Free Flashfic (Previously Posted Elsewhere)

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The Mermaid Game

Author's Note: This was originally posted to celebrate an anniversary for Boy Meets Boy Reviews. I know I gush about them a lot, but I really enjoy the way they write reviews. I love the occasional funny gif, what can I say? You can read this on their site as well, here: https://bit.ly/2iRYGSX

***

“I’m not staying,” Jim insisted, although he didn’t seem to be leaving. The tile was cold beneath his bare feet, the hems of his jeans damp because Marco was an uncultured swine who couldn’t bathe without splashing water all over hell and back. Marco knew exactly what he was thinking, too, because his crooked grin was blindingly white against his deeply olive skin, his dark eyes sly. He was sleek as an otter in the big claw-footed bathtub. Jim could see the steam from across the room. He’d only stepped inside to say that he’d be in the garage, and he’d really meant to leave, but now he was just standing here staring.

Marco flicked a few drops of water in Jim’s direction with lazy fingers and said, “Come swimming with me, Jimmy. You can be my mermaid that I’ve rescued from the depths of the ocean.”

“It’s a tub,” Jim replied, unimpressed. “And I’m a better swimmer than you. And wouldn’t a mermaid be saving you?”

“Details,” Marco said dismissively. “Get in.”

“I can’t stay up here with you. My mother is downstairs. I told her I was coming right back down, and if I take too long, she’ll know we’re—”

“Yes, life as we know it will end. Elaine McGuire is forced to acknowledge that The Sex exists. And yet, I suspect she will survive. She does have children, after all.” Marco paused mid-eyeroll. “Are you sure you weren’t adopted? That would explain so much.”

Jim ignored that. “I have to get the shelves installed in the garage. And I said I’d help rake the leaves, since Dad’s back is hurting again. I promised. I can’t…I can’t just ignore all of that to stay up here with you.” He could hear the longing he couldn’t quite conceal, and Marco’s expression lost that ironic edge.

“It’s a bath, Jimmy, not an orgy,” Marco said gently. “Please get in. The mermaid game is really simple, I swear. It’s basically me calling you a mermaid. We’re already playing, actually. But it’s better if you’re in here with me. Verisimilitude, pal.”

Jim studied all that damp, flushed-red skin, the tendril of black hair dripping against Marco’s creased forehead. “I can’t.”

Marco folded his arms on the lip of the tub and dropped his chin to rest on his hands, the porcelain squeaking under his wet fingertips as he got comfortable. Matter-of-factly, he said, “I hate what this does to you. I hate what they do to you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re like someone else whenever we come here.”

Jim stiffened, but the implication of the words—I don’t like who you are when we’re here—didn’t match the concern in Marco’s face, and Jim knew better, he did, and even if he hadn’t, Marco knew him, well enough to read the impending hurt and fear.

“No.” Marco sat up so fast he sent more water sloshing onto the floor. “God, no. That’s not what I meant.”

Jim grabbed towels from the closet and draped them over the floor while Marco watched, mouth pursed unhappily. “It’s okay,” Jim said.

“No, it isn’t.” Marco caught Jim’s wrist, staring up at him with eyes gone tense at the corners. “I love you. All the versions of you. Even the uptight little ass you become when you’re around your family. I just want to make it better. You’re so…locked in. And it’s not…fuck. I’m saying it wrong.”

“No, it’s not wrong.” Jim twisted his wrist, breaking loose of Marco’s restraining grip so he could  interlace their fingers more comfortably. He didn’t know how to say that he was always braced in this house. It was another lifelong habit, this tension, as familiar as the magnets on the fridge or the spots on the dining room table where the finish was peeling or the pile of his father’s fishing gear that was permanently grafted to the armoire by the back door. 

They weren’t bad people, Jim reminded himself frequently. They loved him. He loved them. They were all just profoundly, effortfully different. Every space between them was a minefield that none of them knew how to traverse without words that inevitably turned barbed. At some point, Jim had put up walls, walls that’d migrated to other areas of his life, until one day he looked up and found himself trapped.

Until seventeen months ago, when Marco appeared. Marco was a bulldozer, a warm, loving, argumentative bulldozer who’d blithely intruded where everyone else quailed. They’d had three awkward dates that’d left Jim wondering what the hell Marco kept coming back for, and then a fourth date that had ended with Marco fucking Jim senseless deep into the quiet, early-morning hours. Jim had woken at dawn, disoriented and overheated, surrounded by Marco’s heavy, snoring bulk. Marco’s forearm, slack with sleep, was draped around him, and Jim’s hands had somehow clamped down on it in the night, holding it in place.

When Marco finally blinked his eyes open, he’d demanded breakfast and entertainment, only to be curiously satisfied by the sleeve of Ritz crackers and the ancient issue of The Atlantic Jim had produced, and he’d lain there in Jim’s bed talking with his mouth full about some outdated article he’d barely gotten three paragraphs into before he started picking it apart, oblivious to the fact that Jim had tuned him out in order to quietly panic about how badly he’d wanted to say I’m not going to mention the crumbs in my sheets, because that’s how much I want you, I love the crumbs you’re leaving behind, that’s how much I already need you.

Jim, it later turned out, was the kind of man who could know he was in love for six months before he managed to say it. For a long time, he’d wondered when Marco would get tired of always being the one who had to reach across the distance Jim couldn’t help creating. He wasn’t sure when he’d simply decided to be grateful.

Now, Marco said, “You’re allowed to speak up for what you need. They should let you. Hell, they should want you to. I know that you know how. You do it with me.”

That’s different, Jim wanted to say. I trust you not to leave.

“You do it everywhere else,” Marco continued. “You’re so much happier everywhere else.”

“It’s easier everywhere else.” Jim’s throat was so tight he wasn’t sure how the words got out. “But here…I don’t know how to stop.”

“You just do what I say. I won’t get you into trouble, I promise.” Marco raised three fingers in the Boy Scout salute, then smiled, that impish, sweet, determined smile that belied everything he’d said. “We’ll put in the stupid shelves and rake the stupid leaves together later. But for now, just do what I say.”

“Oh, just do what you say,” Jim repeated dryly. “Is that all?”

“I mean, we both know you want to play mermaid, Jim.”

Jim couldn’t quite stop himself from snorting.

Marco grinned back. “Get in the tub, baby. I’ll wash your hair and tell you how pretty you are.”

“You’re fucking ridiculous,” Jim muttered. But his hands were unbuttoning his shirt without his permission, and it hurt, it actually physically hurt, to take that first step forward, but Marco was right. Marco was always right when it came to things like this, when it came to what it would take to make the noise in Jim’s head settle. The heat of the water left him gasping, but didn’t warm him half as much as the way Marco’s arms opened wide for him, the way their bodies fit and made room for each other.

“If you call me pretty, I’m getting out,” Jim whispered.

Marco laughed softly. “Yeah, right. You’re not going anywhere.”

Jim pushed his face into the curve of Marco’s throat and breathed in the familiar, well-loved scent of his skin. No, he wasn’t going anywhere at all.

And It Comes With a Pool

This was also originally posted on the Boy Meets Boy Reviews website as part of an anniversary celebration. They write really thoughtful, fun reviews there, guys, with many excellent gifs. I highly recommend them. You can also read this flash fic on their site at: https://bit.ly/2PF4yLI

***

Ben parked several houses down from the address Matty had texted him, squinting through the cool, blue nighttime to make sure he was in the right place. They weren’t that far from his own house, and the familiar expansive yards and mature oaks hinted that this street probably had the same stringent neighborhood watch too. The thought made him wince.

Eventually, they’d get busted. It might be old hat for Matty, but Ben would be facing serious career consequences in addition to the legal ramifications. He imagined Dr. Yates’s crusty voice asking, “Why would you break into someone’s back yard to have illicit sex with a man you barely know in a pool?”

His heart thundered in his chest, driven forward by two competing thoughts: I can’t stay, we’ll get caught. And: I can’t leave, not before I’ve had him again.

If only there were a third option. One that meant getting to fuck Matty and not going to jail.

He got out of the car, shut the door as quietly as possible, and tried to amble down the sidewalk like he had no criminal impulses whatsoever. Matty was waiting for him in the shadows between two houses, and he broke into a grin at the sight of Ben. That grin did terrible things to Ben’s body, made him stupid, made him hard.

“You came.” Matty stole a quick kiss, his stubble scratchy. He smelled like he usually did, like whiskey and sweat, like he’d been out clubbing for hours, dancing with strangers in the dark amid pounding music, maybe even asking them the same question he’d asked Ben once: wanna take a risk with me?

Ben had said yes, of course. He’d been burning off a hellish week of meeting new patients while putting the final touches on a response to his first peer review request for the fucking New England Journal of Medicine and still trying to find his footing in the prestigious—if extremely uptight—cardiology practice he’d recently joined. Hearing wanna take a risk with me from that sweet mouth had been terrifying and attractive in equal measure. 

If you asked Ben’s body, the answer was still yes, might always be yes. Just having Matty here in his arms, that body so limber, arching shamelessly so their hips made contact, his smile sly and teasing, was all it ever seemed to take. 

“I love this,” Matty was saying in that rough, low voice. He nipped at Ben’s jaw, sending heat down his spine. “You’re always so fucking ready. Let’s go.” 

By the time Ben could put thoughts together again, Matty had vaulted himself up and over the privacy fence into the back yard with surprising grace for someone who was no doubt half-lit. A moment later a scratching sound came and the gate opened up. 

“Ta da,” Matty whispered, then led the way toward the pool, which was dark.

Dark and—empty?

“There’s no water,” Ben whispered back.

Matty seemed momentarily confounded. “Huh.” Then he shrugged and dropped neatly into the pool anyway. “Marco,” he called, far too loudly considering what they were doing.

Ben couldn’t remember if his malpractice insurance had a professional conduct clause. It didn’t stop him from following.

He landed with a crunch of dead leaves beneath his feet, and the concrete all around them radiated cold and the reek of mold, but they were completely out of sight, at least. 

“It smells,” Ben pointed out. 

“Yeah, it’s pretty gross down here.” Matty reached out, sliding his fingers under Ben’s henley to trace lightly along his belly. “Mmm. Come here.”

“Wait. You think this is gross too?”

“Yeah.” Matty licked his way up Ben’s throat, his fingers dropping to tug on the button of his jeans. “Come on.”

Ben tried to keep his blood in his head instead of his dick. “Then what the hell are we doing down here?”

“Because it’s fun.” Matty blinked at him. “Isn’t it?”

“I mean, if you think the idea of cops and guard dogs is fun, sure.”

“Oh.” Matty seemed momentarily nonplussed. “You really don’t like this?”

“We’re in a stranger’s grody empty pool,” Ben said gently. “It’s not exactly my dream spot, no.”

“But it’s a pool. Pools are cool.”

“I know that. I have a pool. Mine even has water in it. I’m not here for the pool.”

“Then why—”

“I like you, asshole.”

“Oh.” 

“You can’t be that surprised that someone you’re sleeping with likes you.” Ben considered nearly a dozen quick, fumbling trysts in semi-public places and revised that assumption. If this was how Matty always had sex, no wonder he didn’t anticipate actual feelings forming.

“I’m sorry,” Matty murmured, his mouth soft and unhappy. “I thought we were having fun.” 

“We were. Sort of. It’s just…” Ben took a deep breath and braced himself. “Is that all I am? Fun? Because I’d like to be more than that.” 

Matty spun away with a groan, interlacing his fingers and resting them on top of his head. The move outlined the strength of his shoulders in his T-shirt, the fine muscles along his arms and back, and Ben swallowed hard. Part of him wished he’d never mentioned it. He’d be inside Matty by now, maybe, if he’d just kept his stupid mouth shut. Or he’d have Matty on his knees. Or he’d have Matty’s dick in his hand, hot and hard. He’d be listening to Matty’s sex noises, which were objectively a little stupid and whiny sounding, but they got Ben hot anyway. He liked the way Matty’s voice got high and thin when he was close, the way all of Matty’s scattered thoughts and energies cohered into a raw, rare focus. 

“I need a beer,” Matty muttered, and lowered his arms. “Here’s the thing. The stuff I know about you, I like. But that doesn’t matter much, because I’m not the one who’s gonna have issues with us.”

“How do you figure?”

“You’re a doctor who does, like, Bowflex at six in the morning before you go save lives and shit. I’m a bartender who likes fucking in parks and partying and sleeping until two. I’m not cut out to be a doctor’s wife. I’m cool with that. I like being me, but I’m not sure you’re gonna agree in the long run. And it’s one thing to fuck a guy who thinks he’s slumming and another thing to try for something more with him.”

“I’m not slumming,” Ben said, stung. 

“Sure you are,” Matty said easily. “I’m wearing a fucking slap bracelet with skulls on it.”

Ben made a face. “They’re not coming back, man.”

“You’ll see.” Matty’s smile was brief. “The point is I don’t know how to go to fundraisers.”

“You’re lucky you’re so damn pretty.” Ben touched Matty’s lower lip, and Matty kissed his thumb, soft and sweet. “Because you’re a pain in the ass. I just want to have sex with you in a bed sometimes and watch Game of Thrones together.”

“Really?” Matty’s brow furrowed.

“Exclusively,” Ben added, dropping his hand. “Exclusive is part of it.”

Matty didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Sex in a bed and Game of Thrones. That’s what you want?”

“Yeah. That’s what a relationship is, Matty. Frequent sex plus doing fun stuff together.”

“A relationship,” Matty said, the words careful, as if the shape of them was new in his mouth. “I could be in a relationship. I like Game of Thrones. I could be a relationship guy.”

“Jesus,” Ben muttered, even as his heart flopped over in his chest.

“No, I could,” Matty insisted. “I can watch television with you. I can pick you up when your car breaks down, and, and, and...like, pay…bills? Is that…do we get a joint checking thing now?”

Ben shook his head, unable to stop a sappy smile from forming. “That stuff comes later, man.”

“Cool. You might have to give me, like, tips and shit. I’m kind of a relationship virgin.”

“Who’s Rocco then?” Ben’s hand landed on the spot where a tattoo of that name graced Matty’s shoulder. He’d always assumed Rocco was an ex, but if Matty had never done anything like this before, that couldn’t be right.

Matty’s face lit up. “Rocco’s my cat. He’s fucking awesome, Ben. He caught a woodpecker once, but he didn’t kill it because he has a heart made of butter. Best fucking cat that ever lived.”

Ben pressed his forehead against Matty’s collarbone and tried not to laugh too loudly. It would suck to get busted at this point. 

“A relationship,” Matty repeated, sort of wonderingly. He leaned up and kissed Ben, the kind of chaste kiss that the idiot probably thought was relationship-appropriate. But somehow Matty’s tongue ended up in Ben’s mouth, the kiss going hot and biting and dirty enough that Ben was thinking maybe they should fuck right now after all since they were already here. He put his hands on Matty’s hips and tugged, bringing their bodies together, only to protest when Matty wiggled away.

“Nope, not here.” Matty laced their fingers together and squeezed. “I have it on good authority that there’s a pool with actual water in it somewhere in this neighborhood.”