Chapter 38 - Alexei
Ilya came over.
He hadn’t been around much lately.
That wasn’t unusual in itself - Ilya came and went in waves, his presence dictated by whatever chaos he was currently involved in. But this absence had been different.
I asked him about the bruises but he denied it.
Of course I didn’t believe it and Dimitri was trying to find out who did it. It would just be much fucking easier if he could give us a name. I don’t understand why he keeps lying and hiding from us.
He talked a bit with Marco, well more than a bit considering Ilya didn’t know when to shut the fuck up. In the middle of their conversation Marco went to the bathroom and Ilya came over to me. I was standing in the kitchen.
“Are you alright?” he asked and I nodded. “Are you?”
He tilted his head. “Don’t throw the question at me. I’m serious.”
His voice dropped lower. “He looks… He looks like he is barely holding on.”
Ilya wasn’t exaggerating. Marco did look like he was barely holding on.
Because he was barely holding on.
“Shouldn’t he be in the hospital?”
“He should but he doesn’t want to.”
Ilya stared at me. “Not to be a bitch but since when do you hear what others want? I mean he obviously needs it, he looks like—”
“I know what he looks like.”
My voice was harsher than I meant to. Ilya looked down and bit the inside of his cheek. “He’s my friend too… I’m not saying it to hurt you. I’m saying it because I don’t want…. something to happen to him.”
I swallowed. Ilya did get close to Marco.
I think it’s because Marco is the only person who lets him talk his ear off.
Me and Dimitri are tolerant but our patience is thin.
However Marco will sit and listen to him for hours, and he won’t complain at all.
So I can’t blame Ilya. I know he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to my little star.
“I won’t force him into a hospital where he’s strapped to a bed and cries all day,” I explained. “I won’t do that to him. I can take care of him here.”
Ilya sighed but then nodded. “I understand.”
“They will find him a heart soon, and it will be okay.”
Ilya looked at me strangely. I know what he was thinking, that I was in denial, but I was stating a fact.
There would be a heart for my little star.
I knew it.
Because the alternative was a world without Marco in it, and that world was not one I was willing to inhabit, and if the universe was going to try to put me in there then the universe was going to have to fucking fight me for it.
My tests came back negative.
My heart could not be given to Marco. I’m not sure if that was good or bad. But I did intend to break my promise if they said yes.
I snapped out of my thoughts and pointed at the snacks.
The bags on the counter. The strawberry gummies and the strawberry chocolate and the strawberry-flavored everything that Ilya had brought over. “Don’t bring him that anymore. He can’t eat them.”
Ilya looked over them. “I didn’t know.” He sounded defeated. The bags he brought this time weren’t even opened. They were all fully closed, which was a first because he would usually eat half of them on the way here.
“It’s okay, but having them here and not being able to eat them will just make him sad. You can bring him more when he’s better.”
When he’s better.
Not if.
When.
After Ilya left, we went to the bedroom.
I thought we would be sleeping.
That was what I expected because I had not touched him lately.
I was scared to hurt him.
Sure I held him. I caressed him and kissed him but I didn’t do anything beyond that. For weeks.
We were in the bedroom. The lights were off. The city glow came through the curtains. Then he reached for my face.
His fingers found my jaw and he kissed me. “Fuck me.”
I pulled back. “Marco, it’s not a good idea.”
Hurt flashed in his eyes and I wanted to slap myself.
He looked down at himself. “Is it because…” he started, and his voice was tentative. “I know I look worse than before. I lost a lot of weight, so I c—”
I cupped his face and made him stop talking.
God.
How could this pure, beautiful angel think so badly of himself?
How could he look at his own body - the body I had memorized, the body I had traced, the body I had held and kissed and worshipped in every state, in every condition, in every version it had ever existed in - how could he look at it and see something lesser?
Something worse? Something that would make me not want him?
How could he not know?
How could he not know that he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen? That he had been the most beautiful thing I had ever seen since the night I first saw him?
How could he not know that his body - every version of it, every state of it, every diminishing, failing iteration of it - was the only body I had ever wanted? The only body I had ever craved?
“Malyshka,” I grabbed his attention. “You look as beautiful as ever. I just don’t want to hurt you.” I caressed his face.
I hate how insecure he is because he was the prettiest thing I had ever seen.
That was not a matter of opinion. That was a fact and I could not make him know it and that inescapable failure was one of the great torments of my existence. But I knew why he was like this.
I followed Dimitri’s footsteps and I didn’t stop at the medical files. I obtained records from every school he attended, piecing together years of his life that he had never willingly given me.
He had been bullied. Badly.
And I hated myself for not being there.
Maybe that was why he wasn’t as brave as I remembered him from that night in Italy.
Why the boy I had once watched stand so fearlessly beneath the stars seemed to have learned how to shrink himself instead.
Those fucking idiots had dimmed something in him, and I hated them for it almost as much as I hated myself for arriving too late.
But I didn’t forget them.
I tracked them all the way to Italy. I had them taken and delivered to Ilya’s little playroom, and knowing Ilya, I was fairly certain none of them had walked back out.
Perhaps that was the closest thing to an apology I would ever be able to give him.
It wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
“I want you,” he whispered and I kissed his head, then his nose, followed by his lips.
I kissed him gently and I carefully got on top of him, keeping all my weight off so I wouldn’t crush him.
Tonight, I would be the gentlest thing in his world.
I settled fully over him, knees bracketing his hips, and reached back to pull my own shirt over my head.
The second the fabric cleared my face I saw them properly - dozens of tiny puncture marks scattered along the insides of his arms, the soft skin of his wrists, even a few near the crook of his elbow.
Needle marks. Fresh enough that some still looked pink.
The doctors had poked and probed him endlessly, and the sight of every single one made me want to end this world.
I parted his legs carefully. He was already bare beneath me; he only ever slept in one of my shirts, and I’d stripped that off him earlier. His thighs fell open easily, the way they always did for me, and I leaned down.
I kissed a slow path down his chest, over the faint ridges of his ribs, across the soft plane of his stomach.
When my mouth reached the first cluster of marks on his left arm he winced - not from pain, I could tell, but from shame.
Like he thought the evidence of what his body had been through made him less.
I hated that look more than anything.
I pressed my lips to every single mark. I kissed the ones on his wrist twice, three times, until the tension in his arm melted and his fingers curled weakly into the sheets.
“Alexei… please…” His voice cracked. “Hurry up.”
I chuckled against his skin, low and warm. “You’re impatient, baby.”
I reached over to the nightstand, found the bottle of lube by feel, and slicked two fingers thoroughly. The second the cool gel touched him he shook his head, eyes glassy.
“No…I… I need you.”
I raised an eyebrow, hovering over him. “It’s been a while since I stretched this little hole of yours. I’m not just ramming myself in.”
I lowered my body until my chest brushed his, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “Be patient, Malyshka.”
My free hand came down in a light smack against the outside of his thigh - nowhere near as hard as I usually would, just enough to make the skin pink for a second. He went still, lower lip pushing out in the softest pout, and the sight of it made heat coil low in my gut.
Then I pressed two fingers against him and slid them in slow.
He clenched around me immediately. I worked him open, curling my fingers just right so they dragged over that spot inside him that always made his toes curl. “Alexei—”
I kept the pace controlled, coating his walls in lube until he was wet and open. Every time he tried to push down onto my hand I pinned his hip with my other palm.
When the tight ring of muscle finally gave easily around three fingers, when he was slick and pushing back into my hand like he couldn’t help himself, I eased them out.
Marco made a needy sound at the loss.
I shifted, hands gentle on his hips, and carefully turned him onto his side so his back faced me. He glanced over his shoulder, brows drawn together.
“What are you doing?”
“Shush,” I murmured, already sliding in behind him, chest to his back, one arm slipping under his neck so I could cradle him properly.
I didn’t want to risk any drastic position.
I definitely would not throw his legs over my shoulders - that would be too much - and him on his stomach, I don’t want because I want to see his face.
My lips brushed the nape of his neck. “This way I can hold you properly.”
I settled fully against him, the front of my body molded to the curve of his spine.
My free hand stroked down his side, over the soft skin of his waist, then lower.
I cupped one of his ass cheeks and parted it carefully, exposing the stretched hole I’d just prepared.
My cock - already hard and leaking slid between his cheeks.
I rolled my hips once, twice, letting the thick length drag slowly through the lube, rubbing the head against his entrance without pushing in yet.
Marco shivered, a small whimper catching in his throat. I kissed the hinge of his jaw, then the soft skin just below his ear.
“I’m going to go slow,” I promised. “You tell me if anything hurts, even a little and I’ll stop. Okay?”
He nodded, voice already breathy. “Okay… just…please, Alexei.”
I reached down, guiding myself, and pressed the head of my cock against him.
The first push was measured. I felt him open around me inch by inch, the tight heat of him swallowing me gradually.
A low groan rumbled in my chest as I sank deeper, one hand still holding him open, the other stroking his cheek with the pad of my thumb.
“Fuck…,” I breathed. “This little hole was made for my cock, wasn’t it?”
I kept going until I was fully seated, hips flush against his ass, buried to the hilt. I stayed still for a long moment, letting him adjust, kissing along his shoulder and the side of his neck while my hand continued to caress his face.
“You feel so fucking good,” I murmured. “I’ve missed this. Missed being inside you. Missed the way you clench when I talk to you like this.”
Marco’s fingers found my forearm where it rested across his chest and held on. I started to move, gentle rolls of my hips at first, letting him feel every slide of my cock dragging in and out of him. The position kept us pressed together; every thrust rolled our bodies as one.
“That’s it… just like that,” I whispered. “Let me take care of you. Let me make you feel good. You’re doing so well for me, baby. Taking every inch so sweetly.”
I slipped my hand down his stomach, wrapping my fingers loosely around his cock, stroking him in the same rhythm as my hips. The dual sensation made him moan louder, head tipping back against my shoulder.
“Alexei…ah—”
I pressed a soft kiss to his jaw, still rocking into him. “Tell me,” I whispered against his skin. “Tell me how it feels.”
Marco’s breath hitched. His fingers tightened on my forearm. “It feels… good,” he managed. “So good. You’re so deep… I can feel all of you.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” I murmured. “You’re taking me so perfectly, Malyshka.”
I let my free hand roam, mapping every inch of him I could reach. Fingers trailed over the line of his collarbone, down the center of his chest, across the fragile curve of his ribs.
“I love every part of you.” I turned his chin just enough to press a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth. “God, this face. The prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. Those eyes. That mouth. The way you look at me.”
Marco whimpered, hips shifting back to meet me as best he could. “Alexei…”
“I’m right here,” I soothed, tightening my arm around him so our bodies stayed flush.
“I’ve got you. Every inch of you is beautiful to me.
The way your breath catches when I hit that spot just right.
The little sounds you make when you’re trying to stay quiet.
The way your body softens for me, trusts me, lets me in so deep.
You’re doing so well,” I praised, kissing the side of his neck between words.
“You’re perfect, Marco. I wouldn’t change a single thing about you.
You’re still the most beautiful person I’ve ever held. ”
His fingers tightened on my forearm as I angled my hips just right, dragging over that sensitive place inside him again and again.
I felt him start to tighten around me. “That’s it, Malyshka… let go for me. Come for me. Let me feel you.”
Marco’s whole body arched gently against mine.
A wrecked cry left his lips as he came undone in my arms, spilling over my fingers while his body clenched sweetly around my cock.
Only then did I let myself follow, burying my face in the curve of his neck as I came deep inside him.
I stayed there afterward, arms wrapped tightly around his smaller frame while our breathing slowly evened out.
I pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, then another to his temple.
“I love you.”
That sentence leaves my mouth every night, but I despise the word love when it comes to him.
It reduces something ravenous to a handful of harmless letters.
I would hollow myself out until there was nothing left but a place for him to exist. There has to be a darker word for that - one no language has been clever enough to invent.