Chapter Four
T he next day is a Tuesday, and Tony has to go to work in the morning.
Daniel checks his work email in bed, a bad habit Tony tries to wean him off whenever he can. These are exceptional circumstances. He announces campus is still shut down until further notice and flops back into the sheets.
Tony brings him tea in bed before he has to go.
He texts Gianna to ask if she’s holding up okay before he leaves because it isn’t one of her workdays, and he might not see her otherwise. But then he finds her sitting in reception when he gets there, rocking Lia in her stroller with one hand while she types with the other.
She looks up briefly when he gets in. “I’m fine, nerd. Stop worrying.”
Suitably rebuffed, Tony spends most of the day buffing. He’s grateful Gianna’s here as it saves him the customer service work, but he’s also not sure he wants to be as alone with his thoughts as he is.
He should be glad she’s doing fine.
It’s weird he isn’t.
Mrs. Cooper’s car has never looked so good.
He clocks out at five on the dot, stops for gas and groceries, and heads to Rhinebeck again.
Daniel and Colette are already halfway through a bottle of wine when he gets there.
“Do you want help?” Daniel calls as Tony brings the food to the kitchen and starts unpacking.
“That’s okay,” Tony answers. “Salad all right?”
“Please. You’re a miracle.”
Rolling his eyes at nothing, Tony starts on dinner. He cooks on Tuesdays, although he’d probably have volunteered today anyway, with the day Daniel’s had. Distantly, he hears chair legs scrape and Daniel’s voice moving farther away as he talks on the phone. Tony’s in the process of chopping a bell pepper when Colette comes in with her wine glass, pulls all her rings off, and sets them next to the sink before washing her hands and grabbing a cutting board.
He offers her a cucumber. “You holding up okay?”
“Not really.”
Tony blinks in shock. He expected a sarcastic brush-off, not honesty. He’s still working out how to reply, if at all, when Colette continues.
“One of my advisees asked to meet today. A film student. He was…in shock, I suppose.”
“This is one of the summer school kids?”
“Yes.” Colette sighs, pausing on the cucumber. Her grip on the knife is tight. “Maybe I should have directed him to his actual faculty advisor now summer school is over.”
“He came to you. He must have needed your support.”
“That’s just it. I have no idea how to give nonacademic support.”
Tony studies the back of her head, the elegant line of her neck, newly revealed by the haircut. She doesn’t come across as a warm or extroverted person, but he’s never thought of her as in any way socially inept or distanced. On the contrary, he envies her poise and dignity. “I don’t think that’s true.”
The knife thuds against the cutting board as she resumes chopping. “Sean—the student—he’s only ever come to me for class-related issues. Today, he told me his girlfriend found Professor Lawrence, and he was worried about her mental health.”
“Oh, shit, Lily’s boyfriend?”
“Lily?”
“Lily, you know, from, uh, last year?”
“Ah.” Colette dumps her cucumber in the salad bowl and starts on the tomatoes with perhaps more vigor than necessary. “Yes. Well, I suppose concern about her mental health is warranted. And his.”
“How did he seem?”
“Confused. Frustrated. Scared. Very young.”
“It’s good you were there for him.”
“But I wasn’t! I don’t know how to be. It’s not like this where I’m from.”
Colette’s English is fluent enough that Tony barely notices her accent most of the time. Occasionally around a particularly sharp word, her voice seems to automatically soften, but otherwise, she could pass as American. She rarely talks about France, only about all the issues in America, and Daniel only ever mentions it to tease her for how French she is.
“It’s better there, huh?”
Her laugh, when it comes, is humorless. “Some things yes, some things no.”
“What things?”
“Well, health care. Worker’s rights. Public transportation.”
“Right.” Tony remembers, once again, that he’s very lucky he’s employed by his father, who has a vested interest in providing health care and decent hours to his own son.
“But it’s not… It’s different. People talk more here. About everything, even the difficult things.”
“Like what?”
“Race. It’s a more open debate here. My sister called last week. She’s been asked to conform to a more professional hairstyle at the firm she works in. Not in a way anyone could sue for, but the implication is clear. Here, that would be cause for debate. In France…”
Again, Tony studies Colette’s profile. “The change in hairstyle wasn’t just an adventure?”
“Not exactly.”
He lets that percolate a while, but he can’t help pushing. “So, all the advising stuff…”
“Is not a professor’s job in Europe.” Colette speaks evenly and slices the tomatoes precisely, regardless of the fact that it’s essentially her only skill in the kitchen. “There’s no such thing as a faculty advisor in a French university. At least, there wasn’t in mine. If you’re overwhelmed, or anxious, or struggling, you don’t talk to your professors.”
“Who do you talk to?”
“Friends. Family. A professional if you can find one.”
“Who did you talk to?”
“I didn’t.”
Not for the first time in the last few days, Tony remembers the comforting darkness in Daniel’s car while he tried to put into words the things he’d never had cause to say out loud before. How nice it was that he was driving so his hands and feet and eyes were all busy. How vulnerable and bruised he felt afterward, and how safe in Daniel’s bed. In Daniel’s arms. “Sometimes it feels easier, not talking about things,” he offers. “Safer.”
“Yes.”
He pretends not to notice how she wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Going to university… My siblings all went before me, but for safe subjects, medicine or law. I was taking a risk, and I couldn’t fail. It was my first time away from my family, and I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting into with studying anthropology, and I didn’t know how to cook anything, and it was very…very…”
“Lonely?”
“I suppose. I didn’t want to admit that at the time. I made it work.”
“As far as I can tell, you did a pretty good job of that.”
“I suppose.” Colette smiles over at him. “I don’t enjoy being out of my depth, not then and not now.”
“Well, I’m sure Sean appreciates you making the effort.”
They work at the salad in companionable silence for a while until Daniel wanders in.
“Hey! Why’d you let her help?”
Tony elects not to answer.
Daniel downs the rest of his wine, slumping heavily into one of the bar stools at his tiny kitchen island. “That was Fatou Nchama asking for a letter of recommendation for an application at CUNY.”
“Not Fatou,” Colette says. “I love her.”
“I know. She’s great, everyone loves her. She doesn’t love the idea of being stabbed though.” He lets his forehead lower to the flat surface of the counter and rests there, spine curved much too far to be comfortable.
Colette catches Tony’s eye with a rueful twist of her lips. “Daniel’s talked to three different junior professors today. All of them are considering looking for different jobs.”
Tony’s never gone job hunting a day in his life, but if violent crime were a frequent occurrence at Angel Automotive—yeah, he’d consider it.
When he says as much, Colette sniffs disdainfully. “A sign of a weak constitution, to run at the first indication of trouble.”
“There’s running, and then there’s two professors down in less than a year,” Tony points out. “Any news on what happened?”
Reluctantly, Daniel straightens. “Not much. Amelia—Professor Lawrence—usually kept her office unlocked. We don’t know who might have done it or why. It’s…I can barely believe it happened.”
“It was broad daylight,” Colette chimes in. “She was found in the middle of the afternoon. Only in America.”
Daniel winces visibly.
“It’s true.” Colette sets her wine glass down, presumably to gesture more emphatically. “This is the least civilized country in the world, people here persist in acting as if these things are unpreventable.”
“Okay, I see your point. But isn’t that more about gun violence?” Daniel props his elbows up on the counter, ready to start a discussion.
“Violence is violence. If it weren’t so normalized here, if there weren’t school shootings every other day, do you think someone would simply walk into a professor’s office and…and…” Colette breaks off and takes a big gulp of wine.
After a long moment, Tony asks, “So this wouldn’t have happened in France, huh?”
“Who knows.” Colette sets her glass down and returns to cutting tomatoes. “But the chance at safety is certainly a good reason to move back.”
“Move back?” This is the first Tony’s heard about her considering it, and given everything she just said, it’s a little shocking.
Colette shrugs helplessly. “There are universities in Europe, as well. Some of them have tenure.”
“Thought it was the sign of a weak constitution,” Daniel snaps. “Running away.”
“Daniel…” Colette doesn’t add anything, but the way she looks down at the table reveals they’ve talked about this before. Maybe she told Tony about her sister and about Sean to contextualize what Daniel must view as a betrayal; maybe she’s still protecting herself, trying to get Tony on her side. Daniel can be a little intense when he’s worried about something.
The only thing Tony can think to do is change the subject. “So, stabbed in her office. Who would be that…” Tony trails off. He wants to say “nuts,” but given last year’s events from Lily’s mental health crisis to Stacy Allan and the student she was manipulating, he feels it would be insensitive. Instead of finishing the sentence, he turns to the fridge to get out the mustard for the salad dressing. Daniel knows what he means.
The bar stool creaks as Daniel shifts on it. “We don’t know yet. It’s not like Lobell is on the cutthroat edge of academic intrigue or something. There isn’t even much infighting in the faculty.”
“She’s in psychology, right?” Tony asks as if he doesn’t know.
“Yes.” Colette dumps the tomatoes, now much smaller than Tony would have bothered dicing them, into the salad bowl. “Something to do with zebrafish and their egg sacs. She told me all about it once at an interminable mixer, and I forgot everything she told me.”
“Behavioral psychology,” Daniel adds.
Tony raises an eyebrow as he shakes the salad dressing. He should ask Gianna more about her studies. Based on today, she would only give him one-word answers, but he wants to know what zebrafish have to do with psychology.
Daniel shrugs. “That’s all I know.”
With the salad ready, Tony slides the fresh loaf of bread from the bakery across the street out of its paper bag and slices it. “And it’s not…the way it was last year?”
Neither of them answers him.
“I mean.” He looks down at the cutting board. “There are no…students involved?”
“Not unless one did it,” Colette says grimly.
Tony swallows.
“We’re not going there.” Daniel’s voice is tight and harsh. “You know where that got us.”
“Will you ever stop blaming me for Andrew Clayfield?” It sounds conversational, but the hunched line of Colette’s shoulders tells Tony it’s anything but.
Daniel rolls his eyes. “I don’t blame you.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, really, Colette. I just wish…” Daniel doesn’t need to finish. Halfway through the summer, news reached the faculty email server about Andrew Clayfield, whom both Daniel and Colette had suspected of committing Mario’s murder last year. He never recovered from the psychosis Stacy Allan’s relentless manipulation caused and committed suicide in the allegedly secure facility he was being treated in.
Daniel took it hard, though he rarely talks about it.
“We don’t know anything yet,” Daniel says. “Not even if she’s going to be okay. Is Gianna? Okay, I mean.”
The cupboard door slams louder than Tony intended when he shuts it with his elbow after getting out the plates. “She says she is. Dinner?”
They eat on the couch. Daniel doesn’t have a proper table to sit at, and the kitchen island only seats two. The silence feels fraught to Tony. Usually, they talk about their days, play worst customer versus worst student question of the day. Today, there isn’t anything to talk about. Or maybe there would be if Daniel weren’t running on anxiety and Colette weren’t trying to undo years of staunch independence, and Tony had any fucking clue what he could possibly say to make any of this better.
Tony turns on the TV and sets it to Spotify to protect himself from the noise in his own head. He picks one of the premade playlists at random and lets the twangy acoustic guitar from one of Daniel’s favorite bands fill the silence.
They finish eating to the dulcet sounds of whatever the algorithm decided Daniel wants to listen to this week. When Colette’s phone starts buzzing, breaking the conversational lull, Tony breathes out in relief. She glances at it and sets it to speakerphone with a wry smile.
“I’m not coming to New York to bail anyone out this time,” Jeff’s tinny voice warns.
Colette makes a face at the phone. “You didn’t bail me out. You thought I was guilty.”
“The evidence was compelling.” Without so much as seeing his face, Tony can hear how prim he sounds.
“No one is getting arrested this time.” On the couch between them, Daniel’s hand balls into a fist.
Tony lets his own hand rest next to it, pinky outstretched just enough to reach it.
Of all the parts of last year’s shitshow, Colette’s arrest was the worst for Daniel. He doesn’t dream about getting shot. He doesn’t dream about dangling off the side of a boulder with nothing but Tony’s slipping grip stopping him from plunging into the Hudson a mile below. He doesn’t dream about the fight that nearly stopped him and Tony before they ever started. He doesn’t dream about Stacy Allan, literature professor turned murderess, handing out cookies on this very couch as if she wasn’t the reason Mario Lombardi was dead.
Daniel dreams about Colette, stuck in prison because he couldn’t get her out.
He dreams about the phone call he got about Andrew Clayfield.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Jeff says. “But I have very little faith in you.”
God, Jeff is blunt. Tony likes that about him, though he doesn’t want to admit his grudging respect for Daniel’s ex. He says, “I promise to keep them from breaking and entering into any crime scenes.”
Daniel shoots him a look.
“Will you also not get yourself kidnapped whilst snooping?” Jeff’s voice is so dry it balances out the fact that he uses ‘whilst’ and ‘snooping’ in the same sentence.
Daniel nods vigorously. “What he said.”
“It was barely a kidnapping.” Tony has argued this point before. He’s aware it’s ridiculous and incorrect, but it makes him feel better. “I was only missing for an hour.”
“Some would argue any amount of time missing is too much.” Colette examines her turquoise-painted fingernails studiously.
Short of any other defense, Tony admits, “Some would.”
“Anyway.” Jeff is business-like and firm down the phone line. “I’m going on a two-week retreat to Malta with Tatyana, so please don’t get into trouble.”
“We’ll do our best.” The corners of Daniel’s lips twitch up as they do every time Jeff says anything about Tatyana. Tony doesn’t have any experience with exes, but as far as he’s concerned, it’s both a little weird and a little sweet that Daniel and Jeff are so mutually invested in each other’s relationships. “Have a good time.”
Colette picks up the phone, switches off speaker, and proceeds to ask Jeff a series of increasingly personal questions about his trip and presumably his girlfriend. She stands in the entryway, nearly out of earshot to do it, but it must be serious because she switches to French partway through.
Tony takes her departure as his cue to start cleaning up dinner.
He’s almost through loading the dishwasher when Daniel shows up with the breadbasket.
“And again, you don’t let me help,” Daniel complains.
“Sweetheart, you don’t want to help.” Tony hip checks him a little to the side so he can rinse the worst of the salad bits off the last plate before loading it up. Daniel’s dishwasher is a tragedy, the cheapest model IKEA has on offer. He doesn’t know how to clean the drain out properly by himself, and it’s Tony’s least favorite chore. All the better to avoid the damn thing getting clogged in the first place.
Daniel pouts, arms crossed as Tony finishes up. “I do want to help.”
“If you did, you wouldn’t ask.”
Tony grabs a rag, gets it damp, and heads to the living room to wipe down the coffee table.
Daniel follows, spluttering. “That doesn’t make any sense. If I didn’t want to help, why would I ask?”
“To be polite.” Tony gathers up the crumbs in his cloth. “You want people to say no.” He’s watched Daniel execute this maneuver with his ma over and over again. He offers about three times to be polite, she shoots him down every time to be polite back, and Daniel never even has to get up off his chair.
In a testament to how far gone Tony is he thinks it’s kind of cute how transparently Daniel has no real interest in helping around the house. He’ll do it if he has to. He makes Tony dinner every other day, and while his apartment does have a sort of standard clutter to it, it’s reasonably clean. But if Daniel has the option, he’d rather not.
Someday, Tony thinks, it might bug him how much Daniel likes to stay put and let himself be served.
That’ll have to be the day he says yes when Daniel asks if he needs help.
Tony tosses the rag into the kitchen sink and laughs when he turns to find Daniel clearly upset, sitting on one of the bar stools and watching Tony clean. “You’ll know when I really need your help, baby.”
Daniel’s mouth shifts downward, a half of a frown. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart. C’mere.”
He holds out his hands. The playlist has switched from Vampire Weekend, a band Tony reluctantly recognizes based entirely on the front man’s vocals to “Twist and Shout.” While Daniel holds strong opinions about Spotify’s algorithmic playlists (he thinks they signal the downfall of the music industry), Tony can’t help but feel smug to hear his own influence on Daniel’s account.
Apparently deciding to let the question of household chores go, Daniel takes Tony’s hands and lets Tony pull him up. He tugs Daniel out to the living room, elbowing the light switch off on the way there so the little side lamp on the bookshelf gives off mood lighting. Tony needs to ask Daniel about that shelf, one Penguin classic away from losing its structural integrity. He has some ideas on how to improve it, but he needs to see if Daniel wants him to fix it or if he’ll let Tony to get a little creative and make it pretty.
“You’re not as cute as you think you are,” Daniel informs him as Tony pulls him close and shimmies his hips and shoulders to the beat.
Tony kisses his cheek. “Lies and slander.”
“Am I interrupting?” Colette asks as she comes back in.
With a grin, Tony turns to her. “No way. Come on and shake it out, baby !” He sings along, gesturing to her.
Tony would bet money she only joins in with no protest because of the amount of wine she and Daniel have drunk. It’s worth it, though. Daniel’s grin goes a little goofy as they dance around the living room. Tony likes him this way, self-consciousness at the door. They should go dancing again sometime, properly. Colette lets herself be spun around by each of them in turn, laughing as they do.
The playlist switches to “A Hard Day’s Night”—apparently, the Beatles kick Tony went on last week has had some rough consequences for the algorithm—and all of them sing along on instinct.
Tony hums along, reaching for Daniel’s hand again. On accident, their eyes catch and lock.
Heat flushes up his neck, and Tony lets Daniel’s hand drop.
Soon after, the playlist opts for a moody indie cover of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and Colette decides to head downstairs for the night. The door closes behind her with a quiet click, and suddenly, Tony finds himself with an armful of professor.
“Hi.” He kisses the tip of Daniel’s nose.
Daniel’s arms snake around his waist. “Hey.”
Not too long ago, kissing was a rare novelty reserved for the few times Tony found someone to meet up with. Now, it’s a regular fixture in his days, and he’s shocked it’s still just as exciting each time it happens, the slide of their lips a little spark in the jumper cables forming Tony’s spine.
He tugs Daniel closer by the hips, tilting his head to the side to deepen the kiss. The wine left a sour note on Daniel’s tongue, but Tony stops noticing it after a moment. Idly, he’s only aware they’re still swaying side to side in the living room to whatever’s playing on the TV, close and tight as they make out like they’re teenagers at a high school dance.
For a second, Tony wonders what how it would have been if he’d gone to school with Daniel, if he’d met someone he wanted to be with that much earlier.
It’s a stupid thought, and the pang it brings with it is forgotten the second Daniel’s hand slips under the hem of Tony’s shirt.
He tugs Daniel backward, opening his eyes as they keep kissing. When his calves hit the couch, Tony lets himself fall onto the cushions, knees at the edge and feet still touching the floor. The springs somewhere under them protest, especially as Daniel follows him down with a surprised gasp.
Daniel catches himself on his wrists, propped up above Tony, splayed out on top of him.
Tony takes shameless advantage and grabs his ass with both hands, tugging them together, hips aligned.
“This is nice,” Daniel mumbles against Tony’s lips.
“Nice, huh?” Tony hitches his hips up, and Daniel groans.
“Maybe a bit more than nice,” Daniel corrects.
“I’ll show you nice.” With the leverage of his one leg propped on the floor, Tony twists, and Daniel rolls off him to the side so Tony can crawl on top of him instead and really make him crazy.
Daniel’s neck isn’t as sensitive as Tony’s, a fact which Daniel takes ruthless and repeated advantage of, but Daniel loves having his nipples played with. Tony unbuttons Daniel’s shirt and, with one thumb and forefinger, pinches at the right one while his mouth descends on the left.
A huff of air escapes Daniel, nothing loud, but it’s the first sign Tony’s going to make him lose his mind tonight. Tony doesn’t know when the idea took root, only that he wants it badly enough he can taste it, Daniel begging for him. The reminder stabilizes him. No matter how at loose ends he feels otherwise, this, right here, him and Daniel? This, he feels good about. This, he feels right about.
Tony sets to it with a purpose, tweaking and tasting at Daniel’s chest until Daniel’s hips are shifting under Tony minutely, and Daniel’s gasps have turned into little, tiny sounds at the back of his throat. When Daniel pulls away, Tony’s beard has left lightly raised red marks all around Daniel’s chest.
“Did I hurt you?” he asks.
“Feels good.” Daniel’s voice has gone soft and deep, and the reverberations of his tone throb in the pit of Tony’s stomach.
With his thumbs, he traces across Daniel’s nipples again and relishes the way Daniel hisses.
“Get your shirt off.” Tony leans back to pull off his own shirt. “And the rest.”
“Bossy,” Daniel says, but he does as Tony asks, pulling off his shirt in half a sit-up before squirming out of his pants and socks.
It’s more cute than sexy, but Tony’s weak either way. He considers, for a moment, getting all the way undressed himself. Playing with Daniel’s chest got him hard, cock pushing up against the fly of his jeans, but it’s nothing urgent. Nothing that can’t wait.
Instead, he pulls the lube out from the drawer in the coffee table.
Daniel’s forehead pinches—he thinks it’s improper to keep the lube there, which Tony thinks is ridiculous. The living room happens to be where they need it most often—and Tony sets about making the expression go away with his mouth on Daniel’s hipbones.
“Ah!” Daniel cries out, a shocked little exhalation. Tony slips one hand between Daniel’s legs, fingertips rubbing soft, barely-there circles into the skin of Daniel’s thighs.
It’s a neat little trick he figured out over the summer when the shop was closed for Ma and Pa’s yearly trip to Florida to visit Aunt Bianca. At the same time, Daniel finally handed in his grant proposal, and they spent half the week naked. With the temperature well into the nineties every day, the AC unit in Daniel’s apartment could only do so much, and spending all afternoon lying around on the couch in various states of undress wasn’t only pleasant, it was necessary. One day, when they’d already fucked once but hadn’t bothered to get up afterward, Tony let his fingertips chase across Daniel’s skin until Daniel grabbed him by the shoulders, eyes wild, pushed him down into the couch and fucked him for a second time that day.
Since then, Tony frequently takes advantage of his sensitivity.
“Fuck, Tony,” Daniel says, legs splaying open as he squirms for more touch. “You know what that does to me.”
“Why do you think I keep doing it, sweetheart?” Tony hides his smile against Daniel’s skin and keeps his touch light.
It doesn’t take much more for Daniel to harden fully, his cock flushed red and pulled tight to his belly. Quick enough that Daniel can’t see it coming, Tony leans in and runs his tongue around the head.
“Fuck!”
Grinning with his mouth around Daniel’s dick is tricky, but Tony gives it the old college try. He swipes his tongue around the head a few more times, tonguing the ridge at the joint of head and shaft. It compels him, the sharp line of it where Daniel’s circumcised and he isn’t, and he spends more time than is kind, teasing.
“Tony,” Daniel whines above him.
“Yeah, baby.” Tony squirts lube onto his fingers and reaches between Daniel’s legs again, this time with a firmer touch.
They might not go any further tonight. Daniel’s strung out and gasping by the time Tony’s got two fingers hooked snug and tight up against his prostate, and he doesn’t always need more than that. Fully hard in his jeans now, Tony is turned on and impatient, and he could just as soon jerk himself off while he takes care of Daniel.
But then, Daniel looks up at him, blue eyes hazy. “Come on, Tony. I want you.”
Tony’s breath catches. His cock throbs.
“Whatever you want.” His voice has gone rough and harsh.
They stopped using condoms a few months ago, and right now, Tony misses the barrier. He needs all the help he can get to hold out. Wrapping a slick hand around himself is an exercise in self-control when he could fuck his fist until he’s coming all over Daniel.
He doesn’t.
He keeps it to a few unsatisfying pulls until he’s sticky-wet with lube and so keyed up it’s hard to remember he’s doing this for Daniel.
“Ready?” he asks.
Daniel nods.
Tony remembers the first time they did this when he’d set himself a challenge to satisfy Daniel as thoroughly as he could because he didn’t have the words to explain that he wanted to see Daniel again, that he wanted to keep seeing him over and over till Daniel was sick of the sight of him. Instead, he tried to show it with his hands and his mouth and his body.
Since then, Tony’s ability to say what he wants has improved. But sometimes, he still feels like this, like his thoughts have gotten so tangled up in his head that it becomes easier to tell Daniel what he wants without talking.
Right now, what Tony wants is to make Daniel feel everything Tony feels for him, wanted and cared for and needed and fucking cherished with nothing more than the touch of his hands and the use of his body.
He starts slow. The couch cushions give under Tony’s knees as he shuffles into place between Daniel’s spread thighs. His hand is still covered in slick, and he can barely get a grip on Daniel’s leg. When Tony starts to sink into Daniel properly, he has to pause to keep himself in check.
Daniel shifts under him. “Tony,” he says, almost a whine.
“Baby.”
Daniel’s about to answer something, but then Tony pushes in the rest of the way and the breath leaves Daniel’s lungs in a rush.
Tony keeps it steady, an even rhythm of push and pull. He’s propped up over Daniel, smearing lube on the couch with one hand, but he doesn’t care. His focus is fully occupied by the way Daniel’s eyes clench shut, how his mouth drops open.
Tony’s thighs ache with the slow movements, his knees and wrists, too, with holding himself up.
He slips up and thrusts hard, once.
Daniel groans, a deep, guttural sound.
Tony does it again, once, and then stills.
Daniel’s eyes blink open. “Tony. Please.”
So, Tony does what Daniel wants, hard and thorough, putting his back into it. The friction on his cock makes him bite his lip to have something painful to concentrate on, or else the feel of Daniel underneath him and all around him will overwhelm him.
Melting into the couch cushions, Daniel luxuriates in it. “Feels good.”
“Yeah.” Tony breathes hard. His pulse throbs in his cock. “So good. Daniel, I—”
“Not yet?” Daniel asks. “Please, Tony, it’s so good. I need—”
Tony stills, balls-deep inside Daniel.
Daniel stares at him for a long moment. “Good,” he says finally. “God, that’s so good, honey. You’re doing so good for me.”
Tony lets his eyes slip shut. He starts moving again, as deep and hard as Daniel wants but slower. Slow enough he can keep it going.
“That’s it,” Daniel hisses. “Like that.”
“I can’t—” Tony shivers all over. “You gotta touch yourself, baby. I can’t reach.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just keep—keep it up. That’s it. You’re fucking perfect—”
Tony has to pause again.
He’s on a fucking hair trigger from all of it, the sound of Daniel’s voice, pleasure thick on his tongue, the way he knows what Tony needs to hear. It’s too much. He needs to get Daniel there.
“Can I—” he starts, but he doesn’t know how to finish it. Words aren’t working right now. Instead, he grabs Daniel’s thighs, presses them toward his chest.
Daniel moves with him, half surprise, half pleasure. Bless the yoga class Colette drags him to every other week because he hooks his heels over Tony’s shoulders, and when Tony moves the next time, he shouts.
“Fuck.” Daniel tips his head back, his neck and chest flushed pink. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Tony, right there.”
Tony can’t hold on for much longer. His cock leaks so much it feels like he’s about to start coming every time he thrusts forward. Daniel’s tighter in this position, slick and hot, and Tony thought it was a turn of phrase, but there are literal stars sparking in the corners of his vision as he grinds his teeth to hold on. Daniel wants right there, and he’ll get right there for as long as Tony can give it.
“I can’t,” Daniel gasps, and “I need.” He gets a hand between them, cupping the head of his cock, and it’s just that, just that little touch. But the next time Tony thrusts in, the orgasm boils over, come spilling thickly out of the red head of his cock all over his stomach and chest.
Tony’s balls ache so much it hurts. “Daniel. Daniel, please, can I—”
“Yes,” Daniel says, “yes, yes, yes—”
Tony’s gone before he can say anything else. The world swirls around him and pleasure shoots up his spine and knocks him nearly senseless as he falls headfirst into orgasm and into Daniel. It lasts so long he thinks he might start crying, his abs crunching tight with it.
“Fuck.” He collapses over Daniel, mouth buried in Daniel’s shoulder.
His mouth is parched dry, and he’s wrung out. Blissed out. Fucked out.
“Wow,” Daniel says.
They separate in clumsy increments. Tony can barely support himself on his wrists anymore. Daniel hisses at the stretch in his thighs when Tony puts them down.
“Here.” Tony grabs his T-shirt off the floor and wipes Daniel’s stomach down with it.
Daniel’s gratifyingly shaky on his feet when he gets up. “We’ll have to clean the couch.”
“I’ll do it.” Tony remembers seeing some fabric cleaner somewhere on the shelf under the kitchen sink. He doubts Daniel would go that far, but a damp towel will not solve this problem satisfactorily.
Daniel gives him a look. “Tomorrow. Come on. I want to shower.”
They don’t talk under the water, leaning into each other’s space as they get clean. Only after Tony has rescued his hair tie from the cat again, when they’ve lain down in bed, front to back facing the wall, and Worf has hopped up and made a space between their legs like a fuzzy paperweight, does Daniel talk.
“Hey,” he says. “I…I don’t wanna push, but if your sister needs someone…”
Tony makes a noncommittal sound. Gianna wouldn’t admit it if she did. “Are you okay about what Colette said? About going back to France?”
Daniel shrugs. Tony feels the movement more than he sees it, cocooned as he is in Daniel’s arms. “She says that, sometimes, when she’s upset. It probably doesn’t mean anything.”
“What if she—”
“She won’t.”
His voice is firm, but Tony’s not convinced. He wonders if he should tell Daniel what he and Colette talked about in the kitchen earlier, how much she’s struggling. He could get them to compare notes on how Lily and Sean are doing, at the very least, which would calm some of Daniel’s nerves about Lily.
Then, Tony remembers the hint of vulnerability Colette let him see and reconsiders. If he shares that with Daniel now, breaks that trust, Daniel will probably want to talk it out with Colette, and Tony can’t see the conversation going any other way than her shutting down entirely.
Daniel bats at Tony’s shoulder until he twists to look at Daniel. “I’m serious though. If Gianna needs someone, or if you need someone, that’s okay.”
Tony swallows against the burning behind his eyes, in his nose.
“You should get to need someone more.”
Daniel’s hand is a warm comfort on his hip, even through the blankets. “It’s not a competition.”
Tony falls asleep before Daniel takes his hand away.