Chapter 43 Jericho
JERICHO
“I’m fucking exhausted,” I exclaim when the last person finally walks out of our house.
I kept reassuring a drunk Hollis that he could come back tomorrow, but every time Connor finally had him haggled and almost to the door, he and Raiden would find a reason for Hollis to stay.
Whether it be Hollis asking for dance lessons, Hollis asking how Raiden does his makeup, or even when Hollis said he wanted to get a piercing to please Connor and asked Raiden if he had any experience with that.
I love my friend to death, but ew, I do not need to know what he and his boyfriend get up to in the bedroom or different ways he can… please… his man.
“How are you exhausted? The night is still young!” Raiden isn’t even drunk, he can’t drink so fresh out of the hospital.
After a while, I noticed him getting tired of standing so I brought a chair for him to sit in.
That didn’t stop him, he still kept getting up and making his rounds to talk to people.
But now that everyone is gone, and I’m halfway dead on my feet, he’s wide awake.
“Come on, Jer! Don’t make me go to bed, it’s my first night of freedom. Let’s do something. Something fun.” Raiden pouts at me, tipping his head back and poking out his bottom lip. The slight scar from his piercing is still there, and my eyes fixate on it.
“Anything fun should be left for tomorrow, when I’m actually lucid,” I retort, grabbing a trash bag from under the counter in the sink to start picking up the pig sty all our friends and family left behind.
I’m not mad they left the mess behind, if anything I encouraged it.
I don’t mind cleaning up after people, because if I would have left it to them they wouldn’t have done it the way I wanted.
“Even after all these years you are still picky about how to clean,” Raiden says, standing behind me as I bend over to pick up some paper towels from the floor.
The mess came from Hollis and Ace attempting to throw sushi rolls in each other's mouths, and when Hollis accidentally hacked on one and spewed rice everywhere, Connor called an end to it. Probably for the best. I don’t plan on seeing the inside of the hospital for a very, very long time.
“Of course I am.”
“It feels like nothing has changed… yet everything has.” When I stand up, Raiden wraps his arms around my middle, clutching me tightly in his hold.
With every one of his exhales, I follow.
Both of us breathing in sync in the comfort of our own house.
Our friends and family sharing in love and laughter.
It’s something I dreamed of, but even in my dreams I didn’t know that it could be this good.
“I know what you mean, tiny dancer.” I turn around in his arms and press a kiss to the crown of his head, letting the strands tickle my nose as I inhale him.
“I love you, Jericho. I swear.” His eyes lift to mine and the light in them has me fighting back a grin as I lean down to brush a kiss across his supple lips. His chapstick is long gone and the only thing left is the taste of him on my lips.
“I love you, Raiden. More than I ever thought possible.” We stand there, holding each other until Raiden starts to get restless, moving around and swaying in my arms. I let him go, but he doesn’t move away and he keeps his arms tightly around my back.
“Do you want to let go?” I ask with a laugh when he still keeps moving.
“Shhh. I’m trying to woo you.” Is his answer and then I realize what he’s doing.
I quickly reach in my back pocket, grabbing my phone out and holding it behind his head as I scroll to find what I’m looking for. When I finally click on it, the soft ballad echoes in the house around us.
“Even after all this time?” His tone is astounded.
But “Tiny Dancer” is our song. It’s what we danced to at Prom, the first time I held him that tightly to me and vowed to never let him go.
It’s the song I played in the car when I finally fully let him back into my life. It’s the song that I named him after.
“Always,” I say softly as we sway to the music, both of us clinging to the other and enjoying the peace of the moment.
After the third repeat of the song, Raiden decides to pull back. He nibbles on his lip, on the same side where his piercing was. He looks beautiful without it, but right now it seems like he’s missing a piece of himself.
What I’m going to suggest is crazy, and probably not my best idea but I’ve never prided myself on being a sane man when it comes to Raiden.
“Maybe we should go get your lip repierced… and I could get a piercing too?” I blame Hollis for putting this dumb idea in my head, but if there’s the possibility that I could heighten Raiden’s pleasure even a smidge more I would be selfish not to do it. It can’t hurt that bad, right?
***
It turns out that it actually can hurt that bad, and while I’m driving home trying not to bend myself over in the fetal position to alleviate the pain, Raiden is having the time of his life admiring his new jewelry in the mirror. He’s oblivious, or maybe ignoring, the pain I’m in.
Getting my leg amputated? Fine. Having to deal with the love of my life being in the hospital? I can get past that. I don’t know if I’ll survive the pain I’m in now.
One piercing wasn’t enough. Noooo. I thought I was a big, bad veteran who could look pain in the face and laugh. And then pain took that as a challenge.
My dick hurts so bad I think it might actually shrivel up and fall off. That’s not out of the realm of possibility right now.
“How cute do you think I look right now?”
I think if I answer I might actually projectile vomit, so instead I stay quiet and keep my gaze narrowed on the road.
“Jer?” Raiden says, his eyes burning into the side of my head.
“Cute, so cute.” The second cute is more like a wheeze when it comes out and my pulse pounds in my dick and a lone tear streaks down my face.
“Oh god, are you okay?” Raiden is finally realizing the state I’m in as we near our house, and with us being so close I figure I can just wait until we get out and I can crawl into bed and hold myself and my dick.
I probably won’t actually hold it, because the amount of pain I’m in will not be eased by me cupping myself.
I park in the driveway and exhale a deep breath, failing to hold in my wince as I unbuckle my seat belt.
“Told you, you should’ve only got one,” Raiden murmurs under his breath when he opens my car door and extends a hand to help me out.
“Not helping,” I say through gritted teeth, but still hold his hand and try not to squeeze too hard when a throb of pain ricochets through me.
“Not trying to,” Raiden remarks happily as he unlocks the door and holds it open for me. It’s his first night in the house, and I was planning on defiling him in every room in the house. Those plans are on hold for at least two to five weeks. Depending on how the piercings heal.
Raiden’s going to take about the same, but since his lip has already been pierced and they went back through the same hole, it won’t be as much of a worry. He decided on a hoop this time, the dainty silver metal cuts across his lip, and if i wasn’t in so much pain it would be a turn on.
I decided to go big or go home. People typically get one or two piercings for the Jacob’s Ladder. I didn’t think it would be that bad, so I decided to do three. That way it’s all done in one go, and I doubt I’ll get another piercing.
Worst mistake ever. And if I wouldn’t have already paid for all of the piercings, after the first one I would have backed out. But then I would have been out two hundred dollars, and I wasn’t about to waste that. I’ve dealt with worse.
At least I thought.
“Quit being a baby, let’s shower and then we can get in bed.”
Bed sounds nice. I’m not sure about a shower, but I know I need one before I crawl under our clean sheets. There’s nothing worse than a dirty body on a clean bed.
“Let me get a couple of tylenol first.” Am I supposed to take tylenol this soon after a piercing? Probably not. Do I care? Definitely the fuck not.
Raiden leads me to sit down on the closed toilet seat while he fetches the medicine from the cabinet.
Filling up a cup of water, he hands me the cup and the pills.
He grabs my crutches to help me after i take my prosthetic off, giving me room to hobble closer to the shower before he turns it on.
Steam starts to billow from the clear glass doors, and I remember to flip on the switch for the floor warmers so when we get out we won’t have to worry about cold feet from the tile.
The shower is the least sexual thing we’ve done, he leaves a small gap of space between his legs and mine from where I’m sitting in my chair.
I don’t even want to think about getting hard right now, but when he starts to wash his own hair, I take over doing it for him, slowly and gently, massaging his scalp and rinsing all the soap.
“Close your eyes, baby,” I tell him, grabbing his face wash and lathering it between my palms. He does as I say, closing his eyes.
He looks fragile, his eyelashes brushing against his cheeks. The delicate skin covering his brown irises is slowly gaining back color, the purple bruising disappearing with every passing day.
I rub the soap into his skin, carefully avoiding his eyes and his mouth. When I’m satisfied, I can’t resist leaning down to kiss his lips.
He’s perfect.
When we’re finally in bed, tucked in with Raiden’s head resting on my chest, I can ignore the pain in my dick for long enough to truly treasure him laying in my arms, feeling the warmth of his body against mine and his heartbeat against my stomach.
He’s restless though, he keeps moving and adjusting, similar to what he was doing in the kitchen earlier when he was trying to woo me. But now the wooing is moot and there’s something else bothering him.
“Are you in pain?” I ask quietly in the darkness of our room, the only light coming in is a small stream from the streetlight outside that barely cuts through the crack in our curtains.
“No,” Raiden answers quickly, but then still keeps shifting uncomfortably.
“What is it then?”
It’s silent and I think he’s not going to answer me, maybe it’s something he wants to deal with on his own, and I respect his boundaries and his independence enough that if that’s what he wants to do, I’ll let him.
But I also want him to know that he doesn't have to confront anything on his own if he doesn’t want to.
“I’m worried…” He trails off and I wait for him to continue.
When he doesn't, I probe further, “About?”
He moves again, this time taking his head off my chest and I feel his absence, the cold sneaking in as quickly as he left and I have to fight myself from dragging him back on top of me. Even though he was well enough to come home, he isn’t back to one hundred percent yet.
“That I’m not enough for you.” It’s so quiet I almost miss it and I stare at him in shock when his words finally process.
I flip on the light, bathing the room in its bright rays and I sit straight up in the bed, letting the blue blankets pool around my waist. Raiden is at the edge, his legs hanging over like he’s preparing to run away.
“Come here,” I demand, reaching for him. He narrowly avoids my hand and I harden my gaze to look at him. He won’t meet my eyes, keeping them focused on his fingers as he picks at his cuticles.
“That night… when I left… I saw you and Liam. The two of you just made sense. He’s calm and collected and has a steady job. He has so much more to offer you than I do. I figured if I took myself out of the equation then you two could be happy together…”
With every syllable he utters my anger grows until I’m a volcano of fury waiting to explode.
“That’s such fucking bullshit!” I exclaim when he doesn’t keep talking.
He opens his mouth to respond but I cut him off, refusing to let him utter a word until I say my piece.
“I chose you, Raiden. You. I don’t give a fuck about anyone else.
You don’t have to offer me anything, who you are is enough.
It has always been enough. I’ve been in love with you since the first day we met, when I saw you spinning in circles in your front yard.
Even when we weren’t together, I never gave anyone else my heart. It has always been reserved for you.
“So get that shit out of your head and come lay down beside me so we can go to sleep. And when we wake up tomorrow, I’m going to show you the surprise I’ve been working on and then I’m going to suck all those bad thoughts out of your head right through your dick, got it?
” My chest is heaving by the time I finish my monologue and Raiden is staring at me wide eyed.
His pupils are dilated and if it wasn’t for the painful pulse in my dick from my new piercings, I would bend him over this bed and spank him until he got it through his thick head that he’s the only one I want.
But that’ll have to wait until I’m healed.
I’m keeping the thought on the back burner though.
“Oh… um–” Raiden stutters, but does as I demanded and comes and lays back down beside me. I flip the light off, and band my arm around him, making sure he doesn’t go anywhere while I’m sleeping.
“I love you…” He says, kissing my chest and nuzzling into the dark hair and slightly tugging on it with his fingers.
“And I love you, no matter what.”
No matter what.