Chapter 16 #2
Malik kisses him deeper. He lets one hand trail down Newt's side, careful of the bruised ribs, tracing the line of him, and his fingers find the waistband of Newt's trousers and he pauses there.
"Can I?" he murmurs, against Newt's mouth.
Newt nods. Quick and breathless.
Malik undoes the button. Draws the zip down slowly.
He eases the trousers down Newt's hips, lifting himself enough to work them free, and Newt helps—kicking at them, graceless, until they are somewhere at the foot of the bed.
Malik hooks his fingers under the waistband of Newt's boxers and tugs them down too, slow, peeling them off his thighs and past his knees, and then Newt is bare under him.
Malik pulls back to look at him.
Newt is flushed from his cheeks to his chest. His hair is spread across the pillow.
His hands have gone still against Malik's shoulders and he is looking up at Malik with an expression that is half want and half something terribly vulnerable, and Malik's chest does that cracking thing again, that fracture down the center, because Newt is bruised and bleeding and naked under him and looking at Malik like Malik is the only safe place left in the world.
Malik lowers himself back down and kisses him.
He kisses Newt's mouth, his jaw, the unhurt side of his throat, and his hand trails down between them.
Down Newt's chest. Down the flat of his belly, past the small freckle above his navel that Malik has noticed, privately, eight or nine times over breakfast. Down through the soft curls below.
He lets his fingers find the wet heat of him, and Newt gasps against his mouth.
"Fuck," Malik murmurs.
He touches him gently. Exploratory. He drags one fingertip along the slick folds of him, learning the shape, and Newt shudders under him. Malik finds the hard peak of his cock and circles it, slow, barely there, and Newt's hips jolt.
He keeps circling, slow and steady, and Newt's slick is coating his fingers, and the smell of him is rising between them—green crushed things and warm honey and the particular musk of want—thick enough to coat the back of Malik's tongue.
Malik drags his wet fingers lower. He circles the tight entrance of him, teasing, not pressing in, and Newt whines against his mouth.
"Please," Newt breathes. "Please—"
Malik presses one finger in. Slow. Just to the first knuckle.
Newt's whole body goes taut. His hands grip Malik's shoulders and his mouth falls open and he makes a sound—a small broken vowel—and Malik holds there, holds there, letting him adjust. Then he presses deeper.
His finger slides in to the second knuckle, and Newt is tight and slick and impossibly warm around him, and Malik has to close his eyes for a moment because the feel of it, the trust of it, is doing something to him he does not have a word for.
He starts to move. A slow in-and-out, shallow, patient. Newt's breathing goes ragged. His hips start to rock, small unconscious motions, chasing the rhythm. Malik adds a second finger—slow, careful—and Newt cries out against his throat.
"Oh—oh, that's—"
"Too much?"
"No—no, don't stop, please don't stop—"
Malik does not stop. He works his two fingers inside Newt, slow and deep, curling them on the inward press, finding the spot along the front wall that makes Newt's back arch off the bed.
He works it in a firm patient circle, and his thumb finds Newt's cock and works that too, and Newt is shaking apart under him, his hands scrabbling at Malik's back, his breath coming in small hitched sobs.
"Malik—Malik, I'm—I'm going to—"
"Yes," Malik says, against his mouth. "Give it to me, love."
Newt comes on his fingers with a long wrecked cry, his body clenching tight around Malik's hand, his hips rocking in helpless unsteady waves. Malik works him through it—slow, slower, gentling—until Newt is limp and trembling and gasping for air.
Malik eases his fingers out. Careful. He presses a kiss to Newt's temple. Another to the corner of his mouth. He stays braced over him, watching Newt's face as it cycles through the aftershocks, and something in Malik's chest is so full it aches.
Newt's eyes flutter open. He is dazed. His hands are still on Malik's shoulders and they are trembling.
"You," Newt starts, and his voice cracks. He swallows. "You haven't—you're still—"
"Not yet." Malik brushes the hair from Newt's forehead. His fingers are still slick. "This isn't about me."
"I want—" Newt's fingers tighten on his shoulders. His eyes are very bright. "Malik. I want you to fuck me."
Malik goes still.
"Newt—"
"Please." Newt's voice is steady now, steadier than Malik has heard it all night. His eyes are wet but clear and he is looking up at Malik with a certainty that Malik can feel through the bond, a warm resolute pulse. "Please. I want you inside me. I've wanted—I've wanted you for so long."
Malik exhales. He presses his forehead to Newt's.
He is still so hard it hurts—has been since Newt said I needed you—and the want in him is vast and patient and the only thing keeping it leashed is the knowledge that Newt has been hit today, that Newt is bruised and split-lipped and has already come once on Malik's hand.
"You're hurt," Malik says.
"I don't care."
"Newt—"
"I don't care. Please. I need—" His breath hitches. "I need you closer. I need you as close as you can get. Please, Malik."
Malik closes his eyes. He cannot say no to this boy. He has never been able to say no to this boy.
"Okay," he whispers. "Okay, love."
He reaches between them again. He works Newt open further, carefully—two fingers, slow, and then three, stretching him gently, patiently, and Newt is rocking back onto his hand and gasping please against his shoulder like he cannot bear to be empty anymore.
Malik kisses his forehead, his temple, the unhurt corner of his mouth.
He takes his time. He will not rush this.
When Newt is ready—loose and slick and trembling—Malik withdraws his fingers.
He undoes his own trousers, shoves them down just far enough, and lines himself up.
The head of his cock presses against the wet ready entrance of Newt's body and he holds there, holding, giving Newt a last chance to say no, a last chance to stop this.
Newt does not stop this. Newt lifts his hips off the mattress and wraps his arms around Malik's neck and breathes please, please, please against his ear.
Malik pushes in.
Slow. Unbearably slow. He goes by the inch, by the half-inch, because Newt is so tight he can feel every tiny flutter of resistance, every catch and release of Newt's body adjusting to him, and he watches Newt's face the whole time.
Newt's mouth has fallen open. His eyes are squeezed shut.
His hands have moved to Malik's back and his fingernails are digging in and Malik does not mind, Malik encourages it, Malik presses his forehead to Newt's and keeps going, keeps going, until he is fully seated and his hips are flush with the backs of Newt's thighs and Newt is shuddering under him in one long uninterrupted wave.
"Oh," Newt breathes. "Oh, oh, oh—"
"There," Malik manages, and his voice is wrecked. "Right there, love. Stay with me."
"You feel—gods, you're so big, Malik–"
"Breathe." He kisses the corner of Newt's mouth. "Just breathe."
Malik holds himself there. He holds himself there for what feels like a long time—long enough that his arms are shaking with the effort of not moving, long enough that he has kissed every available surface of Newt's face just to keep himself occupied—and then Newt's breathing evens out, and Newt's hands loosen against his back, and Newt says, very small, "Okay. "
Malik moves.
He moves carefully. A small slow withdraw and then the slow press back in, and Newt's whole body tenses and then releases and then tenses again, and his hands find their way up into Malik's hair, and Malik sets a rhythm—slow, deep, thorough—and Newt is making sounds beneath him that Malik has never in eight hundred years heard anyone make.
Small hitched broken vowels. Surprised little noises, as though his body keeps discovering new things that it did not know could happen to it.
A long low moan when Malik shifts the angle.
A choked Malik when Malik reaches between them and finds the hard peak of his cock with his thumb and works it in slow wet circles in time with his thrusts.
It is slow and it is loving and Malik has never in his life fucked anyone like this.
He has never wanted to. He has been a creature of technique, of performance, of carefully calibrated pleasure designed to extract the maximum yield—and now he is rocking into this boy with a tenderness that frightens him, and every thrust is less a taking than an offering, and he is watching Newt's face the way one watches a fire one has built in the dark, afraid it will go out.
"Malik—" Newt's voice breaks. His eyes are open now, wet and wide, locked on Malik's face. "Malik, I—"
"Look at me." His thumb traces a slow circle. His hips press deep. "Stay right here."
"Malik, I'm going to come again–"
"Yes." Malik lowers his mouth to Newt's. Kisses him, slow, in time with the roll of his hips. "Yes, come for me, Newt."
Newt comes around him.
Malik feels it first—the rhythmic clench of Newt's body, the tight pulsing grip of it around his cock—and then he hears it, a long wrecked sob against his throat, and Newt's whole body arches up under him, and the bond between them flares open, and the magic that has been building in this room since they walked into it pours through Malik in a clean hot flood.
He can feel it. He can feel every thread of Newt—the fear, the relief, the astonishment, the love, the bright uncomplicated love that Newt has been carrying around for weeks and is now simply offering him like a held-out hand—and Malik's control breaks.
He thrusts into him, once, twice, a third time, and the pleasure rolls up his spine and explodes behind his eyes and he has the presence of mind—barely—to pull out before he comes.
He finishes across Newt's stomach and the insides of Newt's thighs and the jut of his cock and the soft skin above his curls, painting him in it, and Newt makes a small dazed sound and Malik cannot, cannot, cannot catch his breath.
He collapses onto his elbows above Newt. Careful of the ribs. Forehead against Newt's forehead. Both of them breathing.
“Fuck," Malik manages.
"Mm."
"Are you alright?"
"Mm."
Malik huffs a laugh. It is a startled thing. He does not remember the last time he laughed.
"I'll take that as a yes."
"Don't leave."
"I'm not going anywhere."
He isn't. He isn't going anywhere. The words land in his chest the moment he says them and he sits with them, and they do not frighten him the way they should.
He stays there for a long time. Long enough for their breathing to slow.
Long enough for the mess on Newt's stomach to start to cool.
Eventually he rouses himself, just enough to kiss Newt's forehead and murmur stay there, and he slides off the bed and walks naked to the bathroom and wets a cloth and comes back.
He cleans Newt carefully. Every mess of himself he painted across him.
The slick on the insides of his thighs. The drying streak across his hip.
He does it slowly, reverently, and Newt is watching him with his eyes half-closed and his mouth soft, and when Malik is done Newt reaches for him, and Malik drops the cloth and goes.
He climbs back into the bed. He pulls the blanket up over them.
He reaches for Newt and—after a small negotiation of limbs, because Newt is on the wrong side and Malik's arm is under the wrong shoulder and Newt's hair is in his mouth—he curls himself around Newt's smaller body, chest to Newt's back, one arm tucked possessively across his chest, chin resting on top of Newt's head.
He has not done this. He has not ever done this.
He closes his eyes.
After a minute Newt is still tense. After another minute, Newt is still tense.
Malik opens his eyes. His chin is on the crown of Newt's head and he cannot see Newt's face and Newt's hand is resting very carefully on the forearm Malik has wrapped around his chest, too carefully, like Newt is afraid of touching it wrong.
Oh, Malik thinks.
Oh, no.
He has—he has spent the last several weeks teaching Newt, with every exit and every return, with every stranger he brought home perfume from, with every morning silence at the breakfast table, that Newt is not enough for him.
He has spent weeks teaching Newt that, and now they have done this, this thing Malik has never done with anyone, and Newt is lying in his arms waiting to be dismissed.
Malik swallows. It is not a small thing, swallowing his pride. It is not a thing he has practice with. He presses a kiss into Newt's hair.
"What's wrong?" he asks.
Newt's breath hitches. "Nothing."
"Newt."
"Nothing, I just—" Newt stops. Swallows audibly. "Is—is this okay?"
"Is what okay?"
"Me. Being here. Like this. Do you—" His voice goes very small. "Do you want me to leave?"
Something in Malik's chest cracks open. Cleanly. Down the middle. He feels it.
He tightens his arm around Newt's chest. He presses his face into the back of Newt's neck, into the warm familiar smell of his hair, and he breathes in, and he breathes out, and he does not say I am sorry, because he has never in his life apologized to a mortal and he does not know how to start, but what he says is close enough.
"No," Malik whispers, into his hair. "No, Newt. This is perfect. Stay here."
Newt is very still for a second.
And then he exhales. A long slow unwinding breath, and the tension that has been running through his body like a drawn wire goes out of him all at once, and he settles back against Malik's chest like a man coming home, and Malik holds him, and holds him, and does not let go.
After a while he realizes Newt has fallen asleep.
Malik lies awake in the dark, listening to the soft even breathing of the mortal curled against his chest, and understands, with a quiet certainty he does not try to fight, that he is not going to leave this bed tonight, and he is not going to want to leave it any night after.
Tomorrow is the half moon.
He closes his eyes. He tightens his arm around Newt. He thinks, not without a fight, and then he thinks nothing at all for a long time.