Prison Break - Shifting Perceptions
Title: Shifting Perceptions
Author: clair-de-lune
Pairing: Michael/Lincoln
Genre: Slash
Rating: R
Warning: Incest
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just borrowing them for a while.
Word count: ~ 3620
Summary: There is no such thing as ‘just a closet’ as far as he is concerned. Closets equal abuse, fear and powerlessness.
Notes: Written based on a plot bunny posted by callmetofu at foxriver-fic: Michael/Lincoln closet PWP: Because of his childhood trauma Michael feels an unease with closets and small spaces. He drags a clueless Lincoln into a closet and creates some more positive associations. PWP, pre-series (Michael college-aged). Also written for the New Year’s Mini-Round at rounds_of_kink with the kinks Immobilization and Wall!Sex (I guess it somewhat qualifies for both of them) and the prompts Burgundy and Memory.
Thanks to happywriter06 for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
(Read entry in light format)
He’s been fascinated with it the instant he discovered it in Lincoln’s shabby, crappy apartment. Small and dark, oddly appealing and repulsive altogether. Smelling musty because the previous owner probably wasn’t the world’s tidiest person, and Lincoln is hardly better. But there’s also the lingering scent of Lincoln and that creates a perfectly balanced combination, just on the edge between dread and comfort.
In the end, curiosity won over discretion and uneasiness and he resolved to open the door to peer inside. He didn’t actually go in, because the mere idea of stepping inside brought a sticky sweat along his spine, made his throat constrict, his sight go dark and his brain buzz, but he did open the door and look inside.
From the threshold, he discovered a small space with walls covered in some fluffy burgundy fabric - he thinks of a brothel, although honestly, he hasn’t the slightest idea of what an actual brothel looks like - a few old clothes hung on a rail, a bunch of boxes in a hazardous stack and a single bare bulb filling the room with faded yellow light. Just some closet.
Except there is no such thing as ‘just a closet’ as far as he is concerned. Closets equal abuse, fear and powerlessness. They’re full of repellent sounds - barely audible cries, grunts of anger, strangled breathing - and repulsive sensations - the dust in his nose, the moist chill prickling his skin, things seemingly reaching for him in the dark. It’s not quite claustrophobia, even though he always gets the feeling that the walls are way too close and getting closer, but closets definitely induce some anxiety.
Abuse can’t be ignored, but the fear and the powerlessness that have been generated should be mastered, dominated and subjugated - kept under control - just like any other unpleasant aspect of his life. And he knows what he has to do: as Lincoln once told him, face the monster and it would disappear. That’s the idea, anyway. Face it, fight it, beat it.
He’s opened the door. It won’t be nearly enough, though; now, he needs to build up the nerve to actually step inside.
* * *
He leans against the closet door as Lincoln leans into him, heavy and urgent, his hands grabbing, grasping and clutching none too gently whatever parts of Michael’s anatomy they can reach. Michael lets the door behind him and Lincoln’s knee between his legs help him to stay upright. The relentless assault of fingers and lips is overwhelming, but it’s the good kind of overwhelming - a hand slides from his hip to his ass and squeezes and, yeah, definitely the best kind of overwhelming - and he softly groans his approval. The music, the conversations and laughter of the guests in the living room are muffled and distant; he seems to hear them through a haze, although he can’t tell whether this is because a wall separates them from the party in the other room or because the blood rushes to his temples and makes his head spin.
When Lincoln looks up and finally lets him breathe in, he asks suspiciously “Are you drunk?” because Lincoln tastes like beer and whiskey and is a bit too demanding and abrupt.
“Nah. Just tipsy.” He messily licks the already damp skin of Michael’s neck, tilting his head to get better access. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to rely on your hand. I can still get hard.”
Michael works a thigh between Lincoln’s legs and presses there, eliciting a smug smile and a small appreciative growl.
“See?”
“We probably should take this...”
His sentence is rudely cut off by the door banging open at the other end of the bedroom. An indistinct figure dashes inside and makes a beeline for the bathroom. Michael winces. This is usually the way things end up when Lincoln hosts a party: lots of people needing to use the bathroom now, and sometimes a few guests ending up in his bed in awkward combinations.
The door to the living room is still open and somebody is a few feet away in the bathroom, yet Lincoln doesn’t seem to care about a potential audience, he hasn’t stopped kissing and stroking. Somewhere deep inside of Michael, the exhibitionist aspect of his personality finds the notion somewhat arousing and for a few seconds, he truly relishes the idea. That is until his common sense takes over and reminds him that one, fantasies and reality are two very different things and two, someone catching them would unquestionably lead to a rather frustrating conclusion to the current events. The necessity to take this somewhere else is growing with every passing second.
There’s the door behind him and behind the door there’s the closet. Small and dark, smelly and dusty. Menacing and welcoming at the same time. Obliterating any reasonable thinking, he squirms until he can bend his arm behind him, get a grip on the doorknob and turn it. It gives easily and the door opens.
“What the hell...,” Lincoln protests when he feels Michael backing away. He casts a glance above Michael’s shoulder, catches the patch of dark and he shakes his head. “No way! I can barely fit alone in there, Michael.”
Michael will admit he’s not playing fair: a quick and hard kiss, a brush of fingers against his crotch and Lincoln forgets about his objections and follows him inside - just about shoves him inside. He almost freezes when the door bangs shut behind them and Lincoln pushes him into the wall, a hand on his hip, the other looking for the switch. He braces himself and fights the temptation to help his brother with the light: it’s dark, cramped and smelly in there, but it’s also pleasantly warm and full of Lincoln’s presence. That creates a balance.
“No,” Michael says. “Please. No light.”
Lincoln stills for a moment, then Michael feels him grinning against his mouth, mumbling something about weird kinks. He ignores the remark. It’s not what Lincoln thinks, but it doesn’t matter. It’s probably better this way because he’s not sure Lincoln would go along with it, he’s not sure Lincoln wouldn’t think that this is some twisted, fucked up way to come to terms with his apprehension.
He can’t see the walls, but he can make them out. They’re way too close to him. Lincoln’s right, there barely is enough room for one person, let alone two. If he stretches his arm, he can easily touch the other end of the closet, even lean into it. He breathes deeply and keeps his eyes on the faint ray of light underneath the doorway. It’s more light than he ever had in the closet on Pershing Avenue.
No light but the faint ray underneath the doorway. No sound but Lincoln’s voice. Sensory deprivation for dummies, he thinks sarcastically.
“I thought you didn’t like small spaces,” Lincoln points out, and Michael can tell he’s smiling. “You that horny?”
Actually he was. Still is, he realizes when Lincoln’s hand cups him through his jeans and rubs him, and that’s a good thing because he probably wouldn’t have dared to get in there otherwise.
Lincoln keeps talking, his voice low and coarse, the sound more than the words themselves totally gets to Michael. His brother’s previous frenzied movements become his as he fumbles in the dark, quickly discarding his clothes, tossing them carelessly to the floor. When he shimmies down, kneels in front of Lincoln and pushes down in a single, impatient gesture his pants and boxers, Lincoln chuckles. Michael nuzzles between his thighs and inhales the musky scent: it’s familiar and reassuring and it makes all the other odors filling the closet bearable. Relishing the intimacy, he takes Lincoln into his mouth and focuses on him, swallowing him, accommodating his lips and tongue for him, working his mouth up and down - and damn if Lincoln can do anything but curl a hand behind Michael’s head and plant the other on the wall to brace himself. The chuckle dissolves into a moan, a series of moans. Michael licks and sucks more forcefully and the moans become a string of obscenities. Lincoln’s fingers tighten on his brother’s neck as he involuntarily bucks under the ministrations and chokes Michael in the process.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“It’s okay.” He releases Lincoln’s cock to kiss and lick two of his fingers instead, taking them into his mouth and lavishing them with his tongue. Lincoln playfully moves them, stroking the inside of his cheek, and Michael’s heart beats faster in anticipation - no way this ends up with him on his knees.
“Come here,” Lincoln says, helping him up.
The wet fingers briefly skim over his skin and press into him, but he doesn’t let Lincoln catch him. He turns around immediately, his back against his brother’s chest and orders, “Don’t move.”
He grabs, pulls and pushes back. It burns when he takes Lincoln inside him, but just like it was the right kind of overwhelming a few moments ago, it’s the right kind of burning. It almost makes him forget that he can’t see and can barely breathe, that the invisible walls are spinning and closing on him. He reaches out and splays his hands on the wall to steady himself and he’s quite surprised to find it still and steady under his palms. Collecting his thoughts, he slams back hard enough to make Lincoln gasp with shock.
“Take it easy, Michael,” Lincoln murmurs gently.
He disregards the warning, going on and eventually thrusting harder, pressing into him and pressing him into the wall. Lincoln protests, a few faint words, but can’t help enjoying the brutal movements and the solid friction, and he uses the little leverage he has at his disposal to shift behind Michael.
Michael closes his eyes against the darkness and it’s probably a bad idea because the hints of control he had on the situation begin to elude him. Or maybe it’s the fact that he gradually stops thinking to only feel. Whatever the cause, he’s slowly flooded with contradictory sensations - good and bad; now and before; loving close one and threatening stranger. It all rolls into one feeling. When his and Lincoln’s erratic movements make the dust whirl in the closeted space and the powdery scent hits his nostrils, the similarities between now and before collide and send him over the edge. Way too similar. Lincoln’s careful touch on his hip and back becomes way too similar to the brutal way the guy in the Pershing Avenue closet gripped his shoulder and shook him. Lincoln’s moist puffs of air on his neck are way too similar to the way the man hissed his irritation in Michael’s face. Lincoln’s delighted grunts of exertion are way too similar to the man’s grunts of effort when he hit him. He bits his lips and the tang of blood on his tongue is way too similar to the blood that soaked his mouth when he wasn’t fast and smart enough to protect his face from the blows.
He loses his rhythm and bucks unevenly. It’s not pleasurable at all anymore, it’s bordering on pain and he swallows a sob. He sags clumsily, his collapsing shoving Lincoln deep inside him, and with a pant, he vainly tries to regain his composure. He writhes and twists between Lincoln’s fingers and that only makes things worst.
“Shit!” Lincoln blurts out. “What’s the matter with you? Stop that.” He tries to grasp his hips and still him, but Michael slaps his hands away. “Stop it, Michael, you gonna hurt yourself!”
They struggle for a few moments before Lincoln’s hands close tightly on his wrists. He’s propelled forward, pushed flat against the wall in front of him, the dynamics swiftly reversed. Lincoln hugs him. Michael concentrates hard to remember that this is brother, and that he hugs him; he’s not restraining him and he won’t hurt him. He tries to move between Lincoln and the wall - to escape Lincoln or to entice him to resume their activities, he’s not quite sure - but his brother has him trapped and won’t let him go.
He fights back nevertheless until his right hand, slick with sweat, slips out of Lincoln’s hold. He stretches an arm behind him and clutches Lincoln’s ass to bait him into moving, his fingers alluringly kneading the muscle. He only gets another, softer “Stop it.” Then his arms are lifted above his head, his wrists pinned to the wall and Lincoln murmurs soothing words into his ear. The fluffy fabric - so different from the rough brick of his memories - scratches his heated flesh and along with Lincoln’s voice, it takes him back, grounds him into the here and now.
“Move, please,” he asks Lincoln. All he gets is a cautious roll of hips; the friction is pleasant but insufficient. “Harder.”
“No.”
He twists his neck and glares at Lincoln. Useless since he can’t see him in the dark.
“I want it...”
“I don’t care,” Lincoln replies, calm, firm and maybe a little freaked out. “You’re out of your fucking mind. You get it slow or you don’t get it at all.”
“You wouldn’t...” He challenges him but doesn’t dare move. “You want it as much as I do.”
“Yeah. Try me.” He puts a finger on his chin, forces him to crane his neck until their lips can touch and gives him a light kiss before adding jokingly, “I still can rely on my hand.” He gingerly grinds up into him. “Okay?”
No. Michael was supposed to be in charge of the whole thing, the hegemony has suddenly eluded him. He’s in no way okay with that. He doesn’t have a choice, though, because Lincoln holds him.
Wrong. He does have a choice: playing along with Lincoln’s rules and eventually getting what he wants or following his own rules and Lincoln more than likely stopping everything. It’s not the best of choices, but it’s a lot better than what he had in the frigging Pershing Avenue closet.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Lincoln begins to move back and forth at an agonizingly slow pace and nothing will apparently snap him out of his determination. Fuck him for this one track mind he can display on occasion. A throaty plea to “Go faster” gets Michael renewed instructions to “Stop that already!” A tentative roll of hips is answered with Lincoln plastering him to the wall and halting his humping. A deliberate clench of muscles elicits a gasp and the stern threat to end the whole thing right now if Michael doesn’t behave.
So Michael complies and behaves. He rests his forehead against the wall and allows Lincoln to drive into him as slowly as he wants to; he listens to the calming words that Lincoln is pouring in his ear; he revels in the insanely intimate and caring embrace and in the sliding of damp skin against damp skin. The smooth and even rhythm finally appeases him; he relaxes under Lincoln’s touch and starts to take pleasure in it, the heat nicely pooling between his thighs, curling in his guts and tearing out of him a wanton groan. This is when his brother, feeling that he can at last trust him not to buck and jerk, releases his wrists.
He slightly jumps at the sudden loss of pressure, now longing for it. Lincoln’s hands trail down his arms and sides to his stomach, and it does feel good - yet something is missing.
“Hold my hands,” he lets slip.
Lincoln’s fingers glides lower, wrap around him and he whispers, “Wouldn’t you rather I...” They expertly stroke him up and down, and Michael jolts and moans but asks again.
“Please. Hold my hands.”
Indulging him, Lincoln keeps fondling him with one hand and raises up the other one to gather both his wrists. Michael willingly brings his hands together and savors the way Lincoln’s nails lightly bite his flesh up there and delicately brush the silky skin down there. Best of both worlds, he muses with a hint of self-mockery.
“You’re starting to enjoy being restrained, Mike?” Lincoln says, his voice sweetly teasing.
“Yes.”
It’s a lie, but not entirely. He doesn’t enjoy it, he never has, but the tight yet kind grip of Lincoln on his wrists has cut through the haze he bathed in and stirred up something.
It’s all about control. You can’t just steal it for it never will be yours: it will try to escape you on the first occasion, just like any other stolen good or person, and you will lose it. You have to coax it, win it, exercise it carefully and sometimes share it. Sharing it with Lincoln is no problem.
Thinking that he could control how he feels was absurd, but not that much. He can’t, obviously, no more than anybody else, but he still can have a grip on the way fear and uneasiness come up and bubble at the surface. He still can force them to back off and channel them, make room for something else and progressively dismantle them. He can try to tear them down and rebuild them into new sensations. If he can replace pain with pleasure, hate with affection and dread with trust, then maybe the fear, the uneasiness and the monsters - the monster - will dissolve and turn into ashes.
“Yes,” he repeats because now isn’t the right moment to explain that to Lincoln. He’s not sure there will ever be a right moment, mostly because that would mean he has to tell Lincoln what happened on Pershing Avenue, and this is not something he wants to do.
He can feel Linc’s pants of exertion on the back of his neck, the lips hot, moist and insistently grazing his skin, and very soon, his brother is mumbling and pleading, his too long restraint cracking up. With a fond smile, Michael lets his head loll on Linc’s shoulder as he instructs him to “Let go.” He clenches hard around him and Linc needs nothing more than a couple of thrusts - maybe a wicked and dirtily whispered “Harder!” - to actually let go and come, holding him closely. He barely gets the time to bask in the heartwarming feeling, though, because it’s a well oiled mechanism: Linc knows him inside and out, knows how to make him last indefinitely and how to get him off in a blink of an eye. And obviously, Linc is fed up with the teasing and the delayed gratification. His right hand strokes, pulls and fondles while the left one palms Michael’s cheek to tilt his head. He kisses him sloppily and in a matter of seconds, he’s swallowing Michael’s moans and a few imprecations along the way.
“God,” Michael sighs, thankful he has the wall to hold him.
Lincoln slumps into him and breathes out: “Yeah.” He regrettably relinquishes his grasp and wipes his hand on Michael’s hip, breathing hard and grinning against his neck. Michael winces at the wet and sticky, icky, substance on his skin - he really could have done without that sort of thing.
“Slob,” he weakly protests.
“Yeah.”
He’s still crushing him against the wall and Michael wriggles uncomfortably.
“You know, you can back off, now.”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t move, though, not a muscle.
“Can you say anything else besides ‘yeah’?” he asks with a roll of eyes.
“Right now? Probably not.”
Michael chuckles at that. It feels unexpectedly good. He’s squeezed between Linc’s bulky frame and the not so clean wall, in a tiny dark closet and it feels good. Not yet secure, far from it, but dammit ‘good’ is the hell of an improvement. The air is filled with the heavy scents of musk and sweat and hints of Lincoln’s spiced aftershave; it overpowers the smell of dust, and that alone helps him to feel almost safe.
“You want to tell me what all this was about?” Linc finally asks him.
“Not really.”
“All right,” Lincoln says slowly. “I guess I’ll have to be content with the hot sex in a dingy closet, huh? No worries. I can deal with it.”
He finally steps back and turns on the light. Blinking in the sudden luminosity, Michael discovers Lincoln flushed, disheveled and with a satiated look on his face. He’s about to drop a sarcastic comment when he realizes that he most likely doesn’t look better. As a matter of fact, Lincoln sneers at him.
“You can’t go back to the party looking like that. You look like you’ve been fucked in a closet and enjoyed it,” he says crudely. Michael just smiles and picks up his clothes, squirming to put them back on under Linc’s thoughtful gaze. When he has pulled on his pants, shirt and shoes, Lincoln wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him forward. He’s still naked, the warmth of his body seeping through Michael’s clothes, and Michael suddenly wants nothing more than to disrobe. He briefly wonders why he even bothered to get dress again.
“So, you really don’t want to tell me?” Lincoln insists despite his previous statement. “I thought you didn’t like closets?”
Michael thinks that he probably should at least display a bit of honesty, even though he won’t answer any more questions, so he admits, “I didn’t.” He brushes his lips against Lincoln’s. “I don’t. But I can appreciate their upsides.”
* * *
He’s been fascinated with it the instant he discovered it in Lincoln’s tiny, crappy apartment. Small and dark, smelling musty and bearing all the downsides that a closet can bring out for him. But it’s also filled up with Linc’s scent, voice and twisted tenderness, and he thinks that maybe the combination between dread and comfort is just a bit, pleasantly, unbalanced.
-END-
Comments are always welcome.
24-27 Dec. 2007
Author: clair-de-lune
Pairing: Michael/Lincoln
Genre: Slash
Rating: R
Warning: Incest
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just borrowing them for a while.
Word count: ~ 3620
Summary: There is no such thing as ‘just a closet’ as far as he is concerned. Closets equal abuse, fear and powerlessness.
Notes: Written based on a plot bunny posted by callmetofu at foxriver-fic: Michael/Lincoln closet PWP: Because of his childhood trauma Michael feels an unease with closets and small spaces. He drags a clueless Lincoln into a closet and creates some more positive associations. PWP, pre-series (Michael college-aged). Also written for the New Year’s Mini-Round at rounds_of_kink with the kinks Immobilization and Wall!Sex (I guess it somewhat qualifies for both of them) and the prompts Burgundy and Memory.
Thanks to happywriter06 for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
(Read entry in light format)
He’s been fascinated with it the instant he discovered it in Lincoln’s shabby, crappy apartment. Small and dark, oddly appealing and repulsive altogether. Smelling musty because the previous owner probably wasn’t the world’s tidiest person, and Lincoln is hardly better. But there’s also the lingering scent of Lincoln and that creates a perfectly balanced combination, just on the edge between dread and comfort.
In the end, curiosity won over discretion and uneasiness and he resolved to open the door to peer inside. He didn’t actually go in, because the mere idea of stepping inside brought a sticky sweat along his spine, made his throat constrict, his sight go dark and his brain buzz, but he did open the door and look inside.
From the threshold, he discovered a small space with walls covered in some fluffy burgundy fabric - he thinks of a brothel, although honestly, he hasn’t the slightest idea of what an actual brothel looks like - a few old clothes hung on a rail, a bunch of boxes in a hazardous stack and a single bare bulb filling the room with faded yellow light. Just some closet.
Except there is no such thing as ‘just a closet’ as far as he is concerned. Closets equal abuse, fear and powerlessness. They’re full of repellent sounds - barely audible cries, grunts of anger, strangled breathing - and repulsive sensations - the dust in his nose, the moist chill prickling his skin, things seemingly reaching for him in the dark. It’s not quite claustrophobia, even though he always gets the feeling that the walls are way too close and getting closer, but closets definitely induce some anxiety.
Abuse can’t be ignored, but the fear and the powerlessness that have been generated should be mastered, dominated and subjugated - kept under control - just like any other unpleasant aspect of his life. And he knows what he has to do: as Lincoln once told him, face the monster and it would disappear. That’s the idea, anyway. Face it, fight it, beat it.
He’s opened the door. It won’t be nearly enough, though; now, he needs to build up the nerve to actually step inside.
* * *
He leans against the closet door as Lincoln leans into him, heavy and urgent, his hands grabbing, grasping and clutching none too gently whatever parts of Michael’s anatomy they can reach. Michael lets the door behind him and Lincoln’s knee between his legs help him to stay upright. The relentless assault of fingers and lips is overwhelming, but it’s the good kind of overwhelming - a hand slides from his hip to his ass and squeezes and, yeah, definitely the best kind of overwhelming - and he softly groans his approval. The music, the conversations and laughter of the guests in the living room are muffled and distant; he seems to hear them through a haze, although he can’t tell whether this is because a wall separates them from the party in the other room or because the blood rushes to his temples and makes his head spin.
When Lincoln looks up and finally lets him breathe in, he asks suspiciously “Are you drunk?” because Lincoln tastes like beer and whiskey and is a bit too demanding and abrupt.
“Nah. Just tipsy.” He messily licks the already damp skin of Michael’s neck, tilting his head to get better access. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to rely on your hand. I can still get hard.”
Michael works a thigh between Lincoln’s legs and presses there, eliciting a smug smile and a small appreciative growl.
“See?”
“We probably should take this...”
His sentence is rudely cut off by the door banging open at the other end of the bedroom. An indistinct figure dashes inside and makes a beeline for the bathroom. Michael winces. This is usually the way things end up when Lincoln hosts a party: lots of people needing to use the bathroom now, and sometimes a few guests ending up in his bed in awkward combinations.
The door to the living room is still open and somebody is a few feet away in the bathroom, yet Lincoln doesn’t seem to care about a potential audience, he hasn’t stopped kissing and stroking. Somewhere deep inside of Michael, the exhibitionist aspect of his personality finds the notion somewhat arousing and for a few seconds, he truly relishes the idea. That is until his common sense takes over and reminds him that one, fantasies and reality are two very different things and two, someone catching them would unquestionably lead to a rather frustrating conclusion to the current events. The necessity to take this somewhere else is growing with every passing second.
There’s the door behind him and behind the door there’s the closet. Small and dark, smelly and dusty. Menacing and welcoming at the same time. Obliterating any reasonable thinking, he squirms until he can bend his arm behind him, get a grip on the doorknob and turn it. It gives easily and the door opens.
“What the hell...,” Lincoln protests when he feels Michael backing away. He casts a glance above Michael’s shoulder, catches the patch of dark and he shakes his head. “No way! I can barely fit alone in there, Michael.”
Michael will admit he’s not playing fair: a quick and hard kiss, a brush of fingers against his crotch and Lincoln forgets about his objections and follows him inside - just about shoves him inside. He almost freezes when the door bangs shut behind them and Lincoln pushes him into the wall, a hand on his hip, the other looking for the switch. He braces himself and fights the temptation to help his brother with the light: it’s dark, cramped and smelly in there, but it’s also pleasantly warm and full of Lincoln’s presence. That creates a balance.
“No,” Michael says. “Please. No light.”
Lincoln stills for a moment, then Michael feels him grinning against his mouth, mumbling something about weird kinks. He ignores the remark. It’s not what Lincoln thinks, but it doesn’t matter. It’s probably better this way because he’s not sure Lincoln would go along with it, he’s not sure Lincoln wouldn’t think that this is some twisted, fucked up way to come to terms with his apprehension.
He can’t see the walls, but he can make them out. They’re way too close to him. Lincoln’s right, there barely is enough room for one person, let alone two. If he stretches his arm, he can easily touch the other end of the closet, even lean into it. He breathes deeply and keeps his eyes on the faint ray of light underneath the doorway. It’s more light than he ever had in the closet on Pershing Avenue.
No light but the faint ray underneath the doorway. No sound but Lincoln’s voice. Sensory deprivation for dummies, he thinks sarcastically.
“I thought you didn’t like small spaces,” Lincoln points out, and Michael can tell he’s smiling. “You that horny?”
Actually he was. Still is, he realizes when Lincoln’s hand cups him through his jeans and rubs him, and that’s a good thing because he probably wouldn’t have dared to get in there otherwise.
Lincoln keeps talking, his voice low and coarse, the sound more than the words themselves totally gets to Michael. His brother’s previous frenzied movements become his as he fumbles in the dark, quickly discarding his clothes, tossing them carelessly to the floor. When he shimmies down, kneels in front of Lincoln and pushes down in a single, impatient gesture his pants and boxers, Lincoln chuckles. Michael nuzzles between his thighs and inhales the musky scent: it’s familiar and reassuring and it makes all the other odors filling the closet bearable. Relishing the intimacy, he takes Lincoln into his mouth and focuses on him, swallowing him, accommodating his lips and tongue for him, working his mouth up and down - and damn if Lincoln can do anything but curl a hand behind Michael’s head and plant the other on the wall to brace himself. The chuckle dissolves into a moan, a series of moans. Michael licks and sucks more forcefully and the moans become a string of obscenities. Lincoln’s fingers tighten on his brother’s neck as he involuntarily bucks under the ministrations and chokes Michael in the process.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“It’s okay.” He releases Lincoln’s cock to kiss and lick two of his fingers instead, taking them into his mouth and lavishing them with his tongue. Lincoln playfully moves them, stroking the inside of his cheek, and Michael’s heart beats faster in anticipation - no way this ends up with him on his knees.
“Come here,” Lincoln says, helping him up.
The wet fingers briefly skim over his skin and press into him, but he doesn’t let Lincoln catch him. He turns around immediately, his back against his brother’s chest and orders, “Don’t move.”
He grabs, pulls and pushes back. It burns when he takes Lincoln inside him, but just like it was the right kind of overwhelming a few moments ago, it’s the right kind of burning. It almost makes him forget that he can’t see and can barely breathe, that the invisible walls are spinning and closing on him. He reaches out and splays his hands on the wall to steady himself and he’s quite surprised to find it still and steady under his palms. Collecting his thoughts, he slams back hard enough to make Lincoln gasp with shock.
“Take it easy, Michael,” Lincoln murmurs gently.
He disregards the warning, going on and eventually thrusting harder, pressing into him and pressing him into the wall. Lincoln protests, a few faint words, but can’t help enjoying the brutal movements and the solid friction, and he uses the little leverage he has at his disposal to shift behind Michael.
Michael closes his eyes against the darkness and it’s probably a bad idea because the hints of control he had on the situation begin to elude him. Or maybe it’s the fact that he gradually stops thinking to only feel. Whatever the cause, he’s slowly flooded with contradictory sensations - good and bad; now and before; loving close one and threatening stranger. It all rolls into one feeling. When his and Lincoln’s erratic movements make the dust whirl in the closeted space and the powdery scent hits his nostrils, the similarities between now and before collide and send him over the edge. Way too similar. Lincoln’s careful touch on his hip and back becomes way too similar to the brutal way the guy in the Pershing Avenue closet gripped his shoulder and shook him. Lincoln’s moist puffs of air on his neck are way too similar to the way the man hissed his irritation in Michael’s face. Lincoln’s delighted grunts of exertion are way too similar to the man’s grunts of effort when he hit him. He bits his lips and the tang of blood on his tongue is way too similar to the blood that soaked his mouth when he wasn’t fast and smart enough to protect his face from the blows.
He loses his rhythm and bucks unevenly. It’s not pleasurable at all anymore, it’s bordering on pain and he swallows a sob. He sags clumsily, his collapsing shoving Lincoln deep inside him, and with a pant, he vainly tries to regain his composure. He writhes and twists between Lincoln’s fingers and that only makes things worst.
“Shit!” Lincoln blurts out. “What’s the matter with you? Stop that.” He tries to grasp his hips and still him, but Michael slaps his hands away. “Stop it, Michael, you gonna hurt yourself!”
They struggle for a few moments before Lincoln’s hands close tightly on his wrists. He’s propelled forward, pushed flat against the wall in front of him, the dynamics swiftly reversed. Lincoln hugs him. Michael concentrates hard to remember that this is brother, and that he hugs him; he’s not restraining him and he won’t hurt him. He tries to move between Lincoln and the wall - to escape Lincoln or to entice him to resume their activities, he’s not quite sure - but his brother has him trapped and won’t let him go.
He fights back nevertheless until his right hand, slick with sweat, slips out of Lincoln’s hold. He stretches an arm behind him and clutches Lincoln’s ass to bait him into moving, his fingers alluringly kneading the muscle. He only gets another, softer “Stop it.” Then his arms are lifted above his head, his wrists pinned to the wall and Lincoln murmurs soothing words into his ear. The fluffy fabric - so different from the rough brick of his memories - scratches his heated flesh and along with Lincoln’s voice, it takes him back, grounds him into the here and now.
“Move, please,” he asks Lincoln. All he gets is a cautious roll of hips; the friction is pleasant but insufficient. “Harder.”
“No.”
He twists his neck and glares at Lincoln. Useless since he can’t see him in the dark.
“I want it...”
“I don’t care,” Lincoln replies, calm, firm and maybe a little freaked out. “You’re out of your fucking mind. You get it slow or you don’t get it at all.”
“You wouldn’t...” He challenges him but doesn’t dare move. “You want it as much as I do.”
“Yeah. Try me.” He puts a finger on his chin, forces him to crane his neck until their lips can touch and gives him a light kiss before adding jokingly, “I still can rely on my hand.” He gingerly grinds up into him. “Okay?”
No. Michael was supposed to be in charge of the whole thing, the hegemony has suddenly eluded him. He’s in no way okay with that. He doesn’t have a choice, though, because Lincoln holds him.
Wrong. He does have a choice: playing along with Lincoln’s rules and eventually getting what he wants or following his own rules and Lincoln more than likely stopping everything. It’s not the best of choices, but it’s a lot better than what he had in the frigging Pershing Avenue closet.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Lincoln begins to move back and forth at an agonizingly slow pace and nothing will apparently snap him out of his determination. Fuck him for this one track mind he can display on occasion. A throaty plea to “Go faster” gets Michael renewed instructions to “Stop that already!” A tentative roll of hips is answered with Lincoln plastering him to the wall and halting his humping. A deliberate clench of muscles elicits a gasp and the stern threat to end the whole thing right now if Michael doesn’t behave.
So Michael complies and behaves. He rests his forehead against the wall and allows Lincoln to drive into him as slowly as he wants to; he listens to the calming words that Lincoln is pouring in his ear; he revels in the insanely intimate and caring embrace and in the sliding of damp skin against damp skin. The smooth and even rhythm finally appeases him; he relaxes under Lincoln’s touch and starts to take pleasure in it, the heat nicely pooling between his thighs, curling in his guts and tearing out of him a wanton groan. This is when his brother, feeling that he can at last trust him not to buck and jerk, releases his wrists.
He slightly jumps at the sudden loss of pressure, now longing for it. Lincoln’s hands trail down his arms and sides to his stomach, and it does feel good - yet something is missing.
“Hold my hands,” he lets slip.
Lincoln’s fingers glides lower, wrap around him and he whispers, “Wouldn’t you rather I...” They expertly stroke him up and down, and Michael jolts and moans but asks again.
“Please. Hold my hands.”
Indulging him, Lincoln keeps fondling him with one hand and raises up the other one to gather both his wrists. Michael willingly brings his hands together and savors the way Lincoln’s nails lightly bite his flesh up there and delicately brush the silky skin down there. Best of both worlds, he muses with a hint of self-mockery.
“You’re starting to enjoy being restrained, Mike?” Lincoln says, his voice sweetly teasing.
“Yes.”
It’s a lie, but not entirely. He doesn’t enjoy it, he never has, but the tight yet kind grip of Lincoln on his wrists has cut through the haze he bathed in and stirred up something.
It’s all about control. You can’t just steal it for it never will be yours: it will try to escape you on the first occasion, just like any other stolen good or person, and you will lose it. You have to coax it, win it, exercise it carefully and sometimes share it. Sharing it with Lincoln is no problem.
Thinking that he could control how he feels was absurd, but not that much. He can’t, obviously, no more than anybody else, but he still can have a grip on the way fear and uneasiness come up and bubble at the surface. He still can force them to back off and channel them, make room for something else and progressively dismantle them. He can try to tear them down and rebuild them into new sensations. If he can replace pain with pleasure, hate with affection and dread with trust, then maybe the fear, the uneasiness and the monsters - the monster - will dissolve and turn into ashes.
“Yes,” he repeats because now isn’t the right moment to explain that to Lincoln. He’s not sure there will ever be a right moment, mostly because that would mean he has to tell Lincoln what happened on Pershing Avenue, and this is not something he wants to do.
He can feel Linc’s pants of exertion on the back of his neck, the lips hot, moist and insistently grazing his skin, and very soon, his brother is mumbling and pleading, his too long restraint cracking up. With a fond smile, Michael lets his head loll on Linc’s shoulder as he instructs him to “Let go.” He clenches hard around him and Linc needs nothing more than a couple of thrusts - maybe a wicked and dirtily whispered “Harder!” - to actually let go and come, holding him closely. He barely gets the time to bask in the heartwarming feeling, though, because it’s a well oiled mechanism: Linc knows him inside and out, knows how to make him last indefinitely and how to get him off in a blink of an eye. And obviously, Linc is fed up with the teasing and the delayed gratification. His right hand strokes, pulls and fondles while the left one palms Michael’s cheek to tilt his head. He kisses him sloppily and in a matter of seconds, he’s swallowing Michael’s moans and a few imprecations along the way.
“God,” Michael sighs, thankful he has the wall to hold him.
Lincoln slumps into him and breathes out: “Yeah.” He regrettably relinquishes his grasp and wipes his hand on Michael’s hip, breathing hard and grinning against his neck. Michael winces at the wet and sticky, icky, substance on his skin - he really could have done without that sort of thing.
“Slob,” he weakly protests.
“Yeah.”
He’s still crushing him against the wall and Michael wriggles uncomfortably.
“You know, you can back off, now.”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t move, though, not a muscle.
“Can you say anything else besides ‘yeah’?” he asks with a roll of eyes.
“Right now? Probably not.”
Michael chuckles at that. It feels unexpectedly good. He’s squeezed between Linc’s bulky frame and the not so clean wall, in a tiny dark closet and it feels good. Not yet secure, far from it, but dammit ‘good’ is the hell of an improvement. The air is filled with the heavy scents of musk and sweat and hints of Lincoln’s spiced aftershave; it overpowers the smell of dust, and that alone helps him to feel almost safe.
“You want to tell me what all this was about?” Linc finally asks him.
“Not really.”
“All right,” Lincoln says slowly. “I guess I’ll have to be content with the hot sex in a dingy closet, huh? No worries. I can deal with it.”
He finally steps back and turns on the light. Blinking in the sudden luminosity, Michael discovers Lincoln flushed, disheveled and with a satiated look on his face. He’s about to drop a sarcastic comment when he realizes that he most likely doesn’t look better. As a matter of fact, Lincoln sneers at him.
“You can’t go back to the party looking like that. You look like you’ve been fucked in a closet and enjoyed it,” he says crudely. Michael just smiles and picks up his clothes, squirming to put them back on under Linc’s thoughtful gaze. When he has pulled on his pants, shirt and shoes, Lincoln wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him forward. He’s still naked, the warmth of his body seeping through Michael’s clothes, and Michael suddenly wants nothing more than to disrobe. He briefly wonders why he even bothered to get dress again.
“So, you really don’t want to tell me?” Lincoln insists despite his previous statement. “I thought you didn’t like closets?”
Michael thinks that he probably should at least display a bit of honesty, even though he won’t answer any more questions, so he admits, “I didn’t.” He brushes his lips against Lincoln’s. “I don’t. But I can appreciate their upsides.”
* * *
He’s been fascinated with it the instant he discovered it in Lincoln’s tiny, crappy apartment. Small and dark, smelling musty and bearing all the downsides that a closet can bring out for him. But it’s also filled up with Linc’s scent, voice and twisted tenderness, and he thinks that maybe the combination between dread and comfort is just a bit, pleasantly, unbalanced.
-END-
Comments are always welcome.
24-27 Dec. 2007