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Fit has gotten the amount of time he gets with Spreen after sex down to a science. Not that he counts it in the moment, to try to would burn his mind out with frustration, but reflecting on the clock once he leaves and the time they most likely started–
It’s not a difficult equation. Made even easier by the fact most of the time Fit doesn’t really ask to fuck, Spreen just messages him after he gets cockblocked or whatever and Fit follows like the dutiful dog he is.
It’s less than three minutes. One and a half to breathe, stare at the ceiling. Another to ‘realize’ what time it is and start pushing out of bed. The rest to make up some blithe excuse as he walks out the door.
“S’it 3 already?” Spreen mumbles on Fit’s left, having rolled off of him with a heavy sigh. The kind that teeters enough towards pleased that Fit keeps coming back, “Shit.”
Fit would snort if it wouldn’t ruin their three minutes.
He doesn’t know how Spreen can disconnect so fast. A few moments ago he was drawling saccharine praise, a bitter back-handed sort, scraping his nails down Fit’s chest and shoulders with all the intention to spill blood because he’s a big guy, he can take it. He’s made to be his whore.
Now he’s musing about the time. One arm crooked over to rest his head on without having broken much of a sweat. An arm that, of course, raises as Spreen shoves himself off the bed and begins searching for his lost clothing.
Fit’s still catching his breath. Coming down from his high. Maybe it’s an age thing or maybe Spreen’s just… more used to the rough and tumble. Not that Fit isn’t used to it. He’s just more of a survivalist in everything.
“Ramon, tomorrow.” Fit remembers to croak, because that's what this conversation started as. Reminding him to see his son. A concept he could grasp more clearly if his head wasn’t ten feet underwater. Fuck, his shoulders are starting to ache.
Spreen grunts back something non-committal, “Got it, got it.” and slides on his pants and long sleeve. Shoves his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. Every article he puts on makes Fit feel far more exposed and he hikes up one of their tossed aside sheets to cover his lower half.
He’s cursing under his breath in quick succession, using the barrage of Argentinian slang he’s heard more in bed than anywhere else. His com is basically vibrating out of his pocket with messages. Clearly he’s late for something this time, thumbing out a reply with one hand and tucking his hat on with another.
Fit tries not to let that hurt. He’s a busy guy. He knows he has three minutes and that time is almost up. At least he has an excuse this time instead of trying to sputter out some lie about needing to find Roier and ending up doing dungeons for the next hour alone. There’s no point in letting it hurt. He knows how this goes, even if it needles his chest with lonesome agony.
He reaches Fit’s door and pauses. There’s an awkward air as Spreen picks his bag up from beside it slowly. When he straightens, he looks to Fit still sprawled in bed with an unknowable expression hidden behind the darkened shades.
Spreen tries to speak, but stops short. He tries again and this time from his lips comes a miraculous, stilted; “You ok?”
Fit’s head spins. He’s stopped. At the door. Waiting for Fit to respond like those simple choices alone aren’t making his world burn with feverish pathetic joy. He feels bad? He must. Spreen was kinda rough this time, rougher than usual–
Don’t fuck it up. He tightens his jaw.
“Yeah, all good.” Fit’s lips curl with a lazy grin. He stretches his arms above his head and yawns like an unfurled cat, “Takes more than that to break me.” It’s cocky, boastful, all the shit Spreen loves to do and hear despite the croak. I can take it.
Spreen nods to himself, gaze twisting away for a moment. “Yeah. Okay, cool.” He slides his back over his shoulder, “I’ll get Ramon tomorrow.”
And he’s gone. The door shuts behind him and he sprints up Fit’s stairs and takes his warpstone to god knows where.
Fit lets out a sigh that sounds far more like a pained groan. His shoulders sink back down, the stretched cuts still prickling with sharp agony. Just because he has a high pain tolerance doesn’t mean he stops feeling pain. It’s just easier to manage. Easier to ignore. When he’s not stretching to brag about it.
He sinks back into the bed, ignoring the tacking blood that pools on his skin and drips to his sheets. This is a victory, Fit should be proud. Spreen is a coiled up ball of tension and defensive walls and Fit has found his ladder over.
The more he takes, the more Spreen feels bad, the more likely he is to stay. And when he stays, he’ll stay for good. Investing in Fit’s wellbeing means he isn’t about to skirt off to whatever new adventure– It means he’ll finally fucking be around and present and hell, maybe if he can start caring about Fit it means the three of them, Ramon included, can start being a real family.
He just has to prove he can withhold his spines and spikes first. The flighty parts of him that run from sight. And if sex has to be that first step, if it’s the only way he can get Spreen to stick around for longer than a minute, then he’ll take it. This is progress, though. It’s progress.
Fit stares up at the ceiling. His shoulders pulse with an ache.
It doesn’t feel like progress.
But Fit can’t focus on what it feels like, because it feels like he’s a puppet with cut strings. Loose, weighted, without any purpose. And this happens every time but he can’t fucking stop feeling it. No matter how much that glimmer of hope twinkles invitingly before him, of a family and stability in this paradise. Whenever Spreen leaves he’s just…
Empty. Hollowed out. Made some sort of vulnerable little blip on the radar scan of his body. Bleeding and aching in more ways than one. Left to clean everything up and get on with his day.
Which he should do soon. Probably. There’s a voice in the back of his mind that says it’s really dangerous for him to just lay here naked and weeping blood. Yet the louder more prominent tone of his thoughts is that he’s too weightless and dizzy to move.
He just wants to lay here. He wants Spreen to come back. Just to talk, maybe. Or to ground him in the present with some stupid joke. Make him feel real, alive, again and not just prickling goosebumps against red sheets. He cuts that line of thinking quick. It does him no good. Spreen doesn’t come back, he’s never come back.
Then the warpstone whooshes with the familiar glimmering jingle and Fit’s heart lodges itself in his throat.
He practically throws himself upright in bed, staring with wide eyes at the door. Maybe he forgot something, don’t get your hopes up.
His ribs are tight around his lungs. He’d never forgive himself later for being so obviously desperate, but everything hurts and he feels so weird and–
“Fit?” Comes the timid voice of Pac from up the stairs, “Hello?”
His hope comes shattering around him like glass.
No, no, no no–
He’s frozen, stricken like a frightened deer as Pac paces just above him. He should call out, tell him to come back later, but he knows his voice will sound wrecked. His door isn’t a security one, there’s no lock on it, not that he could get up and lock it without sounding suspicious anyway.
Fuck. He must’ve forgot to turn off his fucking location on the com.
He needs to get up. He needs to do something, seem normal or- or at least casual with everything. With the blood, the messy sheets, the room smelling like sex, but he’s stuck.
Watching like an absent mind in a theater viewing a horror film. Seeing the end draw closer and screaming for himself to snap out of it. Pac is his friend– Pac’s been through a lot and he doesn’t need this shit muddling his idea of who Fit is. Taking him from valiant pillar to lean on to pathetic dog.
A knock on the door. “ Oi? Fit? Are you there?”
His head spins. No, right? He’s not. Not yet. He needs to feel– something– Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck– What if it’s about Ramon ?
“Fit?”
“Yeah?” Fit rasps back, eyes pinched shut. The brief silence, the shocked pause, makes his stomach plummet.
“I saw you were around today. Me and Mike were testing some new parts of Hide and Seek and…” Pac trails off and Fit throws his arms over his eyes.
Is the humiliation not enough? The shame of not even being able to keep his own damn husband around not enough trauma porn for the universe that they had to send one of his only friends to make it worse?
“Are– Are you okay?” Pac asks and Fit is miserably aware it’s one word more than Spreen gave him.
He swallows around his thick tongue, the buzzing muscle useless in his mouth. His back, his sides, all of it hurts. He feels one sharp blow away from falling into pieces. He’s definitely not okay. Not even close.
Fit draws his hands back and rubs at his face. “Later.” He says and while it makes all the sense in his head, it doesn’t have as much when he says it out loud, “I’ll–” He sucks in a breath, “I’ll see it later, Pac.”
His nerves are fried, shot out and empty. He doesn’t want to yell or be angry, but his mounting frustration with himself will build into an anger with Pac and he needs him gone before it gets there. Fit doesn’t need any more reasons to hate himself right now.
“I don’t wanna… push but… You didn’t answer my question, I don’t think?” He hears Pac’s feet shuffle, uncertain, outside his door.
Well. Fit doesn’t have anything to say to that. He curls his fingers into his brow, face pinched. Checkmate.
Pac sounds closer now, he must be pressed against the door; “Fit? Um… I’m… I’m coming in, okay?” His voice is tight with worry, the kind of concern that Fit wants, selfishly. Which is why he doesn’t say “ Don’t. ” till Pac's already opened the door and stepped in with one quick movement.
His silence speaks volumes. Humiliation burns Fit’s cheeks. Stupid. Stupid. He shouldn’t have done this. Should’ve told Pac to fuck off, maybe he still can–
“ Wha– I– What happened? Fit?” Pac rushes to say, probably spying the blood first. His voice travels from the door to his side, “Fit you’re– you’re scaring me.” His breath hitches with a frightened wobble and Fit splinters. A weak, raw, heart in his chest thrumming with want.
He drops his arms and casts his gaze to the wall instead of Pac, “Nothing.” He says, glass scraping up his throat, “I don’t know.”
“Nothing?” Pac says shrilly, “It’s not nothing! How - How can you say it’s nothing?” Fit can feel the warmth of his palm just inches from his skin as they hover uselessly above his side. Not willing to touch, but itching to move.
He shrugs and a pained noise drags through his teeth.
Pac gasps, “ Sorry, sorry, don’t–” He swallows hard, “Was this– was this someone? Someone here, on- on the island? Fit, tell me.” His fingers curl into the sheets next to his side. He can feel the fabric tugging towards Pac.
As Fit becomes increasingly aware he’s giving off the wrong idea, he sputters out a weak laugh. Not because the idea of this being against his will is funny, but rather the fact that he wanted it is.
“No, I–” Fit snorts, dizzy and delirious, “Trust me, I wanted this.”
“It doesn’t look like it.” Pac comments.
“He asks. I said yes.” Fit says, with a bit of bite to it now. A curl to his brow, “He even asked if I was okay afterwards. I said yes.” Pac doesn’t need to know the details. About the three minute clause, of how his three words absolutely buried Spreen’s measly two.
Pac’s fingers press gently on the inflamed skin on his shoulder. “And he left?”
He always does. “He was busy.” Fit’s not even sure why he’s defending him. Spreen has his reasons. Pac doesn’t need to know them.
“He was busy.” Pac echos, “Okay. Okay. He was busy .” He says the words like they’re poison, bitter on his tongue that he needs to spit out.
A punched out noise comes from the hollow of Fit’s chest, “Don’t be mad.” It’s supposed to be a command, but it comes out more whining and ached. Like Pac’s vitriolic tone was for him, not Spreen. He knows it’s probably not, but there’s a disconnect between the thought and feeling. Like someone had severed the vital wires.
“No, no, I’m– I’m not mad,” Pac says, a clear lie, and he races his hands down to pick up Fit’s fingers, “Can– Can you look at me, Fit?”
He doesn’t…
want
to. Fit wants to stay spaced out, watching the wall till his depressive mood crawls back into it’s cave. But– Pac
asked
and his mind is still all watery and wobbly. And he said his name. Spreen
never
says his name. Pac says it all the time, like he’s never worried about it growing old or tiring in his mouth.
And now, here, hearing it makes him remember he’s real. He’s a person, a physical being in space. A thing that needs and follows orders, does what he’s told. So he turns his head over to look at Pac.
Through lidded eyes, he sees Pac’s thin lipped frown turn into a small, relieved, grin. “Thank you.” He says, voice soaked with gratefulness that makes Fit’s head spin. Thank you, “I’m not mad at you. It’s okay, yeah? We’re okay.” He gestures with his free hand between him and Fit.
He says it so assuredly that Fit can’t help but believe him. “Yeah.” He murmurs back, “Okay.”
“Can you sit up?” Pac asks, taking a quick inventory of the room with his hand still locked with Fit’s, “For me?” He adds after a beat.
Yeah. Yeah, Fit can do that. He grunts something he hopes sounds affirmative and pushes with his free hand up off the bed. The sheets have dried, sticking to the open cuts along his spine, and he hisses as they tug at irritated injuries.
Pac’s hand is on the part of his side that isn’t entirely scratched up, helping push himself upwards. He drags a breath through his teeth in sympathy, “ Okay. Good, good–” Fit can hear the rising frustration in his tone begin to bear it’s teeth once more and Pac takes a deep, deep , breath, “ Thank you. Thank you, Fit. Is this…all of it?” His thumb rubs a circle into Fit’s rib and Fit genuinely considers letting himself tear up over it.
“Yeah.” He says, trying to muscle the words out of his mouth, “Sorry, I– I dunno know why…I’m like this?” It comes with a twinge of amusement, though Pac is far from amused.
His grip on Fit’s hand tightens.
Fit winces, not from pain but from feeling the tense air dredging up on Pac’s end.
Pac takes in another breath. Exhales slow. “Are you usually?”
Fit’s blink is slow. He thinks. “Not always.” Trying to think about Spreen and the times before makes him ill. Makes his stomach churn and ache and want to lean into Pac’s touch like cold fingers to a fire.
“Does he know? Whoever he is, that you are-are like this?”
And Fit lets out a miserable sounding huff of air because he doesn’t even know what this is, much less how he’d explain it to Spreen. Yeah right. Like he could ever try and tell Spreen this. They both have their demons with insecurity.
“Okay.” Pac says, light and quiet, “Okay.”
His chest aches with turmoil; “Sorry.” He almost says you can go, if you want, but he can’t bring himself to actually vocalize the thought. Because he doesn’t want him to go. Fit’s worried he’ll break apart if Pac leaves, takes his warm hand off his side, tugs it from his tangled fingers.
Pac shakes his head, “Don’t be sorry! It’s okay, Fit, I promise. I’m just thinking, you know?”
Fit nods, content to wait forever if Pac keeps tracing circles into his side.
Pac shifts, moves towards the door. His fingers almost slip from Fit’s hand and he redoubles his grip in response with his breath caught in his throat. He lets out a strangled; “ No. ” Which sounds more pathetic than he’s ever wanted to show himself to be.
Instead of ripping his grip from Fit’s, however, Pac squeezes back a short pulse, “I’m grabbing my bag, I won’t leave the room.”
Lying. He’s lying. He’s leaving because look at me. Who wouldn’t?
Pac waits as Fit forces each finger to unfurl, even if it feels like dying. He’s not gonna keep Pac here. He wouldn’t force him to stay.
Pac withdraws, giving him a meaningful look, “I’m grabbing my bag, ok?”
Something keening hides behind Fit’s teeth.
He laces his fingers under his bag and brings it over to the bed. This is it, this is the other shoe dropping. When he hoists it over his shoulder and leaves.
Pac opens the bag and rummages through his backpack with a furrow to his brow, “I have to organize this thing. It’s so messy. Even the rats hate it.”
Fit nods, watching with wide eyes.
He pulls out a healing potion with a triumphant grin, “Gotcha. Okay, can you–” Pac purses his lips, thinking through his words, “Swing your– your legs? Over the side of the bed.”
The order comes gently and Fit has no problems following. Pac makes sure to adjust the sheets to bring them with him, keeping his decency that Fit had momentarily forgotten about. After this, he walks around to Fit’s front and keeps between his knees, potion in hand.
Fit’s mind lags at the movement. Oh. Did he want–?
“Is it ok if you rest your head on my shoulder?” Pac asks, shuffling down his blue hood so it makes a near-enough cushion, “I need to get this on all the cuts and I thought it’d be easier to do this way.”
Rest on Pac? He’s leaning forward without another thought. His forehead rests, heavy as lead, between his neck and shoulder. On instinct, his arms come around Pac’s sides in a loose hug that he hopes isn’t contested.
Pac adjusts but ultimately lets him situate himself however comfortable. “All okay?” He asks, a pinch of nervousness to his voice.
Fit hums, senses lulled by the smell of machine oil and black coffee that seems to have stuck to the fibers of his clothes. Spreen’s never stuck around long enough for him to enjoy a hold like this. Not long enough to notice a scent, not even on his pillowcase.
“Can you say yes or no, please?” Pac asks, tracing the back of his nail down Fit’s arm.
“Yes.” Fit mumbles into his shirt. He still feels somewhat embarrassed, grateful for the chance to hide himself away and pretend it’s not him being this vulnerable belly-up creature that he’d laugh at in other circumstances.
“Thank you.” Pac chirps, “You’re doing really good.”
A flush pushes a wave through his skin. Something prickling and bright that has his breath catching in his throat. Fit knows, like he knows the sky is blue, that he would do anything to hear Pac praise him like that again.
He pops off the cork of the bottle and the smell of sweet sugary fruit fills the air, a side effect of a healing potion. The cold salve begins to smooth over Fit’s shoulders and he hisses at the sudden temperature change.
“Sorry, I’m sorry–” Pac says, “It’s just cold, I promise it’ll pass.”
Fit groans and tries to resist the urge to bite into Pac’s hoodie.
“Breathe and be really slow about it. In and out.” He says, “You can do it.”
Well, if Pac says he can… He drags in a slow breath, exhales even slower. Matches it with the soothing hand pressing an aloe-like gel across his still-burning wounds. Pac starts up towards his neck, where Spreen had bitten deep into the junction of his throat, then smoothes his hand down towards the crest of his spine, then further.
True to his word, the gel begins to warm up in Pac’s hand. Maybe from just his touch or the blaze rod infused properties, who knows. But it leaves sparking tingles in it’s wake, closing up each clawed mark on his skin.
“You’re doing really good, Fit,” Pac says, “Stay still for me.”
Fit barely catches the whine that builds in his throat. Good? He’s doing good? The word echoes and bounces around in his head.
Pac smoothes his hands over his sides and towards his lower back, massaging in the salve. The pops and creaks that come up from under his hand remind Fit that he’ll probably not forget this for a long time. That he’ll smell a healing potion and desperately wish he was back here again, under Pac’s trusted care.
His eyes flutter, nearing shut as tiredness drags at his bones. Pac’s fingers skillfully pulling each ache from under his skin. It’s hard to keep his arms up and tucked around Pac’s middle with how heavy it all feels.
He’s almost sorry when Pac stops, muttering; “Okay, I think I got it all.” He taps his fingers along Fit’s back, “Is there anywhere else that hurts?”
Fit shakes his head. He just feels sticky now. From the cum that’s cooled between his thighs and the salve on his skin. Plus the blood that remains, still tacked on his arms. But whatever. He doesn’t care. Pac’s really warm.
“Can I ask something, Fit?” Pac says.
“Mhm.”
He runs his hand up and down his side, “Was this Spreen?”
Fit stiffens. But that’s answer enough, isn’t it?
“You guys are husbands.” Pac admits with a saddened note, “I figured it was. The claw marks– Only so many people it could be, you know?”
He groans, pushing his face into Pac, “Don’t… Don’t tell him. That we did this.” Shame bubbles in his gut, roiling and furious.
“Does he get… like-- really jealous?”
“No,” Fit grits his teeth, “If he stops because he thinks he’s… like, y’know, hurting me he won’t come back .” Fit should shut up. He should stop talking. He needs to stop talking. This is too much truth, too close to the raw exposed skin of his heart. He’s already going to need to never see Pac again after this– What with being all weird and … just…
Pac’s hand doesn’t stop, soothing and slow.
“Okay. We can… talk later, yeah?” Pac offers, “Thanks for telling me.”
Stop doing that. Stop being nice. Just fuckin’ throw me to the curb already.
“Yeah.” He grunts, feeling too good to move.
“I have a shower at Chume Labs. How about you use that to clean off and…” Pac pauses, “If you want, we can nap. Mike is busy with the map, he won’t mind if we use his bed.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
Fit shakes his head, trying to muscle up the courage to push away from Pac’s comforting touch, “I can’t. Because…” A lot of reasons. None he can articulate, but that feel looming and scary on the horizon. Some that feel already too close. Like he’s crossed some sort of line he can’t come back from.
Pac’s grip around him tightens, “I’m not leaving you alone.”
Why is it just Pac who says that? Why couldn’t it be Spreen? Things would be so much easier that way. He wouldn’t have to feel so awful and conflicted. Not that it’s… his fault, but…
“Can you…” He warbles, “Can you say that again?” He needs to memorize it. Just in case it never happens after this. Fit needs to hear it, lock it away in his memory. Know every intonation, every pause and breath.
Pac tightens his grip further, holding him close, “I’m not leaving you alone, Fit. Come take a shower.”
Fit sighs into his shoulder, letting his eyes shut and his mind drift. It’s hard to keep it together, but it’s not as scary as before. When he goes, it’s with a line he can pull himself home with. Allowed to safely fall away and apart and know he can return to Pac’s hug holding him like a vice.
“Okay.”