Renovations

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1Two weeks into living with Colby, Jason nearly broke the world in half. By accident. In the shower. With the taste of water and horror on his mouth, his hands.

They’d really been living together longer than that, though in various places. Shared hotel rooms during filming and post-production. An extended vacation in Italy, because Colby’d fallen in love with the beautiful historic seaside chalet they’d borrowed for filming those last happy ending scenes, and they’d spent a few days sleeping in and waking up together and running down steps to glowing blue-green water, hand in hand. Jason’s place in LA, because it was slightly bigger and actually his, versus Colby’s usual temporary rental when out in California.

They’d talked about more. About buying someplace, together.

Jason’s place wasn’t that big, and Colby liked the idea of having a home out there too, a place to settle. He’d mostly been living in London, and he loved that flat, he’d said—the location, the history, the proximity to bookshops and a park and museums—but he wouldn’t mind splitting time between London and Los Angeles. He also knew how much Jason wanted to be near family, both for specific health reasons—Jason’s dad was mostly fine but getting older, which made all those pins and joints and repairs and replacements from that long-ago stunt car crash ache more—and just because Jason’s family was a delight, and Colby said that part with shy happy honesty in those blue eyes.

Jason kissed him for that. And loved him even more, if that was possible. God, Colby was perfect. Good at understanding. Hopeful about their future. Brave enough to believe in that future, to want a family and a home, after everything.

They’d ended up back in London for a while, after Steadfast had wrapped. Colby had some work to do with that children’s literacy foundation he supported, plus there’d been some pick-up shots, some ADR. Some late nights of Colby and Jillian and Andy discussing edits and story and special effects sent over by the digital wizards. Jason came along for those discussions, but stayed mostly quiet, soaking it in.

He’d never been part of a big lavish historical production before. Not exactly his usual. No gunfights or gadgets or explosions.

A lot of love, though. For this history, this story, the man in his arms.

He kissed Colby in the mornings and the evenings, in bed and over coffee. He held Colby’s hand while walking through quiet green parks and historic houses.

He let Colby show him London, in the way that Colby loved London: quirky secondhand bookstores where nobody bothered about celebrity and the Colby Kent name, shops full of mysterious antiques and calligraphy pens, small dense out-of-the-way museums and eighteenth-century astronomical collections, shimmering rain and colorful umbrellas, layers and layers of stories and pasts and futures.

Jason was also adding to the list—mental for now, but he kind of wanted to write some of it down, to make sure he remembered—of everything he’d learned about Colby and s*x. Most things were okay most of the time. Some things never were, like unexpected touches or surprise caresses, or tying Colby up in any way that wouldn’t be escapable if Colby needed to get out. Some things depended on the day and the moment.

They hadn’t ventured into shower s*x yet, oddly enough. They’d shared a shower, but most hotel spaces weren’t big enough for Jason’s shoulders anyway, and his place in LA had kind of a weird bathroom configuration, updated and nice but with an odd L-shape to the shower, and slippery flat tile. He could cuddle Colby under the water and wash Colby’s hair, but he was afraid one or both of them would break an elbow or a leg if they tried anything more athletic.

Colby’s London flat had a decent shower, especially by European standards and—impressively—also by Jason’s standards. Colby had apologized for the size of the place overall, when they’d first arrived; Jason had looked at him and said, wry about it, “You said small.” Colby’s idea of space had, he’d concluded, been unavoidably influenced by that upper-class luxurious upbringing, with multiple households and art collections and honest-to-God staff lurking around to polish silver or whatever they did.

In this particular case, though, most of the space had been conquered by bookshelves. And art, original versions of classic fantasy book-cover paintings and abstract delicate metalwork. And Colby’s kitchen equipment, which spoke volumes to Jason’s soul and childhood memories of taste-testing tomato sauces or almond pastry cream. His mother, with her restaurant, would approve.

“It’s a new bed,” Colby had said during the tour, in the bedroom doorway: leaning a shoulder into Jason’s, for support or maybe simply for contact and connection. “I…after…I did tell you I was the one who threw him out, finally? I did. And then I bought a new bed, because I couldn’t look at the old one any longer, or sleep in it, for that matter. I had, er, a nightmare or two, not that that’s happening much now, not with you, it’s long over, don’t worry. I also bought a new sofa, and new chairs for that dining table. I might’ve gone a bit overboard.”

“No.” Jason reeled him in, gathered him close. “I love that you did. Anything else new you want? Pillows, lamps, a pizza stone? Want to go shopping?”

“Perhaps.” Colby put both arms around Jason’s neck. “We could use another bookshelf. Which of course is the perpetual state of existence, around here. We could put it next to that window, if we scoot the other shelf over a bit. You’re smiling at me.”

“We,” Jason said.

“Well, yes, of course, it’s our flat now…” Colby had been pink-cheeked but earnest about this fact. “Yours and mine. Extremely yours. Like, well, me.”

“God, I love you,” Jason had said, and kissed him.

They’d already had fantastic and mind-blowing s*x, that morning, the day everything went so wrong. Colby lay like a tired sugar-puddle across the bed, surrounded by pale blue sheet-rumples, panting. Jason, having rolled over next to him, ran an appreciative hand over his stomach: Colby in the wake of orgasm was magical, pink and flushed and sticky, a hint of sweat at the edges of out-flung hair.

Jason rubbed a thumb over his left n****e, because it was there and beckoning. “Good?”

“Brilliant.” Colby wriggled happily. “I enjoy you doing that position with me.”

“I enjoy your legs.” He’d had them over his shoulders. “And the rest of you. All of you.”

“I should hope so. Mmm…oh, that felt so nice. So deep. It’s still feeling nice, inside me.”

“And dripping out of you?”

“I meant the whole afterglow part, the way I feel, but yes, that too.” Colby sparkled at him. “I like that feeling, have I mentioned that?”

“Once or twice.” He scooted lower, to kiss Colby’s stomach, to tug Colby’s legs apart and gaze at it all: pinkness, openness, lube, traces of himself. “You like me looking at you.”

“It’s such an odd feeling. It’s like being embarrassed, but in a good way, all fuzzy and tingly. I’m all yours, absolutely filthy with it, completely claimed, so much it’s leaking out of me…oh, drat, now you’ve made me blush.”

“Yeah, but you just said you like it.” He rubbed a thumb across the opening of Colby’s body. “Mine. So good. Shower? Cleaning up? I’ll make waffles. Pumpkin pecan?”

“Thoroughly yes. I’ll do something with eggs and those last tomatoes. We’re not seeing Jill until dinner, so we can be utterly lazy this morning. And then perhaps go for a walk. It might rain.”

Colby said that last bit with hope, glancing toward the window. Clouds clustered obligingly, trying to give those blue eyes their favorite weather. According to Jason’s phone, rain was likely, but later in the day, not yet.

“Sounds good.” He kissed Colby’s knee this time. “Come on, up, and I’ll wash your hair?”

“You like doing that.”

“I like you. Come here.”

In the bathroom, he flipped water on, watched steam emerge over milky white tile and glass. He kept one arm around Colby, getting in: in part for support but mostly because he just enjoyed how that felt. They fit so damn well. So right.

They had from the beginning, since that first day on set, even before they’d admitted it. Since their first kiss, and the first time Colby’d smiled and offered to help Jason with a problem, and every day in between and now and in the years to come.

Colby was smiling now, bright against the shower backdrop. “You look happy.”

“You feel good.” Jason tugged him closer, hands exploring: his waist, his hips, the dip above his ass. “So f*****g gorgeous.”

Colby blushed more.

“You are. I’m allowed to think so.”

“Er…yes, I suppose? I do like knowing that you like this. Me. Naked.”

“You naked is everything I like.” When he ran a hand along Colby’s thigh, he saw Colby’s lips part, soundless; he noticed Colby’s c**k twitch, hanging spent but not completely soft between his legs. “You up for a little more?”

“I…possibly? What’d you have in mind?”

“We could make you feel good some more.” Given this encouragement, he moved the hand to Colby’s shaft, fondling him, caressing him; he felt Colby’s body stir in response. “Ever had s*x in this shower?”

“Well…” Colby hesitated, but his hips shifted as Jason played with him. “Yes, I have…technically…but then you always say I haven’t really properly had s*x, so perhaps not…”

“Want to try it?” He nudged a kiss into the side of Colby’s face, into wet hair; dark silk clung to his mouth, sweet and shower-splashed. “Want me to push you up against that wall and remind you again that you’re here and mine?”

“Yes, I think?” Colby rested both hands on Jason’s shoulders, almost weightlessly. Under falling drops of water and light, he was thin and lovely, pale skin and tumbled hair and big blue eyes framed by clean straight lines of tile. He’d put back on some weight, now that he was remembering to eat, now that they’d begun cooking together; not enough weight, in Jason’s opinion. But some. “I might like that. Being yours…”

“You are.” Jason leaned in closer, found Colby’s right n****e to flick and play with and pinch. “This…and this, down here…so sweet, baby. So good, and all for me.”

Colby shut his eyes for a second, but his c**k got harder in Jason’s hand. Jason grinned. And slid his other hand down between curves, across Colby’s backside. Finding the place that remained open and tender and slick and swollen for him, full of lube and Jason’s come, dripping.

Colby whimpered softly as Jason pressed a finger, two fingers, into him; they went in easily, so easily, but Jason had to check regardless. “Still good? Not hurting you? Stop me if it does.”

“No…” Colby was panting. Water slid through his eyebrow, down his cheek. “Sensitive, a bit…but I like that, I think…it feels like so much…”

“But you like how it feels, don’t you?” He crooked the fingers, searching, finding; Colby gasped, arching against him, now caught between Jason’s large body and the support of the wall. “You like feeling this open, this easy for me…my hand in you, making you come…”

“Jason,” Colby managed, shaking. “Oh, God…yes…I…but it’s so much, it’s too much, I can’t think, I can’t…”

“You can,” Jason murmured, and stroked him deep inside, fingers working, thick and blunt. He should’ve grabbed more lube, but it’d be all right, he thought: Colby enjoyed intensity, and this should still be enough, given that. “You’re allowed to, you can come, I want you to. You want to be good for me, baby, so go on, show me, let me see you come for me.”

Colby gasped, shuddered, and tightened around him, head falling back; his muscles rippled around Jason’s hand. His c**k spurted, weakly: not as much as the first round, but white drops spilled.

“Oh, good boy.” Jason didn’t stop, just kept playing with him, drawing out the sensations. He rocked his own hips, pushing his arousal into Colby’s, letting Colby feel his desire and the weight of his body; he kissed the line of Colby’s throat, bit down lightly, not enough for a lasting mark but enough that it might be pink.