“Mmmmhh,” Simon groaned finally, and slumped against Jack’s chest, shaking.
Jack’s heart pounded beneath his cheek and Jack started petting his hair and his back, his hand finally coming to rest on Simon’s ass, and giving a little push, pressing them together again. Simon felt Jack’s cock twitch and a ghost of pleasure ran through his own.
They lay like that for a minute or two. Jack’s heart rate returned to normal, as did Simon’s breathing. Then Jack slid a hand into his hair.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
Simon nodded. For once, his head was blissfully empty, every habitual inkling blasted away.
“Good.”
They lay for another minute.
“We’re gonna get stuck together,” Jack warned.
But Simon was so comfortable. So comfortable and so very, very peaceful.
“The dogs are gonna try to lick our come,” Jack warned.
At that, Simon sat up, horrified.
Jack half chuckled and half groaned, since Simon sitting up involved a redistribution of the mess between them.
“Okay, okay, don’t do anything drastic,” he muttered.
They eased apart slowly, Simon wiping at their come with his shirt.
Jack caught his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm.
“Hey.” Simon looked at him. There was a softness to his expression—an uncertainty that Simon hadn’t seen before. “Was it okay?”
Simon grinned and rolled his eyes. The notion that Jack might not know how mind-blowing it was for him was laughable.
But Jack’s eyes had a rawness in them that made Simon remember how much it hurt when sincerity was treated as a joke.
Simon cupped Jack’s face, kissed his cheek, and said very seriously and very firmly, “Yes.”
* * *
When Simon got home, someone was breaking things.
At the first crash, he braced for a burglar. But this was Garnet Run so it was more likely to be a moose.
Then he heard the yell. It was indistinct and garbled with pain, but Simon knew. What he didn’t know was whether to give his grandma privacy or go to her. It was something he was never sure of. When he felt at his worst, the idea of someone seeing him was mortifying.
Once, in tenth grade, after Mr. Warner had forced him to the front of biology class to demonstrate removal of the fetal pig’s heart and his hand had shaken so hard as the man barked instructions at him that he’d nearly sliced the pig in half, he’d bolted from the room. A well-meaning classmate had followed him, crashing through the bathroom door just in time to see him puke into the sink. At the sight of her Simon had shut himself in a stall, wishing he were dead. Finally she left, and she never followed him again.
It never helped to be witnessed in the depths.
But with Jack’s scent on his skin and Jack’s taste in his mouth, an unfamiliar image slid into his mind. What if, someday, Jack were the one to find him? The one to witness his body and brain trying to tear each other apart? What if he didn’t run? What if he didn’t cringe? What if Jack just wrapped those strong arms around him and held him as he shook? That wouldn’t feel the same, would it?
Simon nosed into his collar, hunting for one more whiff of Jack, when another crash came from the kitchen. He turned the corner and jumped back as the plate hit the ground inches from his toes.
“Grandma, it’s me,” he said, keeping his voice casual.
“Don’t come in here unless you’re wearing shoes,” she said, voice choked. “There’s...everything’s broken.”
Simon gulped.
Broken crockery littered the floor and a hole was caved into the wall next to the window, flowered wallpaper punched into the drywall.
His grandmother stood outside the entrance to the pantry. For the first time since the funeral, Simon found himself thinking how old she looked. How small.
She’d simply always been there for him. In the usual ways, when he was a child. Birthday presents and hugs and special outings and favorite meals. But it was later that mattered more. When his parents began to realize that their son wasn’t going to be who they wanted him to be. Wasn’t going to act the way they thought he should. When they lost patience with his fear and his pain and began to see them as inconveniences instead of needs. That’s when his grandmother’s open door and open arms, her empathy and her acceptance, her fierce protection, had meant everything to him.
At fifteen, when he’d left his job at the Dairy Queen after three days because they’d forced him to take orders when he’d thought he would only fill them—when his boss had barked at him to Speak up, son, and when Simon couldn’t, let fly unsavory comparisons that Simon wouldn’t repeat—when his father had thrown up his hands in exasperation and asked how the hell Simon thought he’d ever be an independent adult if he couldn’t even keep a job at a fucking Dairy Queen—his grandmother had stood up for him. She’d told his father to back off and she’d told him that it wasn’t being able to ask strangers what kind of ice cream they wanted that made you an adult.