Character Bleed Book 3: Steadfast

Chapter 1: Still Day 26-5

Jason decided that Tony was thoroughly terrible, and also a bad dominant. He had a lot of comments, but kept them to himself, because Colby didn’t need to hear that.

Colby raised the one visible eyebrow under rumpled hair-strands. “Your face says you have comments.”

“He’s f*****g terrible and a bad dominant and you deserve better. Why’d you say I could try, if you don’t like it?”

“I trust you not to hurt me. I do like belonging to you. I think perhaps if it’s more about sensation and the weight of your hands and the sort of hot tingling feeling, and if you’re talking to me throughout, I could try to get into that headspace with it. You’ve already made me feel things I didn’t know I could, so I’m willing.”

“Hmm.” He believed that answer: Colby lay there accepting his touch, all malleable and contented and honest, accent blurring at the edges with pleasure. “We can think about it. I don’t need it. I don’t care that much about that one, and I’m not gonna push you.”

“I honestly am willing. I’d tell you if not.”

“I know you would.” Maybe not weeks ago, but now, yeah. He believed that too. He considered the moment and the timing, and added, “If we do, it’ll be closer to what you said. Reminding you that you’re mine, just enough to warm up that pretty ass, my hands on you, me telling you how good you are, taking it for me. And then I’d get you off. By f*****g you. So we can both feel how hot you are, and you’d come like that, just from my c**k inside you.”

Colby’s mouth fell open. Silence emerged.

“All hypothetical,” Jason said, with some smugness. The rain snickered. “Since you’re still recovering.”

“Oh dear God,” Colby managed. “Please say you’re joking about the hypothetical part. I may be even more willing, now…”

“Recovering.”

“Jason!”

“And you need to rest.”

“Stephen would never be this cruel to Will, in our s*x scenes.”

“More,” Jason said. “They totally have fun. Exploring everything. Toys, kinks, scientific discoveries in bed, you name it.”

“Those leather boots,” Colby said. “Cravats as restraints. And I expect Will would approve of rigorous testing of period-appropriate dildos. It’s odd, I do want you, all of me does, but I’m also rather a puddle of liquified sunshine right now, on top of being tired and feeling as if you’ve just turned my personal assumptions upside down and shaken them about, and I want…I don’t know. I honestly don’t. Other than you. I want you to touch me.”

“Liquified sunshine?”

“Like butter, only more celestial?”

“Makes sense.” He ran a hand over Colby’s hip again. Steadied them both for the next question. “I’m here. I’m right here with you. Can I ask you something? About earlier.”

“About…”

“When you…” God. Words. How. “You kind of…you said you couldn’t remember much, for a minute. Kind of a blur. When you thought I’d…um, you weren’t thinking. Panicked. You said.”

“Oh.”

He couldn’t tell what that tone might be. He took a breath and took his heart into the words, inept as they were. “I was thinking about you. And recovery. And—and have you ever…would you…have you thought about…talking to…someone…”

Colby didn’t say anything, but didn’t pull away, either, so that was promising, right? Jason said, “Um,” and trailed off, giving up. He kept the hand on Colby’s hip.

Colby sighed. Shut both eyes, then opened them. “You think I should see a therapist.”

“Not…I mean…I don’t know. I just. I talked to someone, a couple times. After Charlie, um. I needed the help. Coping with it. Being there, not being able to save him…I mean, um, it’s not about me. Right now. About you. Getting better.” Okay, words not going well. He cringed internally. “I didn’t mean it like there’s anything wrong with you! I just wondered if…maybe…it’d help…”

“I’ve thought about it,” Colby said, and that was so far from anything Jason expected that he literally couldn’t react. Colby went on, “I know…I always knew, I think, that some of this wasn’t…good. Some of what—what happened to me—and then how I reacted, how I thought about it and myself…And I know so many people—I’m certain you do as well, in Hollywood—who do see someone. So yes, it’s occurred to me. But…”

Jason waited, and when nothing else emerged, prompted cautiously, “But…? Or don’t tell me. If you don’t want to.”

“But I couldn’t. I knew what my parents would say, and how I’d feel, and it felt like admitting that I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t handle things. But I always can, I’m good at that, I don’t like to bother anyone, and…” Colby sighed again, and shifted more onto one side, or tried to. Jason shook his head, and ran a hand over him, shoulder to thigh; Colby settled back into place. “I know. But I couldn’t face it. You were right. I hide when I’m scared.”

“You do and you don’t,” Jason said. “You help other people instead. I’m not saying you have to talk to anyone, I’m not saying you should, or anything. Just, y’know, it’s an option. I’m here no matter what.”

“I’ll think about it,” Colby said. “I do mean that. More seriously than I have before. I don’t want to scare you the way I did tonight. Or myself, for that matter. I didn’t realize I was still so breakable.”

Jason snorted, mostly because this was ridiculous and a little because it wasn’t, and the part that wasn’t hurt, and he wanted with every piece of his soul to fix it. “You? Come on. You got me into a pool, you got us on camera announcing our love to the world, you even got Leo to behave—”

“I’m afraid that’s an impossible task, and the best option involved redirecting the pranks into presents—”

“—and you write scripts that make the world fall in love. You can do anything, and everybody’d follow you. You’re the best of us.” He clarified hastily, “That doesn’t mean you have to always, y’know, be that. The best. But you’re not breakable. You’re still here and trying. Strong. Um. You know. The opposite of breakable. Is what I mean.”

“So…what you mean is, in fact…unbreakable?”

Jason opened his mouth, saw Colby not bothering to hide the grin, and announced to the ceiling and the storm and his own heart, “Did I say I like you being sarcastic around me? I did, didn’t I…”

“You love me,” Colby said, meekly but without any hesitation at all. “You said so.”

“I do.”

“Jason?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you stay in bed with me tonight? Hold me?”

“Are you sure? I don’t mean I’m doubting you or anything,” he added instantly—he’d done enough of that too—and leaned over to get nose to nose with those blue eyes. “But, um. Large. Weight. Me. Your back.”

Colby deciphered this with the ease of a linguist. “You do cuddle, and I like that. I think I’m healed enough that having you wrapped around me won’t hurt, and I miss you.”

“Um,” Jason said again. “Okay.” No if you’re sure, no questioning that conviction. Colby would tell him if not up to it, and was telling him that this mattered. “I miss you too.”

“Then it’s mutual. May I ask you for one more thing?”

“What can I do?”

“Take off your clothes? Please.”

Jason laughed—Colby was looking at him with kitten-plaintive eyes—and hopped happily off the bed, and yanked at pajama pants. “I can do that. Still not having s*x with you even if you ask.”

“I think,” Colby said, “the weather’s quite good with precisely that, not for s*x, I think, not right now, but you holding me and us being naked, yes.”

“Yeah,” Jason said, “yes, all of that, I love you, yes.”

* * * *

Naked in Jason’s arms, Colby listened to the gossip of the rain, felt the firm lightly-haired press of a leg against his, and left his hand atop Jason’s chest, over Jason’s heart. They’d fallen asleep—or at least Jason had, believing Colby to also be sleeping—gingerly nestled together: not quite spoons, because Jason hadn’t wanted to press up against bruises, but with Colby tucked in along Jason’s side, head on Jason’s shoulder, one massive arm around him. Colby’d set his hand over the rise and fall of Jason’s breathing and the love that beat there; Jason’d folded fingers around his wrist and held him in place.

They’d held each other. Surfacing from whitewater rapids, emerging battered but victorious. Looking toward clearer waters ahead.

Colby had meant to fall asleep, and nearly had. He felt good: comfortable and protected and not in pain, or not much. His back would hurt if poked or twisted wrong, but right this instant that wasn’t an issue.

He’d pressed a kiss to Jason’s shoulder and shut his eyes, and Jason had kissed the top of his head and told him to sleep, to rest, to heal. Colby’d planned to; he’d let himself grow slow and heavy with slumber, all the way down to his toes.

All at once he’d been more awake. Some stray electric bolt, a prickle of thought, a shiver of immanence. Something numinous and self-aware.

He didn’t move. He only lay there feeling, existing, being.

Being himself. In the dark, in a shared bed, with Jason and the rain.

They’d fought. They’d had an actual fight. He’d hurt Jason—unintended, and that didn’t not matter, but wasn’t an excuse. Jason had hurt him in a different way, also unintended: the pain on that side had come out as anger, and Colby’d been so sure that Jason would leave, those old wounds and precedents ripped open and bleeding anew, now that Colby had once again failed, got it all wrong, not said or done the right thing—

But that hadn’t been true either.

Jason had stayed. Jason had apologized. Jason had asked to hold him, fretted about consent, offered care and reassurances. Colby had tried to apologize as well, clumsily. He hadn’t realized how his admission would sound, when Jason had his own metaphorical bruises under that laid-back sunkissed skin. He knew now: he could hurt Jason, because Jason cared so deeply that a hint of lack of trust, of dismissal of equality, could take that huge golden heart apart.

He breathed in and out, carefully, not moving. He had Jason’s heart in his hands, and he wondered at that gift and that power and that responsibility: the honor of it, being loved by this man.

And Jason thought he was a genius. Had said so. Had praised him, with truth in those sincere earth-rich eyes.

Worn out, covered in soothing lotion and emotional bandages, Colby turned a bit more into Jason’s embrace, and thought that perhaps this might be happiness: a sort of plush and hard-won poignant peace, luminous as rain, green and lush as an abandoned battlefield.

Jason had stayed, and Colby had wanted him to, and they were here now. Naked together.

Jason wanted him to see someone. A therapist. Counseling. The suggestion had been given with love, and Jason had meant it when saying he’d stay no matter what. Colby believed that.

He balanced that idea for a while too, contemplating it. To his surprise, the shape of it did not make him feel inadequate; if Jason had seen someone to cope with grief, and if Colby himself actively wanted to work through some of the scars that’d been far too present tonight, then surely that was a good thing. Surely that meant strength, not worthlessness.

He let himself get that far, and he knew that the follow-up thought would be a transformative one, about himself and saying yes to help; he set it aside for the moment, in the tranquil world of shadow and water and hotel-room sheets. He’d get there. No rush. He knew he would, now, and that was enough for this night.