Chapter 5
Looking back, it was perhaps Aberlour’s favourite version of himself.
After returning from his parents’ funerals, the team had taken off.
Carlos had gone to see some family in Mexico, Marcus had gone to meet his new in-laws, and Dave was driving to New York to spend time with his wife’s family.
JD had offered to hang around, but then Caroline—the brunette he'd met in a bar—had called him up and he’d been on the first plane out.
That had left him and Oli hanging out alone on base.
Aberlour had told Oli to go home several times, but he’d consistently refused and stood his ground.
He wouldn’t leave Aberlour alone during the holidays.
Besides, Oliver didn’t want to go home. He was killing two birds with one stone. At least, that’s what he’d told Aberlour to shut him up.
With that matter resolved, they’d moved on to debating what to do with all that free time.
They’d finally settled on heading to the beach for a day, and had taken Aberlour’s truck, neither of them bothering to check the weather beforehand.
Of course, by the time they got there, a cold December wind brought clouds and pouring rain.
With hitting the beach no longer an option, they’d found a nice, local bar to spend the afternoon and evening, shooting pool, drinking pitchers of beer, and keeping up a running commentary on football games.
Now, they were both completely hammered.
More than they’d been in a long time. Fortunately, there was a motel across the street, so they’d gotten a room for the night, unable and unwilling to drive the hour back to Oli’s place.
The girl at the front desk had looked them up and down, unimpressed, but slightly amused by their drunken nonsense as she handed over their key cards.
So yeah. They were pissed out of their minds. They were ecstatic and happy. They were Oli and Aberlour, Darling and Dumber. They were everything Aberlour had ever wanted.
Oli opened the door, pushing much too hard on it, making it slam hard against the wall. With the lateness of the hour, their neighbours were sure to complain about the racket, but neither of them really gave a shit.
Aberlour hopped to get his boots off, then pushed his pants down. He pulled his shirt over his head, struggling for a moment when he got tangled in the material. Finally, he pulled it off and tossed it to the floor next to his pants.
“Master Sergeant Myers would have your head,” Oli commented as he sidestepped Aberlour’s jumbled pile. He’d made a neater pile on the room desk. Not folded to Marine standards, but certainly less disgraceful.
“Master Sergeant Myers can suck my head,” Aberlour said, crashing onto the bed, gracelessly. The frame rattled and the headboard knocked against the wall. The neighbours would definitely have their heads.
“I guess, if you’re into that sort of thing,” Oli chuckled, right before he hiccupped. He dropped onto the bed next to Abe. Crossing his arms behind his head, he looked up at the ceiling, humming something beneath his breath.
“Getting my dick sucked? Sure am!” Aberlour replied, he turned his head to the right so he could watch Oliver.
His dirty blond hair was in complete disarray.
It was getting too long again. He’d get yelled at when they had their next morning PT formation, but Oliver didn’t give two shits. He liked his hair long.
Aberlour kind of liked it long, too.
“Even by Master Sergeant Myers?”
“Mouth’s a mouth,” Aberlour replied with a cluck of his tongue.
Oliver chuckled but didn’t sound convinced. Then he said, “I fucked a dude once.”
That was not where Aberlour had intended this conversation to go. It hadn’t even crossed his mind to ask Oliver such a thing. But this totally out of nowhere confession had been handed to him on a silver platter.
Aberlour gave a surprised snort.
“Did you like it?” Aberlour asked his best and oldest friend.
“Yes.”
It was oddly simple as far as answers went. Did you like fucking a dude? Yes. No hesitation about it. Nothing to do at this point but just keep going, right?
“Just once?” he asked, feeling the heat of curiosity pool in his gut. He was far less lethargic now—fully awake and sobering up fast—at this strangely exhilarating change in their conversation.
Oliver hummed noncommittally, giving Aberlour a funny little smile. Not his usual one. A more bashful kind—accompanied by distinctly rosy cheeks.
“You bastard!” Aberlour accused with a laugh.
Without thinking he reached over and ran his fingers through that overgrown, wheat-coloured fringe, twirling it around aimlessly.
“Not just pub girls that aren’t good enough for you, huh?
” Aberlour laughed, his other hand resting an inch from Oli’s shoulder, the tips of his fingers achingly close to all that pale, smooth skin.
“Not really into them,” Oli admitted.
Six years. Aberlour had known Oliver for six years, yet this was the first time Aberlour was hearing about this. They were best friends, weren’t they? Why the fuck did it take six years for Oliver to admit that?
“Definitely explains your lack of game,” he muttered, face halfway buried in the pillow.
Oliver gave a chuckle, but his entire body seemed riddled with tension. Aberlour ran a delicate thumb over the bare skin of his arm.
“You afraid I’m gonna punch you for liking dick, Darling?”
Oliver looked over at him. He’d hoped to see humour in his eyes—or relief. But he saw neither of those. Instead, there was fear. Genuine fear.
“No—” he answered, shaking his head. He swallowed once, tension rising again. “I was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same.”
Gavin Aberlour was an absolutely stellar marksman.
He could shoot anything, from any distance, without ever missing.
He’d built his entire military career on the steadiness of his aim, the unshakeable accuracy of his hits.
He never, ever missed. Yet right then, had he been asked to shoot, throw, or aim anything, all of them would have missed.
For the first time in his entire life, he felt unsteady.
Rattled. Profoundly so, by the words of his best friend, because, for the longest minute of his life he wasn’t sure what he needed to say in response.
Aberlour broke it down objectively while lost in that intimately familiar blue gaze.
Oliver. Oliver fucking Darling. The charming motherfucker who led Team Specter by Abe’s side.
With his unruly hair, his bright eyes, his charming personality.
Oliver fucking Darling who was everything Aberlour had ever needed and craved.
Who was the only one Aberlour ever turned to, needed, or wanted around.
The first and perhaps only person who’d ever really seen Aberlour clearly, not for his capabilities, but for who he truly was.
Oliver fucking Darling, who now stared at him, waiting to know whether Aberlour felt the same way he did.
And God, it was such a stupid fucking statement. Aberlour struggled to form a reply.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same.”
As if there was an emotion Aberlour didn’t feel when it came to Oliver. As if there was anything Aberlour wouldn’t give him. As if—as if Aberlour could ever turn him away when Oli so earnestly trusted him with everything he was.
Aberlour didn’t have the words to aptly describe his epiphany, so he didn’t bother replying verbally. Instead, he reached for Oli, piss drunk, half naked in a hotel room. He reached for Oli with a drunken smile, but the wisdom of a sober man.
He hesitated only for a moment—and only in case Oli might want to pull away. But as their gazes met, and Oliver licked his lips in nervous excitement, that sliver of doubt dissipated and was replaced by renewed certainty.
There was no odd moment, no pause, no what ifs, as his lips met Oli’s.
They felt soft, and gentle, and as familiar as only home could feel.
Abe’s head swam with the reality of the moment—overwhelmed at once by the intensity of the emotion, and the dumbfounding simplicity of it all.
They came together like they always did.
Their bodies melting against one another until neither knew where the other began or ended.
It was too much, and never enough, and soon, Aberlour found himself reaching for Oli.
His large, calloused hands, gently running over the body he knew so well, yet had never explored before.
He worshiped him as best as he could, tracing every scar, learning every curve, and losing himself completely to his moans and pleas.
He pulled away only once, as Oliver leaned back in the bed, hitching himself up to catch his breath.
His lips, bruised and swollen from the intensity of Abe’s kisses, were parted as he took several ragged breaths.
Messy hair, chest covered in stubble burns and traces of Aberlour’s hands, he looked otherworldly.
A piece of art Aberlour was surely unworthy of ever possessing.
Never intending to be labeled a martyr, Aberlour planned to claim him as his very own.
Reaching for Oliver once more, he let his hands roam freely.
Allowing them to dig and test the pliable flesh, listening to Oli panting, letting the hesitations and softly whispered moans guide them.
He never doubted it. Never questioned it.
Not even when his hand wrapped around an unfamiliar dick.
Not even when it sat, heavy and full in his hands.
He never hesitated. Never second guessed how natural it felt to have Oli’s hot breath against his ear, begging for more, pleading for Aberlour to keep going. Never to stop. Never to quit.
And then, when it was Oli’s turn to explore the lengths of Aberlour’s body, he never cowered beneath that intense, searching gaze.
He smiled, stretching like a cat in the summer sun, as Oli’s hungry gaze took in every inch of Aberlour.
He chuckled and smiled as his favourite person in the world pulled him apart like no one else had ever done before.
And when Oli’s mouth found his tender erect flesh—it was like swimming for the very first time.
Weightless, unburdened—moved by a freedom and an ecstasy that couldn’t be named.
God.
Aberlour reached for Oli that night, and Oli held on to Aberlour.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same.” The words echoed like a song in his ears as he came—fell apart completely beneath his best friend’s hands.
As if there was a version of Aberlour that wouldn’t tear itself into pieces to belong to Oli.
In the end, they were simply Oliver and Aberlour, Darling and Dumber.
And piss drunk in a hotel room. It felt like forever.