but first,” he eased out from under Elijah. “I’m going to clean us both up a bit. Hang on while I get a towel.”
As Orli padded off towards the bathroom Elijah lay back, hands behind his head. He couldn’t believe what had happened tonight, how so much had changed. Everything was different, and all of it was good, but how the hell had it happened? He couldn’t get his mind to process the events, it was too much, way too much… and maybe it would all disappear in a puff of smoke in the morning.
When Orli woke up in the light of day he was bound to change his mind. He’d realise what Elijah was, what a mistake he’d made and go screaming for the hills.
And Elijah would let him. With a sudden jolt he realised just how much he did love Orli. No matter how much he wanted and needed Orli, Elijah wasn’t going to try and hold onto him if it wasn’t what Orli wanted. He loved Orli so much that all he wanted was for him to be happy. If that was with him then that would be… But if it was without him, Elijah would let him go.
He glanced over towards the hall, Orli was still in the bathroom. Elijah rolled over onto his belly and looked up at the picture of Shane.
“I won’t hurt him, I promise. I’ll do everything I can to make sure he’s happy,” he whispered. “He’s a good man and he loves you, I won’t let him forget that, but… we both want the same thing now, you and me. We want Orli to be happy and I swear to you, I’ll do my best to make sure he is.”
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Am melting! Not in the human form anymore, so I can't type no longer............ *Melted*
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Gorgeous chapter. Absolutely gorgeous. There was something innately sad in all of that, though. The way Lij is so... unfamiliar, for want of a better word, with focusing on himself. And when he finally gets around to it, he feels guilty, as if he's done something he shouldn't, and doesn't even stop to think that his pleasure should factor in somewhere. The way he always feels as if he has to be better, has to detach himself from anything he wants or needs. That's no way for him to live. *pouts and paws at the screen*
Mind you, that seems to be in the case of sex exclusively. He sure doesn't stop when it comes to getting the boy, does he? >:D
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I can't belive it's nearly the end of this... sigh...
Thanks for sharing.
Kwin
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Scoops you up and keeps you safe in a big bucket.
{{Hugs}}
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I'm so glad it turned out just as you wanted, I was kinda pleased they got there in the end as well.
:-)
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*passes the hankie*
Thanks a million.
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Thanks for such gorgeous feedback.
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I did cry a little but that might be the red wine talking...
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I hope so too but who knows!!
I'm so glad I got all those emotions going, but it wasn't really me -- it was the guys!
Thanks a million.
:-)
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Thank you so much, I'm really chuffed with that. Now put the glass down carefully before you spill your wine....
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Thank god I got it wrong.
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Not got the Sopranos on - is corking...
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Oh thank you so much for that. I have to say I feel the same. I know I've pushed the fic out quickly because I couldn't see any reason to make people wait, but this is the only chance I'll get to talk about these characters and I love them so much I don't want it to end.
Thanks a million for the feedback
:-)
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"And everything in between"
I really like that!
:-)