Fire & Ice (Extended Edition)

Chapter 4

Leander is unsettled. From the moment Tripp stepped out of the playroom, it was obvious that something was off. The change was woven into the way that Tripp carried himself, how he avoided any real eye contact, and the way his answers to questions were short and stiff. It bled from the extra work he poured into trying to appear casual, like his actions were nothing but normal and fine. In and of itself, the way Leander’s garbage-disposal of a friend completely ignored a sandwich was an undeniable, massive red flag .

Having been around this block many, many times before, it all screamed loudly, pointing towards exactly one thing—a thing that normally, Leander would rush to correct. He would never let a sub leave his sight or his presence until he was sure beyond measure that they were not experiencing some form of drop.

With Tripp, though, things are complicated. There are lines in the sand, there are boundaries he has to respect and refrain from crossing, for both of their sakes. And Tripp can be moody. Leander’s been on the receiving end of an unearned tongue-lashing from the man more than once, so he certainly knows that’s true.

Tripp also has moments where he withdraws into himself, where the last thing he wants is for other people to see him, to know that he’s feeling weak or vulnerable. It’s a nuanced situation, an extremely fine line to walk when mixing existing friendship with domination and submission, and Leander only wants to be cautious.

So he hesitates, in a way that he normally never would, never has before when engaging with a submissive. In the end, his play comes down to the way Tripp softens after he pulls on his boots, the manner in which he accepts the house key and pulls Leander into a hug that’s obviously not for Tripp’s own benefit but for his . He seems more like himself in that moment, and Leander’s worries lessen significantly.

If Tripp was dropping, surely he wouldn’t have bothered with such things? Or even been capable of them? No, in Leander’s experience, this is very much a Tripp who is just being Tripp, difficult as that may be for him to personally understand. At the end of the day, Leander is not Tripp’s person. He’s not his partner or boyfriend, and he can’t expect the man to lean on him that way—or even as a friend—if that’s not what Tripp decides that he wants.

This morning, Leander had been overcome with joy and affection for his sub, sparked when he popped into the playroom and saw him sleeping with the collar on. At the time, he only intended to slip quietly in and out, to gather the used equipment and take it to the kitchen for cleaning, just something productive to occupy his hands while sleep eluded his mind.

But seeing Tripp lying there, so beautiful and absent of any stress or worry on his face, just knowing that he chose to fall asleep still marked as Leander’s— it was an offering too alluring to pass up. Tripp’s collar was permission to touch, an outward sign that Tripp was happy with him as a Dom, that he continued to be pleased with what they were doing, and that he wanted more. It thrilled Leander to see, and he truly couldn’t resist the urge to try and show Tripp how much. The kissing and nuzzling at the leather—that was Leander wishing terribly for the words to explain just how much it meant to him that Tripp kept it on.

The collar is their line in the sand, and as much as its presence on his neck is a green light, likewise, it being off is a hard limit. Tripp came out of the playroom this afternoon with his signal light on ‘red’, and that’s a boundary Leander needed to respect.

Which is why he let him go.

It weighs on him, though, after the fact. Enough that Leander is distracted away from going through the motions of cleaning and putting the playroom back together, of restocking the mini-fridge and changing the sheets that still smell like Tripp—not that he stops to shove his face into the wadded up bundle in his arms, because that would be truly pathetic.

Enough that he strips the bed and gets lost on the way to the washer, winding up listlessly slumped on the living room couch, soiled linen piled up next to him, bereft. Without ever really considering why he’s called to do so (or if it’s even a good idea), Leander scrolls his phone contacts for a particular name and selects “Send Message”.

Before he can lose his nerve (or think better of his life choices), Leander fires off a text message and then waits, impatiently tossing his phone from hand to hand. Perhaps this last-ditch effort to cope won’t even reply, or she’ll rightfully tell him to fuck off, or she’ll be busy, or—

Ding.

Autumn: Sure thing, Simba. Meet me at our favorite place in an hour?

The breath Leander sucks in while reading that message is shaky, haggard. He feels worn to the bone and has absolutely no idea why. The last thing he wants to do tonight is dress, leave his home, and interact with other people like a normal, functioning human being. The thought alone has Leander feeling exhausted. Still, he forces himself to reply in the affirmative to Autumn's message and to drag himself up off of the couch. After all, he’s the one who contacted her, and he’s certainly done enough yanking her chain—no pun intended—for one lifetime.

As the water for his shower heats up, Leander contemplates the screen of his phone some more, ultimately shooting a text message over to Tripp before getting in. While he understands that Tripp wants his space and probably isn’t keen on hearing from him so soon, Leander isn’t taking any chances with his evening plans.

The fact is, the emergency services community is small, gossipy, and incestuous. Someone seeing him and Autumn together again in public would rip- whisper through the grapevine, eventually filtering its way back to Tripp. By that time, the story would be distorted and dangerous. There’s nothing to hide here, so Leander should act accordingly and get ahead of it.

Unfortunately, his texting skills leave something to be desired, and Leander’s roundabout way of trying to start a casual conversation with Tripp goes completely unaddressed. Either Tripp isn’t paying attention to his notifications, or he’s not impressed. As the bathroom becomes increasingly steamy, Leander shucks his clothing and stands in front of the mirror, naked and frowning at the string of one-sided messages filling his screen.

Frustrated, he sets the phone down and glances up, blue eyes meeting their reflections in the mirror. He looks even more tired and sad than he feels.

Leander allows his gaze to drift, scanning the length of his own body and noting with some disappointment that there isn’t a single bruise or scratch mark on him. No indentations from Tripp’s teeth or fingernails, no physical sign of anything that happened, some token Leander could look at and relish knowing that it was the equivalent of body graffiti proclaiming: Tripp was here.

Almost incidentally, that thought drags his focus back to Tripp himself. Scrutinizing his own unmarked skin, Leander abruptly recalls the line of bruises marking the side of Tripp’s neck from what was perhaps an overzealous reaction to discovering that his collar was left on overnight. In turn, he’s reminded of the exchange he had with Beau earlier, shared when the younger Truett texted about tuxedo fittings and bachelor party plans. It was a conversation Leander was wholly intending on relaying to Tripp over lunch so that he’d be aware.

He forgot, plain and simple. Tripp left and Leander was thrown off-kilter, and it fully slipped his mind. Damn, damn, damn.

Hurriedly, Leander snatches up his phone and taps out yet another message in the thread. He details what, exactly, he shared with Beau, and encourages Tripp to keep the bruises hidden with a shirt. Nothing to do after that but pray that his warning comes in time for them to synchronize stories, though a quick glance at the time suggests that he’s probably too late. All he can hope is that Tripp isn’t too pissed, and that his conversation with Beau didn’t inadvertently out their situation to Tripp’s brother (and one of Leander’s best friends).

This whole situation is a lesson in tightrope-walking, that’s for sure.

When Tripp still doesn’t reply, Leander gives up on trying to be either socially savvy or diplomatic, explaining plainly over the course of several additional texts about his plans with Autumn. The two of them hanging out shouldn’t bother Tripp, anyway, since they’ve had several very frank conversations about her, stretching all the way back to when she was still Leander’s sub. Tripp certainly knows that their relationship is long dead and buried, with no chance of resurrection in this lifetime.

In that same vein, Leander feels sure that Tripp couldn’t possibly be suffering any delusions that there might be something left between him and Autumn besides friendship—and a tentative one at that—not after the way things ended, and moreso, the reason why . He’s probably overthinking this, but better safe than sorry.

With a disappointed shake of his head, Leander puts his phone down and steps into the shower. He’s resigned to the fact that Tripp isn’t going to answer him tonight, but understandably uneasy and wishing that he would. If what Tripp needs is space, though, Leander will give him it. He’s already pushing the limits Tripp has set with all of this texting, so the least he can do is wait to contact him again until the man decides that he’s ready to reciprocate.

The ball is in your court, Tripp, Leander thinks to himself, blinking against the water as he wets his hair and soaps himself up into a lather. He tries his best not to worry that Tripp has simply taken his ball and gone home.

After an extended, thirty-minute affair in the shower where Leander mostly stands and stares blankly at the white tile wall, he steps out and shaves off the last two days’ stubble. Freshly smooth, he wrangles his hair into something semi-styled and presentable before spritzing on some cologne. At least he’ll look and smell decent, even if his attitude and mood don’t match.

It takes longer to pick out an outfit. Leander rejects a lot of his staples because they’re things Autumn has, at one point or another, indicated she enjoyed seeing him wearing. No need to add fuel to the fire or insult to injury—whatever the correct saying there would be, Leander’s too mentally exhausted to unmix his metaphors.

In the end, he chooses something simple: black jeans, black duty boots, a long-sleeve gray Henley, and his trusty black leather jacket. The resulting vibe definitely does match his gloomy disposition, and that gives Leander a perverse satisfaction. The debate between his car and a ride-sharing service takes less than thirty seconds and is a no-brainer, the easiest decision of the night by far— Uber it is . Leander’s going to need a drink or seven for what he’s about to do, and while his car may be a piece of junk (at least according to Tripp), he’s not keen on leaving it overnight and halfway across town when he inevitably can’t drive home.

The city feels stark and bleak tonight, the biting cold that’s settled in over the past twenty-four hours not helping matters in the least. It’s almost too chilly for the outfit Leander has chosen, but when he steps outside to the wind cutting straight through his clothing to his skin, his Uber is already parked and waiting by the curb. Knowing that if he turns around now, he probably won’t be able to force himself to come back, Leander forges on.

“Tempt-Pura?” the driver asks, confirming, and Leander nods.

This particular sushi restaurant is a place that he and Autumn used to frequent on a twice-weekly basis, mostly due to its proximity—close to both her apartment and Leander’s EMS station. Traveling through the city tonight on this once-familiar trek, Leander finds himself melancholy. As they cross into his ambulance’s first due area, the car passes location after location filled with memories of calls and patients past, and he can’t seem to turn off the film reel.

A fire scene, where a former diner suffered a devastating arson event, and the sidewalk outside where Leander spent nearly ten straight hours doing fire rehab. Dead on his feet, cycling equally exhausted firefighters in and out of the blaze, taking vital signs and tending to minor injuries.

There’s the cross-street where Leander responded to his first major pediatric trauma—a six-year-old hit by a car while riding her bike. Patently terrifying, but the child lived, so there’s that. Next is the subsidized housing highrise that towers above them at a stoplight: Leander’s been called here more times than he can count. Multiple elderly men with heart failure, a frequent flyer who goes into diabetic shock on the regular (both high and low blood sugars, she’s not picky), and chronic bronchitis requiring CPAP on the third floor. Down on the first, there’s a vet with a below-knee amputation who’s never learned to use his prosthetic properly—he falls constantly, and often only needs a hand up off of the floor.

So many dwellings and businesses they pass evoke similar memories, both public and private spaces Leander is all too familiar with for all the wrong reasons. He can see the ghosts of the past replaying scenes from his mind like a movie: patients being carried out on stretchers or in stair chairs and in varying states of distress. He can see himself, tending to the wounded and the gravely ill, some of whom will live to see another day because of his interventions, and some who won’t.

Despite the streets being empty and cold, in Leander’s mind, the red lights flicker, casting the nearby buildings in an eerie glow, both a warning and a reminder.

None of this is unfamiliar to him, these ghosts that follow wherever he might go. They’re always there, a few steps behind and lurking in the back of his mind. People he couldn’t fix, patients he worries that he didn’t do enough to save, in one way or another. The ghosts are something Leander’s become accustomed to seeing, something he’s accepted that he’ll always carry with him.

In all fairness, though, normally they don’t weigh quite as heavily on his psyche.

With some effort, by the time his Uber pulls up in front of the restaurant, Leander has managed to effectively push those thoughts aside. Ironically, his work woes aren’t problems he needs to hide from Autumn, either—she’s a nurse over at Central, and she certainly understands. On the other hand, Leander’s professional trauma is not what made him send that text, and it’s definitely not the focus of their meeting tonight.

“We’re here,” the Uber driver snaps impatiently, and only then does Leander realize that they’ve probably been parked for several minutes.

Embarrassed, he mumbles a rushed apology and a thanks. The man just grunts and probably annihilates his star rating for being as anti-social and oblivious as they come, but he can’t do much about that now. Stepping out into the cold, Leander suppresses a shiver and regrets the lack of additional layers between the leather and his bare skin.

The restaurant is fancier than he would have chosen for tonight, and he nearly grimaces at the heaviness of the front doors, the cool sophistication practically emanating from the place. His usual haunts are more, ‘stale beer smell and sticky floors’ (or maybe that’s Tripp’s influence), but this is Autumn's purview. She is doing him a favor, though, so Leander will deal.

The atmosphere inside is subdued: candlelight on the tables as the primary illumination, deep shadows around cozy booths that offer the illusion of privacy. A low, respectful din of patrons socializing politely while eating, and ice clinking in glasses.

To be fair, it’s a relaxing sort of place, and Leander does feel some of the stress sliding off of his shoulders as he moves inside and gives the host Autumn's name. That, or perhaps it’s the nostalgia setting in, triggered by sensory recall tossing him back to all the nights they spent together here in the past. Either way, Leander can admit that Tempt-Pura wasn’t a bad choice for somewhere to meet, to hopefully unpack the particular issues weighing on his mind.

“Right this way,” the hostess tells him with a charming smile, and Leander follows her slim figure, bouncing ponytail, and high-heeled feet as they turn and lead him into the depths of the restaurant. It’s plenty warm in here, so he loses the jacket and drapes it over his arm, ignoring the piqued glances of several women and at least one man as he passes by their tables. Autumn is seated all the way towards the back, at a table that—once upon a time—even Leander might have referred to as “theirs.”

“Simba,” Autumn says warmly, though her grin is smug as she rises from her side of the booth to greet him. “My little ‘Lion Man’.”

“You know that I hate when you call me that.” They watched the stupid Disney movie one time by accident at the beginning of their relationship, and—drunk on endorphins—Leander had casually mentioned the meaning of his name. Autumn has never let him forget it.

“You’ll always be my Lion King, hot stuff.” Somewhat stiffly, Leander allows her to draw him into a hug and to kiss his cheek, because that’s just Autumn’s nature. He’d be shocked if she didn’t invade his space and act overly personal. Even after everything they’ve been through, there’s no changing her, nor would he want to do so. She is unapologetically herself and exactly who she’s always been, and Leander could never fault her for that.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure? And I don’t just mean those kickass arms you have on display, there.”

“Autumn,” Leander replies easily and with a small smile, sliding into the booth across from his old friend and accepting the menu from the hostess. She looks somewhat disappointed by their interactions, and Leander finds that very amusing. If she only but knew.

He watches her go, in some ways almost resentful that he isn’t remotely interested in flirting or taking her on a date—it would be nice to feel ‘normal’ for once, to understand instant attraction, as it were. It must be unspeakably blissful to be able to feel a romantic or sexual spark upon meeting another human being, to not be required to nurture an established connection simply to have enjoyable sex or be comfortable engaging as a Dom. To fall in love, or at least to grow to love someone else in a predictable way…it must be nice.

In an attempt to distract himself from his own thoughts, Leander immediately turns to sipping on the glass of ice water set in front of him, but under Autumn's piercing gaze, he’s a mouse in the tiger cage. Outside of the bedroom, no one ever would have guessed their dynamic, not when they were actively involved with each other and definitely not now.

Back then, Leander got off on it—thought it was hilarious that other people assumed Autumn had him under her thumb, that people thought he was quiet and awkward and mousy. Their friends would joke, and Autumn would smirk, and Leander would shrug and sip his drink knowing that Autumn's provocative hip-sitting was only because she had as-yet unscabbed whip marks on her ass that he personally put there.

Now, raising his eyes to meet Autumn's twinkling brown ones, Leander almost misses when things were as easy as that. He definitely misses the feeling of having the upper hand, the one that comes along with not being the unfortunate dumbass who fell in love with the one person he definitely can’t have.

It wasn’t always so complicated. In fact, scening with Autumn began very similarly to the way he and Tripp have taken up: casual, fun, stress relief, and nothing more. They even met in a similar way, and Leander looks back on those days fondly. Technically, he saw Autumn—many times actually—long before they ever spoke. Autumn was a smoker back then, and took so many breaks it felt like she haunted the security-camera-free hiding spot outside of Central’s E.R. like a ghost.

Leander would catch sight of her lurking there practically every time his truck came to drop off a patient, and—he can’t lie—she was interesting to him. Most nurses put their hair up for a shift, but not Autumn. Long, thick, ringlet curls down past her shoulder blades, dark against her skin and constantly falling in her eyes—he often wondered how she managed to complete patient care without it becoming soaked in bodily fluids. She wore expensive, custom scrubs that hugged her ample curves, and while Leander wasn’t necessarily attracted to them, he certainly found her look aesthetically pleasing.

And she always had a cigarette in her hand.

One day, she called out to him as he passed. Leander was oblivious and busy, solo-dragging their litter towards the truck while his partner (pre-Marley) remained inside, restocking their gear. This woman, smirking and leaning sideways against the cement wall of the E.R., called him handsome and asked for a light, her cigarette already burning between two fingers. By that time, Leander was fascinated enough by her entire schtick and constant presence outside the hospital to take the bait. They talked for at least fifteen minutes that day.

The truth is, Leander found Autumn’s personality to be just as captivating as her image, and her tendency to be an open book about anything and everything revealed a history rife with experiences that he could heavily relate to. Shitty parents and shittier coping skills, estranged siblings, and a drive to help others that neither of them have entirely made sense of, even now. Becoming a health care provider to try fulfill that calling, but then drowning under the weight of responsibility—Leander understood exactly why Autumn was always smoking.

Time went on, and eventually, they exchanged numbers so that she could coordinate her breaks with Leander’s drop-offs. They’d talk while he cleaned the back of the ambulance, or he’d lean against the wall and keep her company through her last drags. It went on like that for months, before they “took things extra-curricular,” as Autumn called it, before his partner casually mentioned Leander’s penchant for bondage and effectively outed him.

It was meant to be a tease, of course, his partner trying to embarrass him in front of a girl it was assumed he was crushing on, but Autumn was intrigued. The conversation immediately switched tracks, Autumn mentioned that she was looking to quit smoking, asked slyly whether Leander had any suggestions regarding healthier methods of coping or relieving stress, and the rest is history.

It’s difficult to feel regret for what they shared. Autumn was an incredible sub. A natural, and since Leander truly cared for her as a friend, their scenes were some of the most fulfilling of his life, up to that point. Her body was beautiful, she was adventurous and responsive, plus she communicated both frankly and openly. Autumn always told him what she needed, and therefore, Leander exited their scenes feeling satisfied, knowing that he was truly helping her.

But easy as it might have been to get his needs met with her and without all of the messy intimacy, Autumn simply doesn’t hold the same allure for him anymore. Even aesthetically, the idea of tying her up, dripping wax all over her body and then stepping back to admire his work feels lackluster and uninspiring. It’s not just Leander’s emotions that are tied up with Tripp—it’s everything. All of his needs, every single one.

Reaching across the table, Autumn pokes his bicep with a manicured finger, playful but uncharacteristically serious as she persists in coaxing him to share. “I know that face, Leander. And I didn’t really think you called me here because you missed me. You know, you break a girl’s heart, that’s one thing. You break her Saturday night plans and don’t deliver something juicy, she might have to kill you.”

Without missing a beat, Autumn lifts a hand and catches the attention of their server, ordering drinks for both of them and nailing Leander’s usual: a double ten-year whiskey, two rocks. He smiles at her gratefully before sighing and leaning back, tacking on a few appetizers and sushi rolls to the order, because if he’s doing this, it’s not going to be on an empty stomach.

Said stomach twists a little as he thinks about the two abandoned sandwiches still waiting futilely for their intendeds back home on his countertop. He hadn’t been able to muscle up the strength to put them away.

“So?” Autumn prompts, once the server is gone, resting her chin on the back of one hand with genuine interest.

Leander nods and takes a deep breath, struggling with where to begin. “The truth is—and I realize that this is extremely awkward and unfair of me—”

“But that’s not stopping you.” Autumn winks to soften the barb, so Leander continues.

“—I was hoping you could give me some, well, pointers, I suppose,” he says hesitantly. Autumn's eyes narrow in confusion, and her lips part (undoubtedly to sass him), but Leander cuts her off before she’s able to speak another word.

“I need to know what I could have done to make things better for you, emotionally, when I was your Dom. Or, on the flip side, if there is anything you wish that you would have done to create better boundaries while still ensuring that your needs were met with me. I’m…” Leander lets a small growling noise escape from his mouth and runs a frustrated hand through his hair before throwing it up into the air and letting it slap down on his thigh. “I’m floundering.”

There’s silence from across the table, and Leander can’t bear to rip his eyes away from the Swedish Ivy plant that is for some reason placed between their booth and the one next to it on Autumn's side, as it has abruptly become extremely fascinating. He’s just about to call this whole night off, dub it a failure—it’s too much to ask of this woman, it’s unfair that he did so in the first place—when Autumn finally speaks.

“Are you telling me that the Tin Man finally convinced the Wizard to give him a heart? Seriously? The unfeeling Leander Grigori? Mister ‘I Don’t Do Love, Autumn,’ has fallen prey to Cupid’s bow and arrow? Oh, this is delicious. This is too good.”

Struggling not to roll his eyes, Leander drags them back to his dinner companion and scowls, especially when he clocks the amused expression on her face. “I don’t know that I’d call myself unfeeling,” he protests.

“I would,” Autumn replies quickly.

“I feel things very strongly, in fact. It’s just that love has not traditionally been—”

“Yeah, yeah, spare me the sermon, Little Lion Man. You do remember who you’re talking to, hmm? I’m the original one-eyed chicklet in the kingdom of the blind, baby. You can’t fool me, so don’t even try. Who is it?” Autumn sits back and folds her arms over her chest, tongue running across her teeth as she surveys Leander with what can only be described as smug superiority. She raises her eyebrows and waits while he resists the urge to point out that it would’ve been far more on brand for her to make a crack about him being the Cowardly Lion.

Miraculously, their server picks that moment to show up with their drinks, and Leander buys time by savoring several long sips, but Autumn isn’t remotely put off. She tastes her own cocktail—something mixed and fruity with an umbrella, Tripp would love it—while continuing to stare him down, gaze relentless and knowing. Honestly, if Leander ever had a mind to switch, he’d be curious on a purely scientific level what Autumn as a Dom would be like, because he has to admit, she has the attitude down , when she wants.

“It’s Tripp,” Leander says simply, once he decides that he’s ready, figuring he owes Autumn that much. To his surprise, she barely reacts, dropping back against the booth with her fingernails tapping away against the table.

“Huh,” is all she says. When Leander raises his eyebrows in question, she just shrugs. “Makes sense.” Somewhat put out, he stares and blinks at her in disbelief, but she just raises both hands as if to say, what do you want from me?

“You can’t be serious. After everything you mocked me for lacking.”

“It’s relieving, really,” Autumn tells him, somehow holding a straight face. “I mean, for starters, you’re obviously a big ‘mo, so that doesn’t actually reflect on me at all.” Leander furrows his brow and opens his mouth to lecture her about the spectrum of sexuality but this time, Autumn cuts him off. “Whatever, don’t give me the identity speech again, it was just a joke. No, that isn’t it. You’re going to hate hearing this, I can guarantee it.”

“All I’m hearing so far is you making fun of me.”

Autumn snorts and shrugs with one shoulder. “Fair.” She swirls her straw in her drink for a minute before nodding to herself. “If it was going to be anyone, it was always going to be Tripp,” she says frankly, before taking a long sip from the glass she’s still toying with. “We can pretend I only thought so because of how well I know you, but the truth is, you’re not subtle, Lee.”

Leander can only imagine that the furrow in his brow is getting deeper as he stares back at Autumn in abject confusion. “You’ll have to explain this to me further at some point, because I certainly wasn’t aware that I had romantic feelings for Tripp until very recently,” he says, and then promptly drains his glass, because this is a lot more than he anticipated hearing. “On second thought, don’t.”

Smirking as she puts her hands up in mock-surrender, Autumn's face softens a little. “Well, all of that aside, you know I care about you, Simba. So yeah, I think I can help a fellow lost soul out. No guarantees on outcome, though, and there’s no magic button you can press to keep those pesky romantic feelings separate. What I can offer you is a shoulder to cry on and an ear to bend, and a big mouth that doesn’t know when to keep her thoughts to herself.”

“Thank you, Autumn,” Leander says in relief. “That’s more than I deserve from you, I know that.”

“Believe it,” Autumn retorts. “Although speaking of deserving better, I hope you know that you do, too. If Tripp doesn’t feel the same way, you don’t owe him to stick around for sex or submission, no matter what you promised him to start with. Cutting yourself open and bleeding the contents of your heart all over the floor—and not in the fun way—for someone who doesn’t appreciate it gets harder by the day. That is a thing that I learned the hard way.”

Leander ducks his head and fiddles with his empty glass. “Tripp is very deserving,” he says quietly, and Autumn laughs a little in response, though the sound isn’t judgmental or cruel.

“Oh, Little Lion Man, you got it bad.”

He doesn’t deny it. There’s no reason to, now. The waitress comes with a tray full of food and sets each item down in front of them, but all of it suddenly looks gray and unappetizing to Leander’s palate. The things that have been weighing on his shoulders aren’t all out there yet, and the worry and regret is starting to leave a bad taste in his mouth.

“Autumn,” Leander says tentatively, watching as she uses chopsticks to pop a piece of California roll into her mouth and chew. “There’s more. Specifically, I think I may be falling short in giving Tripp what he needs with regard to aftercare. I’ve been leaving his side, denying myself certain affections for self-preservation purposes. Only after he seems to be fully recovered or has fallen asleep, of course, but I’m concerned that it’s not enough. I fear—”

“Psh,” Autumn replies, her mouth still half-full. “You ain’t worried about him. You,” she jabs her chopsticks in Leander’s direction, “are worried he’s gonna realize you’re head over heels in love with him if you show it too much.”

“Yes,” Leander says, relieved at being understood. “I am.”

But Autumn just shrugs. “You’re stupid,” she replies easily.

“Excuse me?”

“Lee,” she says, dropping the food pinched in her utensils back onto the plate while she addresses him, patient but exasperated. “You have a frickin’ free pass. Trust me, he will tell you if you’re doing too much. If you ask me—and you did,” she reminds him, scooping up some rice and inhaling it like a vacuum. “You’re way more likely to send him into drop doing what you’re doing than you are to protect yourself in any kind of way that’s gonna matter. Running out on a sub early because you’re scared of your own feelings is bad frickin’ news, lovemuffin. Let me tell you, there were plenty of times it hurt like hell for me to sleep in your arms.”

Autumn swallows and stares down at her plate, refusing to make eye contact with him for the first time this evening, and Leander’s guilty conscience swells in his chest. Both for what he’s definitely done to Autumn and what he’s potentially been doing to Tripp. Before he can apologize—not that he thinks Autumn will like that, either—she continues talking.

“But the thing is, Simba, I’m smarter than you, and I’m definitely smarter than the Ken-doll you’re fucking. I’ve been subbing since I was eighteen and I’ve had all the bad Doms, plus I know what I gotta do to avoid drop. Does Tripp? Would he tell you if what you were doing wasn’t enough? I dunno, Lee. I’ve met the guy, and I can’t say that I have any confidence in his ability to own his vulnerability and to share his feelings with the class.

“Point being, yes, sleeping with you like we were lovers—after you made it clear more than once that we would never be any such thing—was hard, really hard. The best thing you ever did for me was to break things off when you did. But baby, you’re the lover in this equation, and Tripp is the one in need. What you’re doing is just selfish. If you can’t be what he needs , you’ve gotta cut ties with him as a sub.”

Stunned, Leander just sits there, digesting Autumn's words. They’re honest, brutally so, and it takes him a minute of grappling with his own defense mechanisms to keep from firing back. She’s right, of course, and that is the hardest pill to swallow.

Selfish.

Her words ring inside his head, rattling his brain. Leander has been going about this all wrong—he’s been too selfish, too caught up in having Tripp the only way he believed Tripp would allow, too focused on the having itself and chasing his own desires to acknowledge any of the potential fallout, and now Tripp is paying the price.

Jesus Christ, he’s been a fool, he’s put Tripp in danger, he’s—

“Autumn,” he says, voice as full of apology as he can muster at the moment. “I need to go, I need—”

“Thought you might say that,” she replies wryly, spearing a piece of chicken with her chopstick and waving it absently in the direction of the front door. “Go on, get out of here, you responsible, caring Dom, you. Do the right fucking thing, for once.”

“Thank you,” Leander says earnestly as he stands to throw on his jacket. He steps away and then quickly turns back, pulling out his wallet to toss a handful of twenties down onto the table, enough to cover the meal and several additional drinks for Autumn. “I owe you, truly.”

“Uh, yeah,” Autumn replies emphatically, bristling before softening again. “But Simba, do call me if you need to, okay? Everything else aside, like I said, I care about you, and I—well, no. I don’t care about Tripp, but I care about you and I don’t wish the guy any harm, so, you know. Call me. I mean it.”

Backing up towards the door, Leander barely avoids running into another table of diners as he nods and touches two fingers to his lips in a distant goodbye kiss.

“Thank you!”

On his way out of the restaurant, Leander briefly considers ordering another Uber, but the wait times are peak and much longer than he’d like. Now that he’s come to his senses, he feels anxious to rectify his mistakes, and the idea of delaying any attempt to do so for longer than necessary makes him almost physically uncomfortable. Standing alone on the sidewalk, Leander barely feels the cold wind whipping at his skin, his attention fully focused on finding Tripp and putting things right.

A quick scroll through the one-sided conversation they had earlier fills him with even more dread. If Tripp is dropping, if his off-kilter behavior this afternoon winds up being what Leander fears and not just Tripp being Tripp , then there is a zero percent chance his recent messages didn’t add fuel to that fire.

Sad and ashamed, Leander considers how he would react if he were on the edge, and instead of comfort, received similar messages from his scene partner. Nonchalant ones, about covering bruises and his sub going to meet up with his former Dom. Especially when Tripp may have been experiencing feelings of rejection already, that can’t have felt nice. Even if Tripp understands cognitively that Leander would never trade him for Autumn, drop isn’t logical or sensical: it’s emotional, it’s hormonal. Looking at the situation now and with a clear head, Leander honestly can’t believe how badly he’s failed them both.

How could he be so ignorant? So short-sighted and self-involved. Leander curses himself and glances around, just on the off-chance that there’s a taxi or a bus nearby. Anything else useful, actually—even a bicycle he could steal, because fuck it, why not? Unfortunately there’s nothing, and he just can’t risk waiting around any longer.

He runs.

Bolts, really, the soles of his heavy boots smacking loudly against the pavement as they propel him forward. Leander doesn’t need a reply from Tripp to know exactly where he and Beau are hanging tonight. There’s only one place they ever retreat to for solace, and Leander heads straight for it.

The Hot Plate is nearly five miles from the restaurant where he left Autumn, but thankfully, Leander is a regular runner and plenty capable of hacking it. Regardless of the lack in flexibility of his jeans, the way they chafe against his thighs as he sprints, Leander doesn’t stop. Ignoring the way the sweat builds beneath the leather of his jacket despite the cold, he doesn’t slow down.

Less than a block from the Hot Plate, he regains some sense of rational thought, forcing himself to cool off and to rein his wild energy in. It wouldn’t do to show up there like a tornado, exploding into a bar where everyone knows his name and will certainly have questions as to why he’s so desperate to find Tripp Truett. The last thing Leander wants is to embarrass the man, or worse, out their situation to the public as a whole.

Running full-speed into the Hot Plate while screaming Tripp’s name at the top of his lungs would be an excellent way to announce definitively that there’s something fishy going on, and neither of them needs that drama.

The half-speed remainder of his trek also allows Leander a minute to catch his breath and to formulate a plan: it’s simple, first and foremost, get Tripp alone. Once in private, he’ll ensure that Tripp isn’t dropping, and if he is, get him out of the bar, bring him home, make this right. He’ll apologize, he’ll get on his knees if he has to, because Tripp trusted him, Tripp put his sanity and safety in Leander’s hands and he failed. He fucked this up, he let Tripp down.

The plan seems easy and close to foolproof, but in the end, nothing goes right.

Bursting inside the Hot Plate more excitedly than he intends, Leander almost immediately spots Beau sitting at the bar. Tripp isn’t on a stool beside him—or anywhere else to be seen, for that matter—so Leander bypasses the entire restaurant and heads for the restrooms, hoping to get lucky. There’s a couple making out in the corner by the sinks, but the stalls are otherwise clear, and Leander doesn’t run into Tripp either on the way there or back.

Growing concerned, he chews his lip and surveys the bar floor again. The Hot Plate is busy—it is Saturday, after all—but it’s not so packed Leander can’t be sure that he’s scanned the crowd sufficiently. Normally, he’d call this a wash, but after everything his eyes have been opened to tonight, he can’t bring himself to be so dismissive. At this point, it feels worth the potential risk to approach Beau, so that’s exactly what Leander does.

“Hey!” Beau exclaims in surprise, grinning widely when Leander appears at his side and taps him on the arm. “Nice to see you, man, pull up a stool. Reina’s making…uh—what are you making, Rei?”

“Buttery Nipples,” Reina declares with a wink, capping her cocktail shaker and making it live up to its name. “You in, Lee? On me.”

“Hello, Beau,” Leander replies stoically. “Reina. And thank you, that’s very generous, but not tonight.” He turns his attention fully back to the younger Truett and leans in so that he can’t be incidentally overheard. “Actually, I’m looking for Tripp. It’s—” he hesitates, unsure how to convey the gravity of the situation without oversharing their business. “Well, it’s somewhat of an urgent matter. Is he here? Did he go back to your apartment, by chance?”

The sympathy that fills Beau's eyes is out of place, and Leander doesn’t like it one bit. “Uh, you just missed him, Lee,” he says carefully. “He headed out maybe twenty minutes ago.”

“Alright,” Leander persists impatiently. “He’s not responding to my messages, should I just check your apartment? Or—”

“He left with a girl,” Beau interjects, not even trying to hide the apologetic note in his voice. “I’m sorry, Lee, I—”

The shock that Tripp would seek out a random hookup after the past twenty-four hours they shared together short-circuits Leander’s wiring for a moment, but he shakes it off just as quickly. He and Tripp have not promised exclusivity in their contract. In fact, they specifically decided against it, although Leander had thought they exchanged a moment of mutual understanding that it would be a goal, something to work towards and consider seriously, if they were each able to meet the other’s needs.

The reality that Tripp doesn’t feel as if he’s doing that stings, although that is what he came to correct, isn’t it? This doesn’t change anything—he still needs to find Tripp.

“Could you message him, Beau? Please. I normally wouldn’t ask, and I wish I could explain to you why this is so important, but I’m afraid I’ve let Tripp down enough for one day.” As an afterthought, he turns on what Tripp would undoubtedly refer to as ‘puppy dog eyes,’ widening his gaze and blinking innocently down at Beau while attempting to look extra sad. Tripp always claims that no one could possibly say no to him with that face on—no better time to find out.

“Jesus,” Beau replies. “Who taught you that? Never mind,” he adds, holding up a hand. “Stupid question. Hang on.” Beau slides his phone over from where it’s resting on the bar and taps out a message before pressing send. They wait, but nothing happens. Without having to be asked, Beau then calls Tripp, putting the phone to his ear and raising an eyebrow at Leander, who tries to appear as immensely grateful as he feels.

“Yeah, Tripp, it’s me,” Beau says, after the disappointing sounds of Tripp’s voicemail filter out through the tiny speaker, just barely making it to Leander’s ears. Damn. “Give me a call back as soon as you get this, it’s important.” He hangs up and shoots Leander an apologetic look. “Sorry, man. We could still have that beer?”

Blowing out a stream of frustration from his lungs, Leander pushes a hand through his hair and shakes his head. “Any other night, I would be glad to, Beau. I know we haven’t had much time together lately,” he adds regretfully. “But I can’t—I have to find Tripp.”

“Lee, no offense, but he could be anywhere in the city by now, and Tripp not answering his phone usually means that he wants to be left alone. Or, alone with whoever he’s with,” Beau tacks on meaningfully, with an eye roll and a swig of his beer. Doesn’t matter—Leander’s already halfway to the door by the time the bottle makes contact with the bartop again, as Beau's words go in one ear and out the other.

“I’ll find a way,” he says, determined, more for his own benefit than anyone else’s, since there’s no way Beau could hear him now, anyway.

And Leander tries, he does. He scours the whole damn city as best he can, well into the early hours of the morning. He starts and ends at the Truett’s front door, knocking and listening for movement but coming up empty both times. Beau must have gone over to his fiancée’s place after leaving the bar, and Tripp—Tripp never came home.

In between lurking somewhat creepily outside their apartment, Leander checks all of Tripp’s usual haunts: the fancy bar he thinks no one knows that he likes, a handful of all-night diners and restaurants, the donut place he often stops by on the way to work to pick up treats for his crew.

Desperate, Leander even drops by both Station Fifteen and Station Eleven, since occasionally and if his friends are working, Tripp will wind up there in the middle of the night, wanting to hang out or sleep off a bender. That happens more often if he’s been out drinking or went home with a hookup on the wrong side of town, but tonight, Leander is out of luck.

Tripp is nowhere to be found.

When his wristwatch shows nine a.m. and his phone screen is still black and silent, Leander is ready to admit defeat. His bottom is sore from sitting on the shitty, trodden-down carpet that lines the hallway outside of Tripp’s door, and he begrudgingly calls it a night.

Even as Leander drags his feet down the stairs and patiently waits on the sidewalk for his Uber, his drooping eyelids still blink open in fierce determination, glancing around with waning hope that Tripp will suddenly appear. His car is in the parking lot, for God’s sake. He has to come back sometime .

But Leander has to work tonight and so does Tripp, and he can’t very well do the job on no sleep at all. Much as he may hate it, the reality is that Tripp has made himself inaccessible, and Leander has done all that he can do for the moment. Fixing things with his friend will just have to wait.

With any luck, though, he’ll be able to at least speak to Tripp once he’s sober again, hopefully before work. Leander makes a mental note for when his brain is less fuzzy to come up with a more condensed version of the speech that he was going to give when he finally found the man in person. Something that will encourage Tripp to not hang up during Leander’s pressured attempt to blurt it out. In his physically and mentally exhausted state, nothing comes to mind, but perhaps with some rest.

Heartbroken and disappointed, Leander climbs into his Uber and returns home. Walking into his apartment, his last remaining hopes are dashed when Tripp isn’t there, waiting for him inside. Numb, Leander strips to his boxers and climbs into bed, barely remembering to set an alarm before allowing the creeping darkness to pull him under.

***

There’s no answer on Tripp’s phone when Leander tries before heading into work. It rings this time, at least, and that’s an improvement over the “straight-to-voicemail” situation he was getting earlier. Or perhaps it isn’t, since that means Tripp has charged his phone, turned it back on, and is still ignoring Leander’s attempts at contact. If he previously thought that he couldn’t feel worse, he was wrong.

Unfortunately for Leander, his twenty-four-hour EMS shift continues fueling the dark cloud hanging over his head. Call after call after call keeps him busy, and then there’s the charting and the station chores, his Captain’s duties—all of it amounting to very little free time with which to do anything else. The few hours that he does manage to steal for himself are spent sleeping, urinating, or eating, and Leander’s never felt more like human needs are cursed.

At one point, he hears Station Fifteen go enroute to an automatic fire alarm at a warehouse downtown, not in Leander’s local. From the back of his rig (where he’s regretfully sitting and checking I.V. medication expiration dates), Leander cranks the volume dial on the radio and listens in. Gunnar’s unmistakable voice puts the squad responding and on scene, but the crew sent in to clear the building is led by someone else— Tripp.

It’s difficult not to breathe a sigh of relief at being presented with solid evidence that his friend is alive and well, but it also hurts. This is definitive proof that he’s being ignored, and Leander can’t quite figure out what to do with that. The ignited flame of desperation and adrenaline that pushed him to his limits on Saturday and well into Sunday has flickered and been extinguished, but now Leander can’t be entirely sure that forcing Tripp into a confrontation remains the right thing to do.

Surely if Tripp had been dropping, he would have spun out by now. Since he hasn’t, Leander can only assume that the situation, while regretful, isn’t entirely emergent. While he’s loathe to make any more assumptions, he’s not positive what other choice Tripp has left him. Bereft, Leander spends every spare moment of his shift—when he’s not focused on patient care or another task requiring his full attention—wavering between the idea of showing up in person at Tripp’s station, or leaving him alone completely, providing time and space for Tripp to come to him.

That seemingly-impossible decision is made for him when a text message from Tripp arrives at 17:52, eight minutes before they both are set to go off-duty for the night.

Ding.

Tripp: sorry for blowing you off. Just need a little space. I’ll hit you up soon, cool?

It pains Leander to accept the neutral note, but at this point, he’s sent countless messages pleading with Tripp to hear him out. He’s asked for a mere five minutes of the man’s time, either on the phone or face-to-face, he’s been clear that he needs to apologize and that he feels he’s made a mistake, but the details beyond that aren’t appropriate to convey via text. The bottom line is that Tripp isn’t currently interested in hearing what he has to say, and it would be invasive and disrespectful to keep pushing.

Leander: My offer and request both stand. Use your key anytime you like or feel up to seeing me, I am always here for you. I care about you very much, Tripp.

It’s the best he can do, for now.

Tripp doesn’t call and he doesn’t use his key. Leander works the next two nights, twelve-hour shifts that stretch from six in the evening to six in the morning, and the reversal of his normal routine is jarring and frustrating. Those feelings are multiplied further by both his continuing worry about Tripp, and his own lack of an outlet to process and release them.

While he does honor Tripp’s request to leave him alone, Leander is weak, and he can’t help checking in on the older Truett via his brother, at least once. Beau doesn’t seem even moderately surprised by his message, but he’s evasive. All told, he doesn’t really give Leander a satisfying answer as to how Tripp is doing, which leaves him wishing he hadn’t contacted Beau at all.

Also, the text conversation that follows quickly turns to wedding favor options, which is basically the last thing on earth Leander wants to discuss, and something he doubts he’d have an opinion on, even if it was for his own wedding.

Tiny bottles of alcohol, he suggests, and apparently, that’s the sort of helpful feedback Beau is looking for. All Leander cares about is that it gets him out of any further interaction.

Early on Wednesday, Leander arrives home similarly blearily and burnt out, the same way he has the past three mornings prior. I’m getting too old for this, he tells himself, slumping defeatedly against the mirrored wall on the elevator ride up to his floor. He’s practically half-asleep, allowing his head to loll to the side and his eyes to drift closed for a blissful moment of peace.

Need to see about switching to dayshift permanently, he thinks.

When the elevator dings open, Leander yawns heavily before trudging over to his door. Small comforts, he now has a couple of days off with which to recover and regain his bearings. While he’s still holding out hope that Tripp will appear—even if it’s only to hang out, get drunk, and watch trashy TV—Leander is so damn tired that a part of him feels relieved to be able to simply pass out for as long as he desires. He’s bone- tired, in every way a person can be worn-out, so much so that his brain is barely online enough to help his hands fit his key into the lock.

Which is why, when he stumbles into his apartment and locks the door behind him, kicking off his boots and wandering sluggishly into the living room, his reaction to the scene that’s awaiting his arrival is perhaps somewhat less than ideal.

There, in the middle of the hardwood floor, wedged between Leander’s wrought iron and glass coffee table and the wide, sliding doors leading out to the balcony, kneels Tripp. He’s naked, save for his collar and a gorgeous pair of matching green panties complete with satin bows and lace side panels that, at any other time, Leander would be, frankly, unapologetically obsessed with getting to know on an intimate level.

Right now, the sight only brings him heartbreak and a near-blinding sense of exhaustion.

As Leander stands frozen, Tripp smirks down at the ground, his head only bowed just enough to give the illusion of submission while his fingers twist restlessly into each other at the small of his back. If Leander wasn’t looking for it, he might not have noticed, but he is— he’s been waiting for days to see Tripp in person, to find out if his fears are justified.

They are. Tripp didn’t just drop, he’s been dropping, he still is. His posture and the way he curls into himself but still leans unconsciously in his Dom’s direction, his fidgeting, his facial expressions—it’s all so obvious and horrifying, because Leander did this to him . If Tripp wasn’t someone he already knew inside and out, Leander wouldn’t be as confident in his assessment of the situation, but this isn’t some submissive. This is Tripp, and Leander is first and foremost Tripp’s best friend.

Emotional drop. Leander has never seen it, never engaged with a sub who was prone to it, or suffered from anything similar during their time together. Emotional drops can last for days, weeks even, and the cure to the fall sure isn’t orange juice and a massage, though those things don’t hurt. Constant contact, strong boundaries and routines, reassurance from a trusted Dom—basically, everything Leander has failed to give and hasn’t been allowed to even try to make up for these past few days is the solution.

Now, Tripp’s reaching out in the only manner he feels he can, which is surprising in a way that Leander knows it shouldn’t be. Of course, Tripp in a spiral would see his self-worth tied to being a sub. Of course, Tripp would think that the only way he could obtain the affection and validation he’s so desperately craving would be to submit, like this. And to be fair, he probably needs this end of things, too—God knows, Leander does.

Tripp needs something else first, though, and it’s time for Leander to give it to him, whether he likes it or not. Whether Leander has the energy for it or not. He owes Tripp so much more than that, but it’s a start.

“Get up,” Leander barks shortly. He strides over and makes it into Tripp’s space just as he’s straightening up, the faint but razor-sharp ghost of whiskey unmistakable on his friend’s breath. “You’ve been drinking,” he says flatly.

“I’m not drunk,” Tripp replies defensively, recovering quickly to tack on a sincere, “Sir,” that makes Leander’s heart ache for how much Tripp clearly wants and needs him to be better than he’s been. Not that he’s likely even aware of Leander’s failings—no, knowing Tripp, he’s surely blaming himself.

Leander clears his throat. “We don’t have rules requiring you to abstain from drinking prior to a scene, so you are not in trouble with me. For that.”

Perhaps Tripp is tipsier than he lets on because he snorts and averts his gaze, leaving Leander to raise a brow, grab him by the chin, and force eye contact. “What was that?”

It’s not unexpected when Tripp breaks, twisting away from Leander’s grasp like it burns and wrenching himself to his feet, stumbling a few steps away to fist a hand in his hair and swear. “Shit. I shouldn’t have come here. I don’t know what I was thinking, Lee. I gotta—”

“Sit,” Leander commands.

Tripp, with desperation in his eyes, hesitates but then finds his way over to Leander’s couch and plops down. He slumps forward, crossing both arms over his body self-consciously, and Leander doesn’t think he’s ever seen his friend look less like his overly-confident, proudly arrogant self. In response, Leander perches on the coffee table’s edge just in front of him, close enough that their knees touch. He pulls the blanket from the back of the couch, draping it around Tripp’s shoulders and encouraging him to pull it closed if he wants. He does.

“It’s Wednesday,” Leander says casually.

“I know. I know, Le— Sir . I’m sorry for blowing you off, or whatever, I just—”

Leander holds up a hand, and Tripp’s mouth snaps closed. “Good boy. That was not commentary on your behavior, it was a reminder that we agreed to a weekly discussion regarding our terms. Last Wednesday was the last time we did so. This week has been…challenging, to say the least, and I don’t think I can overstate the importance of this conversation.”

Tripp’s eyes dim slightly, but he nods, resigned, as Leander continues, “Normally, I’d ask for you to remove your collar, but I feel as if today, that is not a good idea.” Tripp just shrugs listlessly.

“This whole thing is about what you want, anyway,” he mutters, and while Leander strongly suspected he might feel that way—or at least, that the drop was feeding him those negative thoughts—it’s difficult to hear the accusation spoken aloud.

He controls his emotional response, and instead of chastising Tripp, Leander reaches out to take his hand where it’s white-knuckling the blanket. Thankfully, Tripp lets him, though he keeps his eyes fixed on the gas fireplace built into the far wall behind Leander’s head.

“I’ve really let you down,” Leander says quietly. “If you’re amenable, I’d like to share some things with you, and then you can respond however you see fit. For the purposes of this conversation only, you may call me whatever you like, and that includes insults and derogatory names, if they represent how you feel. Tripp,” Leander says, using his free hand to touch Tripp’s chin and feeling relieved when the man’s glassy eyes flicker to meet his own. “When you first put that collar on, I believe that it made you feel free. Something changed, I made a misstep here. I need to help you understand that none of this is your fault.”

The set of Tripp’s jaw twitches minutely, and he blinks fiercely against what Leander would be willing to bet is a burning sensation behind his eyes. “Tripp, do you know that you’re in sub drop?”

The lines crossing Tripp’s forehead and in between his eyebrows deepen, and Tripp looks adorably confused. He opens his mouth to speak and then closes it again, apparently unsure, but Leander just waits patiently. “I don’t…uh, no? How is that even possible? We scened like, three days ago. I thought—”

“This is happening because of me,” Leander says bluntly. “I should have recognized that you were struggling on Saturday morning. I should never have let you leave. Trust that all I wanted was to respect your boundaries and the limitations set for both of our relationships, but that is not an excuse. I should have known better. I should have erred on the side of caution. I didn’t meet your emotional needs as my submissive, and now you feel…”

Leander narrows his eyes and regards Tripp carefully. It would be immensely damaging to Tripp for him to project another incorrect assumption his way. However, knowing Tripp the way that he does, the last thing the headstrong man will want to do is give voice to his own perceived weaknesses. So Leander must do it for him, must hit the nail on the head so that Tripp can begin to process that he is not broken, that he can feel better, and that Leander may be relied upon to help him do exactly that.

“Rejected,” he finally offers, squeezing Tripp’s hand reassuringly. “Unworthy, perhaps. Like your value is tied up in your submission, and not who you are as a person. That those things are mutually exclusive, when they never, ever were. You’re irritated and cranky, everything in your life feels exponentially exhausting and more difficult to handle than usual. You are worried that you’re a burden to me, that you ask too much, that I feel trapped and possibly even tricked into showing you affection.”

As Leander finishes speaking, Tripp’s face transforms into an expression of pure grief, a single tear spilling out of his right eye and rolling slowly down his cheek. Leander wastes no time—he surges forward, climbing into Tripp’s lap to straddle his hips and frame his face with both hands.

“Are you my sub, Tripp?” he demands. “Are you?”

“Yes,” Tripp chokes out, nodding against Leander’s palms. “Yes, Sir.”

“I have one task for you, just one, and I need you to perform it perfectly, do you understand?” Tripp’s eyes slipped closed, but he nods, and Leander is so proud, so in awe of Tripp, considering their circumstances. “You are to tell me honestly and clearly, the truth about what you need from me as a Dom, Tripp. I know there is something that you have been afraid to ask for, but I am telling you, I want to give it to you. You deserve it, Tripp. Whatever you’ve been resisting giving voice to, you say it now. Let me give you what you need, Tripp. That is an order from your Dom. Do you understand?”

Sniffling and inhaling roughly around a swallowed sob, Tripp nods again as the tears spill freely, making beautiful tracks down his lovely face and turning Leander’s fingers damp. Tripp is so soft, so vulnerable, and Leander aches to be this close to him, to have him in his hands, so damaged and still so perfect. If it wouldn’t be totally inappropriate to what he’s trying to accomplish, he’d lick Tripp’s tears from his face and take him right here, just like this. Show him exactly how much he’s loved and cherished.

“It’s just,” Tripp starts and stops, letting his eyes flutter shut, wet lashes dark against his pale, freckled skin. “You don’t. You say that, but you don’t want this.” Leander shifts back on his heels, just enough to release Tripp’s face and grab his wrists instead, bringing them together between their chests.

“Tripp,” he says patiently. “Your thoughts are corrupted by the drop you’re experiencing, so I’ll forgive you this once for telling me what I do and don’t want. I will promise you this— if whatever you ask for is something I truly cannot do, then I will be honest with you about it. This is a two-way street.” After a brief pause, Leander borrows from Autumn and sends up a silent prayer of thanks to her for the assist. “I’m not new to this. I know how to ensure that my own needs are met. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Tripp hisses through gritted teeth, eyes pinched closed like he’s fighting some great, internal battle, and this is Tripp, so that may not be far off. He takes a deep breath and blows it out before opening his eyes and visibly steeling himself. “Lee,” he says cautiously. “Everything else you do for aftercare is great. But—I need you to stay. With me.”

“The night?” Leander replies quickly, unable to believe his ears. That is what Tripp wants? What’s caused all of this turmoil? Something Leander was denying himself because he assumed it wasn’t an activity Tripp was interested in, that it was a toe across the line he needed to draw in the sand—for both of them. Seriously?!

“That—that’s all, are you sure? Be honest with me, Tripp.” He levels a stern glare down his nose and those bright green eyes blink back honestly as Tripp nods.

“I swear, Lee. I know it’s needy and annoying and there’s gotta be a million other—”

Leander cuts him off with a kiss, cupping his jaw and letting his tongue dart out to barely brush against the tip of Tripp’s before pulling away, leaving the man breathless and searching for more.

“I am so proud of you. I think I should just speak plainly, Tripp. I was leaving for the night because I thought that was what you wanted. And other, more arbitrary reasons, none of which mean anything now. I apologize for not being in tune with your needs and for not asking outright. It will not happen again. Likewise, I expect that you’ll be equally honest with me in the future. If you feel upset or uncomfortable, if you need something that I am not providing you—keeping in mind that want is different than need and that this is not an excuse to be a raging brat—you will be frank. Understand and agree?”

“Yes, Sir,” Tripp replies, brighter and more enthusiastic than Leander’s seen him since early last week. It’s relieving, and as he slides back off of Tripp’s lap and onto the coffee table, he breathes out a sigh that reflects that feeling.

“So,” Leander says conversationally, as he folds his hands in his lap. “Regarding our contract, is there anything else you’d like to discuss before I take you to bed and keep you there until we both have a non-negotiable elsewhere to be?”

“Uh…” Clearing his throat, Tripp looks a little sheepish, his cheeks pinkening slightly and his feet pressing up onto their toes against the floor. “Beau told me he saw you. At the bar.” Leander raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment, allowing Tripp to get whatever he needs to say out.

“I know I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry for avoiding you, and for making it look like I was hooking up with someone else. I wasn’t,” Tripp clarifies, “for whatever it’s worth. She was just an old friend, and I thought…” He shrugs. “I knew there was a good chance Beau would talk to you, that you’d find out.”

“You thought you’d try and make me jealous,” Leander surmises carefully.

“I wanted to piss you off,” Tripp adds helpfully, more lively and colorful by the second, and God, it’s so wonderful to see. “I didn’t understand why I felt like stomped over horseshit, and you were with Autumn, and—I don’t know. I’m not gonna pretend I have a good reason.”

“I see,” Leander replies thoughtfully, dragging a finger slowly across his mouth and filing the ‘ you were with Autumn' comment away for later. “Well, as we’ve discussed, much of that was my own fault. I can’t blame you for your avoidance of me, based on your conflicting feelings. However, I certainly think a punishment is in order for the girl. For trying to bait and mislead your Dom, who cares about you and is trying his best to meet your needs.”

“Guilty,” Tripp admits with a shrug. “I didn’t do it, though.” Suddenly, his expression turns earnest as he stares into Leander’s eyes. The intensity and insistence woven through his words are startling, and Leander is surprised by this particular reaction. “You believe me, right?”

“Of course, Tripp,” Leander replies. “I will always take you at your word. This is a discussion we badly needed to have, and I would hope that you wouldn’t lie to me now, after all we’ve been through.”

“No,” Tripp says firmly, shaking his head and letting the blanket drop slightly off of one bare shoulder. It’s distracting and enticing, and Leander’s interest in focusing on that newly-revealed skin nearly distracts him from what Tripp says next. Nearly.

“Um, on that topic, I actually think I might have another…need.”

“Oh, really?” Interested and eager to show Tripp that he’s taking his communication attempts seriously, Leander tears his eyes away from the curve of his collar and shifts them over to Tripp’s face. “Do tell.”

In his lap, Tripp’s hands are fiddling with each other— he’s nervous. “So, I was wondering what you thought about us maybe being exclusive, as far as both the BDSM and sex in general goes. I wasn’t going to say anything before, but it’s like...” Tripp trails off and motions toward his head with a single finger. “All these pieces just sort of clicked into place with the stuff you said. Things I’ve been feeling over the past few days. I mean, I get it if you’re not into the idea, but for me, I think that I need to be focused on you . I think that would help me, knowing that you’re—”

He cuts himself off and stops, throwing his shoulders back and straightening his spine, blatantly searching for the right word to use while Leander’s heart thumps excitedly in his chest. Finally, Tripp concludes, “That I belong to you, just you. Does that…does that sound stupid?”

Struggling to control his voice and keep it from either shaking or belying how entirely thrilled he is, Leander nods before he speaks. “You know that I don’t seek out random sexual encounters,” he says and Tripp nods in return. “And that I require an emotional connection to dominate someone. You are the only person I’m interested in doing this with right now, Tripp. I’m…” Leander trails off, unsure whether he’s taking things a step too far, but then deciding, to hell with it, Tripp said he needs this. “I’m thrilled that you want to be exclusive. I’m thrilled you want to be mine.”

The smile he’s rewarded with makes the risk feel paid off tenfold. “Great,” Tripp tells him. “Damn. That’s great, Lee. Oh, um. So, since we’re doing that, do you…have any interest in revisiting the whole condom thing?” Tripp is doing his best to sound indifferent and nonchalant to the idea, but his tone betrays him, and it’s Leander’s turn to smile.

“Very much so,” he replies. “I was tested a few months after Autumn and I ended things, and I haven’t been with anyone since, present company excluded. I have copies of my paperwork and can show them to you, if you like.”

Tripp’s eyes widen and he waves Leander off. “Yeah, no, that’s not necessary, dude. I trust you. Um, I haven’t been with anyone since the last time I was tested, either. After I broke up with that stripper, for reasons. I definitely don’t have the papers, but I’m sure I can call the clinic and—”

“Unnecessary,” Leander replies with amusement. “I trust you, as well.” He pauses and tilts his head, narrowing his eyes a little at Tripp. “Really? No one besides me in the past six months?”

“Didn’t realize you were keeping track of my conquests.” Tripp snorts, evading the question, and Leander lets him. “So…just like that? We can skip the rubber?”

“I’m open to it if you are,” Leander says with a punctuated lift of his shoulders. “We’ll amend the contract. I’m also going to include the basics of our aftercare plan going forward, though you should not feel as if these are hard boundaries or limits. They are simply a guide, a visual so that you can see that I hear you, that I’m taking your concerns seriously.”

Tripp blushes and ducks his head. “Dunno if we need all that,” he mumbles, but Leander ignores him, standing to make his way into the kitchen and retrieve both their kink lists and the contract from one of the drawers. He sits back down on the coffee table, twisting his body to the side so that he can write after first handing Tripp his version of the list and asking for him to review it.

“Change anything you feel differently about, for any reason,” he suggests, and Tripp nods. “These lists are as fluid as the owner wishes them to be.”

In the aftercare section of their contract, Leander leaves an elaborate note detailing his improved promises. Extended skin-to-skin, sleeping together in the same bed, Tripp staying overnight unless otherwise requested, and Leander not leaving before they’re both awake in the morning. All of those things should go a long way towards soothing Tripp’s feelings of rejection and abandonment, towards preventing this sort of drop and distress moving forward. As an afterthought, Leander adds a blurb about checking in (and equally, Tripp answering) at least twice per day should they need to be apart for some extended length of time following an intense scene.

All told, he feels good about the alterations, and even better when Tripp looks positively relieved at seeing them in writing. It’s strange, the feeling curling inside his chest. All of this time he’s been avoiding doing the one thing Tripp really needed, and that was to both of their detriments. Is it possible things could really be this simple? That they can both find solace and satisfaction with each other?

On some level, Leander still feels guilty and even slightly worried. After all, Tripp doesn’t know what he’s taking away from this experience, how it’s different for him because of his feelings. Leander supposes it doesn’t matter, though. He should probably consider himself lucky to have this excuse to be open and affectionate, to touch and care for Tripp in the ways he’s so desperately wished that he could.

He’s been handed a free pass to basically live the boyfriend experience, and if there’s one thing Leander does know for sure, it’s that he’s not going to waste it this time.

***

“You have a choice, today,” Leander tells Tripp. His sub is bare again, save for the collar and his lovely panties, which Leander openly admires again as he presses against Tripp’s shoulders to encourage him down onto the playroom bed. They haven’t talked about the scene yet, but there’s a vibe flowing between them after that intense conversation, and Leander’s instincts tell him to follow it through. The panties were Tripp’s bait tactic, but much as Leander’s a sucker for him in lace, they’ll have to wait.

“I know that things have been difficult for you,” he says. “I don’t wish to push you too hard. In fact, if it were up to me, I might forgo the scene completely, take you to bed and hold you for the rest of the day. Feed you from my hand, perhaps draw us a bath and wash you from head to toe. I’m a very thorough scrubber, and my bathtub can easily accommodate two, as you’ve seen.”

As he talks, Leander wanders over to the middle armoire, opening the cabinets to reveal a huge array of impact toys hanging from various hooks. When he turns around again, Tripp’s eyes are wide and wanting, his tongue darting out to lick at his lips without thinking, and Leander smirks. “So here’s the part where you make a choice. We could do that, all of the things I just listed, but then you don’t get to come. Not today, and perhaps not tomorrow.”

Casually, Leander lifts a paddle from its hook and turns it over in his palm, making a show of examining the integrity. “Or,” he says, “I can issue you your punishment, the one you earned for taunting me. For making me imagine you fucking some nameless, garden-variety barfly who didn’t possess the slightest clue what a find, what a treasure she had lured into her bed.” He makes a concerted effort to keep his voice nonchalant and even, but his words definitely land with Tripp, who struggles to keep still where he sits.

“And then, after I’ve spanked you red and your ass is burning, I’ll turn you onto your back and ride you, hard and rough until I come all over your stomach. Perhaps I’ll even let you finish, inside me at that, as a reward for taking your consequence like the good, obedient submissive I know you are.”

Leander bites his lip as he steps forward towards the bed, flipping the paddle teasingly in his hand. He crouches down in front of Tripp and lays a gentle hand over his bare thigh, skin hot between them. “How much would you like to be inside me, Tripp? Impossibly tight, wet, hot—could your girl from the bar give you what I can, Tripp?”

“No way,” Tripp breathes, his eyelids heavy, and Leander can see that he’s well on his way into subspace, despite the fact that he technically hasn’t made a decision yet. The sight raises his own confidence, knowing that he was able to recognize Tripp’s needs even in a heated, stressful scenario. Because he’s being gentle tonight, he doesn’t backhand Tripp for the blatant lack of respect.

“No way…” he leads him, instead.

“Sir,” Tripp adds quickly, raising his chin so their eyes meet as Leander straightens back to his full height. “Please, Sir. I want my punishment. Thank you, Sir,” he adds without being asked, and Leander has to fight not to melt into a puddle on the floor like a popsicle in the mid-July sun. He threads fingers into Tripp’s hair, leans down to kiss him—gentle but firm, because he just can’t resist—and hums.

“Such a good boy,” he murmurs, allowing his lips to graze Tripp’s temple as he stands. “I feel so very lucky.” Without warning, Leander tightens his fingers and jerks Tripp’s head around by the roots of his hair. “Color, Tripp,” he demands, Tripp’s head tilted back at an awkward angle, his mouth parted and his breath coming quick.

“Green, Sir,” Tripp replies easily.

“Stand up.” As he and Tripp switch positions, Leander quickly casts off his original plan to have his sub count the strikes. It’s very clear to him that Tripp wants to drift, to let Leander control the scene completely and just reap the benefits. Despite the fact that this is technically a punishment, Tripp needs this, and Leander is happy for him to take it however he wishes—today.

Not for nothing, the idea of Tripp hazy and lost to the pain, draped across his thighs, moaning and sighing and totally pliant while Leander turns his ass red—well, it’s certainly no hardship for him to endure.

Tripp crawls over his lap and into that very position with barely a verbal suggestion needed, presenting himself for Leander’s hand without so much as the barest flinch of hesitation. This sort of ability and desire to slip into subspace so easily can be dangerous, and therefore, Leander is on high alert for Tripp’s reactions to the scene. Contrary to what he promised, this whole thing is more of a show to give Tripp what he deserves, rather than to teach him a lesson. As zoned-out as Tripp already is, his ability to safeword isn’t something Leander can take for granted.

When they begin ( “Green, Sir”) , Tripp responds beautifully. Leander slips fingers underneath the waistband of his panties, tugging them down to mid-thigh and leaving them stretched taut. He warms up each ass cheek with the palm of his hand before switching to the paddle when Tripp grows used to the contact ( read: stops squirming ).

The smack of leather-covered-wood on skin is satisfying to Leander’s ear, as are Tripp’s corresponding noises. With every strike, Tripp cries out, wiggling sometimes but never protesting or complaining. As time goes on— four, five, six— his cries turn into moans and his cock fills out completely against Leander’s thigh, leaking precum so enthusiastically that it drips onto the floor.

“Color, Tripp,” Leander asks after strike number seven, but Tripp only moans without a coherent reply. “Color, Tripp,” Leander repeats, reaching down to grab his chin and tug it skyward so that he can see his eyes.

“Green,” Tripp murmurs dreamily, but Leander’s seen enough to know that they’re done with the paddle for tonight. He hauls Tripp upright and into his lap, one leg bracketing either side of his thighs. Leander cups Tripp’s head and drags him down into a languid kiss, squeezing one of his reddened ass cheeks roughly and making Tripp moan into his mouth. It’s heavenly—Tripp is loose and pliant, cock hard against his abdomen, and Leander would love to throw him down on the bed, push his legs back and sink inside of him.

That isn’t what he promised Tripp, though, and Leander is nothing if not a man of his word. With a grunt, he wraps both arms around Tripp’s waist and stands up, barely long enough to turn and dump Tripp down onto the bed. Bending to scoop his legs up, Leander urges Tripp to scoot towards the middle as much as he can.

To Tripp’s credit, he complies without question or complaint, lying there naked and sprawled out, with heavy-lidded eyes that lazily track Leander’s every movement. Satisfied and entirely aroused, Leander strips in record time before retrieving the lube from his bedside table drawer and wasting no niceties when it comes to prepping himself.

Climbing up and over Tripp, Leander leans down to kiss him. His lips trail across Tripp’s cheek, whispering praise and dirty little things in his ear, enough to make Tripp arch up against him and whine. He keeps things perfunctory, and as soon as his ass is anywhere close to ready, Leander turns the lube on Tripp’s cock, slicking it up like crazy before grabbing the base and sinking down.

Tripp—Tripp is a fucking revelation beneath him. The perfect, patient sub, desperate to near quaking, shivering from arousal and the undeniable pain of the fiery skin of his ass cheeks, but still trying so damn hard to please. He groans and tips his head back as Leander’s body envelops his cock, briefly flustered about what to do with his hands until Leander grabs them and places them firmly on his hips.

“Touch me, you can touch me,” Leander pants, his own eyes fluttering closed as he pushes himself down to fully-seated. It’s been a minute since he’s done this, and while it’s pleasurable and it’s Tripp, it’s also a not-small dick up his not-used-to-it ass, and Leander finds himself curling forward into the chest in front of him for a moment to adjust. To his surprise, Tripp’s hands fly to his back and drift gently down over it, nails scratching blissfully then followed by flat, soothing palms.

“Feels so good, Sir,” Tripp whispers, and Leander clenches his muscles in response, dragging another moan from his sub’s lips. “Thank you,” he adds, and that’s it— Leander has to slap a hand over Tripp’s mouth before he loses it. To lean into the moment, he keeps it there, straightening up only to look down his nose and rock his hips into Tripp’s pelvis.

Just above Leander’s hand, Tripp’s eyes are wide but still plenty glazed, beautiful and piercing as they hold unflinching contact with his own.

Tipping his head back, Leander lets out a groan as he moves, riding Tripp enthusiastically, sliding up and down his cock and rolling his hips in a circle. The more he moves, the better he feels, and planting a foot next to Tripp’s flank gives him the leverage he needs to hit his own prostate.

He uses Tripp, fucks him hard, chases his own pleasure and relishes the way Tripp shakes and sweats and fights to hold on beneath him.

“You—you can come,” Leander gasps out, knowing that he’s less than a minute from finishing himself and not even remotely attempting to hold back. As he grinds down and swivels his hips, Leander gets a hand around his cock and strokes until his orgasm flows through his body, nearly sending him to a higher plane as he spurts hot and wet all over Tripp’s stomach, as promised.

Tripp isn’t far behind, Leander’s permission unlocking some kind of floodgate he was barely holding shut, and his hips jerk up while his hands pull down.

Even through the fog of his own afterglow, Leander loves feeling Tripp let go, relishes the gripping of his hips in both need and desperation, and Tripp’s hot seed spilling so satisfyingly deep inside him. It feels like a mark, a brand, and while the man doesn’t know it—Tripp thinks he had to ask to belong to Leander, to be his , when the opposite is true — Leander has always belonged to Tripp, whether either of them realized it or not.

Cleanup is faster than usual this time, perhaps in part because Leander has something to look forward to when finished. Today, he doesn’t have to worry about getting out of the room, or what he should be doing, should be feeling. He just gets to be with Tripp.

He cleans himself up in the bathroom just to steal a quiet moment to control his shaking hands, to wrestle his excitement under control before slipping back into the playroom bed with an orange-juice-flavored Tripp and pulling him close. It can’t be more than ten in the morning, but Leander is now the kind of exhausted that a person can’t fight, no matter how much they want to enjoy the moment. His eyelids fall closed with the weight of something much heavier pressing down on them.

It’s good to know that he doesn’t need to fight. That he’s meant to stay, that Tripp wants him to do so. As he falls asleep, he pulls Tripp just a little bit closer, savors the puff of warm breath on his neck. He delights in every tiny aspect of the moment—from the way Tripp’s ribcage expands into his side, to the contented sigh he exhales following. The hand resting in the middle of Leander’s chest and the way Tripp’s lips graze gently over the hollow of his collarbone bring him close to a state of euphoria.

Drowsy and completely relaxed, Leander almost slips and murmurs to Tripp that he loves him, managing to bite the words back at the very last second. It’s not as painful, today, the way they’re swallowed down into his chest, because Leander has every chance in the world to put his feelings into action in a way that he already knows Tripp will accept. In a way that Tripp not only wants but needs . He revels in the heat of Tripp’s body, the way his torso feels resting half on top of his own—it’s good.

Leander hangs on, holds him that much tighter.

It’s enough.