Chapter 40 #2
Danny tries to ignore the punch of nerves in his chest, the cliff-dive drop in his stomach.
It’s just adrenaline, he tells himself. It’ll go away soon, like it always does in gymnastics.
He’ll get Sasha comfortable on the bed, lying on his back, a pillow under his hips if he wants; and then they’ll take it nice and slow, with lots of lube and kisses between each finger.
By the time Sasha’s ready, Danny’ll be ready, too.
“Okay.” He takes a deep breath, smiles up at Sasha. “I’ll, uh, I’ll get the stuff.”
He can hear Sasha climbing onto the mattress as he shucks off his sweatpants and grabs everything from the nightstand.
When he turns around, Sasha’s sitting on his heels, arms hanging loosely by his sides; Danny doesn’t think anything of it until he gets on the bed behind him and Sasha starts leaning forward, shifting onto his hands and knees.
“Whoa—hey. Sash.” Danny hooks an arm around his waist, tugging him down again.
“Wait a sec.” Sasha looks over his shoulder, confused, and Danny kisses the curve of his ear.
“We don’t have to rush,” he murmurs, wondering if he’s saying this for Sasha’s benefit or his own.
“And you can be on your back, you don’t have to be on your knees—”
But Sasha’s already shaking his head, and too late, Danny remembers: Right, no eye contact.
He hesitates, because while he doesn’t want Sasha to feel awkward, he really doesn’t want to go in blind on this.
It’s hard enough when Sasha’s so quiet, he almost always has to check for other clues to make sure everything’s okay; but if he can’t even see Sasha’s facial expressions, then how the hell is he going to know if he’s on the right track?
What if Sasha starts wincing and Danny doesn’t realize he’s in pain?
“Are you sure?” he hedges. “It might be easier if—”
Sasha’s immediate nod doesn’t leave any room for interpretation, never mind suggesting another position, and Danny tries not to let his disappointment show.
Tonight’s about Sasha, he reminds himself; he’s not going to ask Sasha to do something that’ll make him uncomfortable just so Danny can feel more confident.
“Okay,” he says, exhaling. “Um, let me put the towel down…”
After some fumbling—Sasha realizing he needs to move, Danny struggling with the last corner of the towel—they get themselves situated, and Sasha goes back on his hands and knees.
And like, Danny is not complaining about the view.
At all. But staring at Sasha’s ass instead of his face, he really wishes it were the other way around.
Focus, buddy. Get the lube.
“You good?” he asks as he flips open the bottle cap, squirts a shitload of the stuff onto his fingers. And then some more, because fuck, he doesn’t know. “Sash?”
“Yes, good.” There’s a borderline impatient note in Sasha’s voice, like maybe he already nodded while Danny was busy with the lube. Or maybe he’s confused about why Danny’s asking when they haven’t even started yet.
“Okay. Um.” Danny braces his clean hand on Sasha’s hip.
He feels like he should be saying something reassuring, but instead he swallows when Sasha widens his stance, spreading himself open for Danny.
Because now he kind of has to deal with the fact that he’s about to put his fingers up another dude’s ass, which, he’s gotta be honest, wasn’t exactly on his bucket list.
Come on, buddy, pull it together. You’ve got this.
“You ready?” he asks, and Sasha nods. “Just… tell me if it hurts, okay?”
Sasha nods again, which is apparently all Danny’s going to get from him.
And that’s… well, that’s Sasha, so Danny knows better than to expect more at this point, but it would be a lot easier if Sasha would say literally anything (like maybe never mind or let’s just cuddle).
Instead, he’s about to have sex with his boyfriend for the first time—or like, the fourth or fifth time, depending on what counts as sex—and all he feels is incredibly fucking alone.
The silence roars in his ears as he takes a moment to steady himself, tentatively circling his finger around Sasha’s entrance.
As he wonders, again, what Sasha had to do earlier in the shower to prepare for this.
As he realizes he’s still fucking stalling and then, very carefully, presses the tip of his finger inside Sasha.
There’s a little resistance at first, Sasha’s body tensing for a split second—and then Danny slides right in, almost knuckle-deep before he can stop to check on Sasha.
“You okay?”
“Yes. Okay,” Sasha replies, like Danny’s only asking if there’s enough chalk on the rings. His breathing hasn’t even changed.
“Should I, uh—do you want me to keep going, or—”
“Yes. Keep going.”
So Danny does, watching his second knuckle slowly disappear into Sasha and telling himself that it’s basically the same as fingering a girl, only, like, in the opposite direction.
And with a prostate somewhere, if he can find it.
And maybe also some other stuff cause of, like, ass, which he’s trying not to think about.
So far, all he can feel is muscle and lube, Sasha warm and slick around him.
He’s expecting to stay here for a while, making sure Sasha’s adjusted before they move onto the next step; but after barely a minute, Sasha says, “You can put another finger.”
“You sure?” Danny asks, surprised. And worried, also, that Sasha might be pushing himself too much too soon. “There’s no—”
“Yes, I am sure.”
Sasha sounds pretty confident, but Danny still hesitates before lubing up his second finger.
This time around, there’s more resistance; it almost feels as if he’s forcing his way in, even though he keeps pausing to ask if Sasha’s okay.
Sasha never says anything other than “yes,” but Danny notices his breathing getting louder, his fingers digging into the comforter.
Which could also mean he’s enjoying it, since those are the same tiny tells that Danny’s learned to rely on when Sasha’s otherwise quiet in bed.
But now he’s second-guessing himself, afraid of mistaking pain for pleasure—because sometimes, in sex, signals like that can go either way.
Or switch from one to the other in less time than it’d take for him to do a flip.
And how’s he going to know if he can’t see Sasha’s face?
“Sash?” He’s slowly moving his fingers in and out, trying to get Sasha used to what it’ll be like later. He has no idea if it’s working; hell, he has no idea what he’s doing. “You okay?”
“Yes.” Sasha lets out a shuddering breath, the sound making Danny nervous.
“Okay, but like, are you sure you’re okay? Cause I can—”
Without warning—Danny actually winces at how fast it happens—Sasha pulls himself off of Danny’s fingers, turns around, and glares at him. “Danny. You ask every ten seconds if I am okay. Yes, I tell you this every time. Please stop asking.”
“I… I’m sorry,” Danny stammers.
He feels like an idiot, kneeling there with a sticky hand he can’t put down, Sasha pissed off at him when all he wanted was to make this good.
And now he won’t even be able to ask how Sasha’s doing, and he already couldn’t see anything, and he doesn’t know how this is going to work and fuck his chest is way too tight.
“Sash…”
“What?” Sasha’s eyebrows slant, annoyance turning to confusion as Danny tries to breathe and get his shit together.
“I can’t… I’m, like, really having a hard time with this,” he admits, the words tumbling out in a rush.
“Like, I can’t see your face, so I can’t tell if you’re, like, actually enjoying this or if you’re in pain or like—I mean, I know you’re quiet and I’m not trying to, like, tell you what to do or anything, but like…
I literally have no idea if you’re okay or not and that’s, like, really freaking me out. ”
A very long silence follows, and even though Danny reminds himself that Sasha probably needs extra time to translate all of that, his stomach still clenches as he waits for a response.
“I don’t know what you want,” Sasha finally says. “You ask if I am okay, I say yes, and then you ask again. Like you don’t believe me.”
“I’m not…” Danny breaks off, biting his lip.
He hadn’t meant to come across that way, but looking back on it, he can see why Sasha’s frustrated.
“Okay, yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. But like…
Sash, I really need you to, like, talk to me?
Or like, give me a thumbs-up or something?
Cause otherwise I’m just, like, doing this stuff and I don’t even know if you like it. ”
“I like it,” Sasha says, a flush creeping over his cheeks.
“You do?”
“Yes. It feels—good.” Sasha’s red as a crab now, looking like he wants nothing more than to pop back into his shell, and Danny could kiss him for trying. Does, in fact, remembering just in time to keep his lubed-up hand out of the way.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I really needed to hear that.”
It gets better, after. When Danny’s working his way back to where they were, one finger at a time, and Sasha’s saying “okay” at fifteen-second intervals, like he’s counting.
When they make it to three fingers and “okay” turns into “good,” Sasha panting every time Danny moves.
When something inside Danny clicks, finally convincing him that he’s not hurting Sasha, that Sasha’s actually really fucking enjoying this, and he doesn’t need to be so worried anymore.
At least until Sasha says, “Danny? I am ready soon.”
And Danny realizes he isn’t hard.
Like, not even a little.
A giant wave of oh, fuck crashes over him as he looks down between his legs, then up at Sasha, who’s slick and open and waiting—no, expecting him to perform.
Because Danny’s never not been ready, never had any problems with this before, and his dick couldn’t have picked a worse time to start slacking on the job.
“Uh… okay,” he says, not panicking. Totally not panicking. “Maybe like… a couple more minutes?”