Who: Zee and Hunter What: Post-party freakouts and a (fairly subtle) alter change. Where: Their apartment When: Day after the party? Warnings/Rating: Thoughts about naughtiness and some cursing I think.
Sloth. It was hard for Zee to wrap his head around, the fact that the hotel had given him sloth. He’d read through other people’s writing in the journal, and knew that it could have been much, much worse. The first thing he could think of was that Hunter might have been one of those people that were hurt. God knew he could never get a straight answer out of Dorian about something like that. His next thought was that he could have helped someone, somehow. Maybe intervened in one of those situations that had apparently gone so wrong.
But he hadn’t.
He’d laid outside, never even making it into the building itself, and stared up at the sky when he could manage to keep his eyes open. He’d heard the party, somehow far in the distance, sometimes a scream, sometimes a moan on the air. And still, he’d done nothing. The “aftermath”, if it could even be called that, was him nearly vibrating with the energy he hadn’t used, and wanting to do something. Go somewhere. Something. It was the itch that had caused him to pack up and leave a city at his back so often in the past, and he was left clenching his teeth against that desire.
By the time he got back to the apartment, his normally loose limbs were tight with tension, the way he used to get too often before getting into a fight, and he didn’t know what he wanted, other than action. Something other than the lethargy that had weighed down on him for the entire night. Keys noisy in his hand, he let himself back into the apartment with a frown.
The white ball of fur was nearly grown now, but she still had a puppy’s energy as she leapt off Hunter’s lap and bounded joyful for the door. Hunter smelled strongly of recently smoked cigarettes from across the room, and he’d come straight from the hotel, so his green plaid shirt was slightly rumpled and his amber eyes were tarnished with fatigue. He wasn’t wearing his brace, which was characteristic regardless of injury level, but when he stood in a slow, almost liquid assembly of limbs, he didn’t limp or move gently. The scratches that had become scabs were all gone, grouped with the injuries of the previous night and taken care of by Dorian’s hellish portrait.
Wiping sweaty palms on his jeans, he advanced in the puppy’s wake, blatantly looking Zee over for signs of injury as he got close. He then looked into his eyes, concentrating first on one and then on another, as if unsure that his own two could handle the task. Hunter’s own expression seemed pinched and guarded, a look he sometimes acquired when he was remembering things from home in Montana. He inclined his head. “How you doing?” he asked, thin lips parting and remaining open to a cool stream of air. More hints of cigarettes.
Zee had bent down once he closed the door, offering Fluff the attention she obviously wanted, long fingers in white fur. His shoulders were tense in his crouch, elbows perched on his knees. The scent of cigarettes on the air as Hunter moved forward made him crave one of his own, one combined with the fast rush of desert air as it flowed in his open car window at speeds past the posted limits. He pushed that thought away though, and looked up, up, at Hunter. No injuries that he could see, not even old ones, and of course, Dorian had been through his door. A little poking on the internet had given him more than enough information about that particular story. Enough that he wasn’t surprised at an uninjured Hunter. He stared a little, maybe too much, maybe too intense, taking in the wrinkles of plaid and denim, the lines around light brown eyes, everything that screamed Hunter and made his fingers itch to touch.
He had no injuries of his own, not a mark on him that wasn’t supposed to be there, the same ink vanishing under the soft grey jerseyknit of his tshirt. His fingers went limp, both hands still and no longer petting the dog as he returned Hunter’s assessment. “...Fucking hotel,” he finally managed to force out, voice rough but only because of his own emotion. “Fucking city.” There was a bite to the words, an edge that Zee’s voice almost never had. He wanted to let his head drop, to hang loose between his shoulders even though it would expose the back of his neck in a vulnerable way he wasn’t comfortable with. He wanted it now, in front of Hunter, but he kept his gaze up, framed by drawn-together brows.
Hunter was unused to this side of Zee, tense and reckless to the point of anger. Zee had never been really angry with Hunter, certainly not enough to yell at him or swear with that much emphasis, and even now seeing it directed at something else made Hunter faintly nervous, this new frontier something he had no knowledge how to navigate. Habitually Hunter met aggression with aggression, but since this strain wasn’t directed at him, he wasn’t sure how to assuage it. He went over various ideas in his head, things he did when he was riled up: pet the dog, drive fast, throw things, scream up at an empty sky. He felt stupid suggesting any of these others, though Fluff looked pleased at the blatant attention.
Hunter tucked his chin down, the angular bones of his cheeks and the soft fringe of brow over his inquisitive eyes forming both youth and maturity in the same structure. He worked his mouth together, pink lips rolling white, and then gently brushed Zee on one shoulder with his fingertips, meant to be a comfort but uncertain if the contact was much wanted. “Yeah,” he agreed, lamely. He opened his mouth to offer a beer, remembered that they didn’t have any for a reason, and broke off. “You’re not hurt, are you?” Hunter knew that even the thinnest material could hide bruises and pain.
Zee would have taken the beer, and gladly, had they had any. Preferably something stronger even than that. The runner up to skipping town was inevitably getting wasted, and it took a too-long minute to once again remind himself why neither of those was an option any more. That reason touched his shoulder, barely anything to the contact, and he tried to sigh, breathe out the tension, but while his expression started to ease just a bit, his shoulders still stayed knotted. He felt himself sway toward Hunter in his crouch and as he eased out of that position and onto to his knees, finally did allow himself to tip his head forward. Colorful skin was exposed from hairline to the hard jut of bone at the base of his neck, and was an invitation for fingers to touch.
“Not hurt,” he replied in a whisper, voice softer but still run through with that same edge of tension. “Didn’t do enough to get hurt.” Another pause, a grit of his teeth that translated to a momentary sharpening of the angle of his jaw, visible even with his head still ducked down. “Didn’t do fucking anything.” It should have been a comfort, escaping the party unscathed, but somehow it wasn’t. “You can tell the fucker in your head that it was sloth, since he was so damn keen to know earlier.”
Hunter automatically moved forward at the smallest sway, his narrow hips yet solid against the weight of Zee’s shoulder. He’d shed his boots, and the socks in Zee’s immediate view were green and worn nearly through with bleach and use. The edges of his jeans were frayed, and below the knee he smelled like dust and hot desert air. Hunter admired the line of Zee’s neck, the way he always did, but when he moved in to touch, it was not gentle or questing along the lines of Zee’s tattoos. Hunter pressed five fingers down into the base of Zee’s neck into his shoulder, working the pads into the tension and kneading there to ease it out.
The dog didn’t understand what was going on, questing with paws and cold nose, but when Hunter ordered her down with an even command, she obeyed, sitting back and letting him handle it the way good pack was supposed to when presented with strange situations. Hunter’s other hand mirrored his first, kneading circles into the knots of Zee’s shoulders. “You don’t seem real... lazy,” Hunter ventured. That was as close to sloth as he’d ever heard, remnants of church and the things mama said when she got angry.
Zee had expected maybe a tentative touch from Hunter, and the sudden deep pressure drew a groan from him that was low and surprised and captured his breath in the back of his throat. “...Fuck.” The friction of air snuck past his teeth even as he brought up a hand to brace himself. His fingers caught at Hunter’s jeans and then pressed four points deep into the muscle behind Hunter’s knee. The knots were stubborn, lodged in the muscles of his shoulders hard enough to not be chased away by a small bit of pressure. He shifted over his knees, moving as much as he could to rest his head in the hint softness between Hunter’s hips and ribs.
The tension wasn’t gone, not nearly, but his tongue had begun to go touch-drunk as he leaned into the solid shape of Hunter’s body. “Keep you forever, baby, ‘f you promise to never stop that...” The words were half lost in the worn plaid over Hunter’s body, sharp consonants of a promise given to faded fabric. He wanted to focus on the touch, even though the pressure danced along the line between healing and pain. That, and not the hotel or the sin it had thrown at him. His response was only a quiet hum of acknowledgement.
The position and movement went from reassurance to sex in a split-second in Hunter’s mind, and even if he didn’t do anything differently, he still thought it, equating the low, rough sounds and the hiss of breath with sweat and writhing. Hunter took in a slow breath through his nose, posed his fingers, and then settled them again deeper in the hollow of Zee’s shoulder and his collarbone. Four fingers slid along the muscle, working mercilessly with a ranch hand’s callouses and strength. He did that for several seconds, long enough for the dog to lose interest and wander off to her bed under the table.
Then Hunter said, in the same tentative voice, “Forever’s a long time, ain’t it?” He meant it light, and he nearly managed, working his shoulders back and tossing his head to one side in a long stretch of his own vertebrae as his fingers worked up the back of Zee’s neck and into his hairline. He had a hard time imagining Zee just lying around all night at a party. Hunter thought of Zee as a bright light in the dark, surrounded by the buzz of hapless, hypnotized admirers. “Long enough to get bored of one person.” He was working circles into hard muscle.
Zee wouldn’t have judged Hunter for the thoughts of sex. Couldn’t judge, not if he didn’t want to be a hypocrite. How could he not think it, though? On his knees, scent of laundry soap and dust and male gathering in the back of his throat, Hunter’s hands on him, buttons of a shirt so close and pried through fabric that barely held the shape of a buttonhole. He always forgot how strong Hunter’s hands could be, but the dig of fingertips into stubborn muscle was quickly reminding him. He barely even noticed when the dog wandered away, distracted by thoughts of how easy it would be to undo all the buttons he came across.
“You know that it is,” was Zee’s reply to the question of forever, and he was willing to leave it at that, but the next words forced him to shift his weight (oh so reluctantly) away, tip his head back so he could glare up at Hunter. Any tension that had been coaxed from his shoulders was instantly returned. “You still think?” It wasn’t a complete question, and maybe there was still enough sloth hanging to him, if he was dropping vital words from his thoughts. He didn’t care, though, eyes pushing forward any part of the question that might have been left behind on his tongue. Demanding to know how Hunter could still imagine himself someone that Zee would be bored with. “Not a thing about you’s boring, baby. Fuckin’ stare at you all day and not be bored.” His hand moved up from the back of Hunter’s knee to his hip, hooking in the waistband of worn denim and pull-pushing forward, plastering himself against the front of Hunter’s lower body. His voice slipped lower, dark brows pushing in over his frown. “An’ if I ever get bored, throwing you in my car and bailing on this city. Not you.”
Hunter felt the tendons a warm layer away from his fingers tense again, and he allowed his hands to slide away, over smooth cotton ridges and then dangling in empty air. Whereas a week ago, even yesterday, he might have been confrontational about the question, probing, or even accusing about Zee’s attention, today he looked nervous and guilty. He breathed quickly, more stomach than lungs, stretching already tight cotton to still further limits before he shifted back on his green heels. Abashed, he said, “Sorry. Not calling you a liar.”
Hunter blinked with surprise as Zee moved aggressively to find his place closer again along Hunter’s thighs and knees. Looking down, Hunter immediately brought four rough fingers up and closed them over the back of Zee’s neck, not kneading this time but clinging close and cupping there in a small but effective embrace. He felt it odd Zee was speaking this way, especially after months of casualness and care, and then a few more weeks of awkward uncertainties since that night in the bathroom. Worried still, Hunter worked his lower lip between his teeth, soft eyes under the long fringe of his lashes as he looked down. “You okay? Somebody say something to you?” This was the first time Zee had spoke of leaving, even with Hunter in tow. They used to move all the time, but never had Zee sounded quite like this about it.
Zee caught the nerves in Hunter’s expression and swore at himself for pushing hard enough to made him worry like that. He hadn’t even checked to see what the hotel had done to Hunter, had just taken Dorian’s word that things were alright. And he knew better than to accept that sort of assurance from Dorian. He was about to snap back again, to reply about lying or ask about the previous night, but then Hunter’s fingers were curved over the back of his neck, and after another tense moment, Zee sighed out and forced himself to relax into the touch. He rested his head forward against Hunter’s stomach, closing his eyes and breathing out again slowly. His other arm came up, and he wrapped both around Hunter’s hips, hugging him close even from his spot on his knees.
Had someone said something to him? Yes, but it wasn’t so much the harsh words as the feeling of lethargic helplessness that Zee could still remember, burning under his skin. He moved his head from side to side, pushing the cotton of Hunter’s shirt with the movement, nearly burrowing into it through the gaps between the buttons. “Yeah but not,” he started to explain. “Wasn’t the words that were the worst. But I couldn’t do anything. Was stuck, not moving. Couldn’t help, barely could move. Doesn’t feel good. Or right. Even now.” He tried to ignore the thrumming thoughts of go go go in his mind. His arms tightened momentarily around Hunter’s hips, and his next sigh caught warm in the fabric of his shirt. Quieter, still intense but with a strange edge of reluctance, he added one last thought. “Fucked with my head. ...s’got me wanting to... go.” His arms didn’t relax though, and even if he wanted to go, he wasn’t letting go.
“That’s not you,” Hunter said, reassuring only because he thought it was truth. “You move around a lot.” He didn’t really understand why Zee would be fixed to one place, even for so short a time as the party the previous night. Zee was energy, even if it was just his fingers scrawling ballpoint lines on paper, incarnate, not dark but bright white and flicker fast. Hunter worked with animals, and nothing had a human’s capacity for that kind of unexpected movement, the kind that had no purpose until halfway through.
Hunter’s fingers slid down the back of Zee’s neck, pressure even, and his long rough hands stopped only a few vertebrae down. “We can’t go nowhere,” Hunter said, really worried now, his other hand now circling around to grip Zee’s arm just under the bicep. Hunter never treated Zee as if he was something fragile, and the grip was firm. “What about the doors?” The grip tightened still further until finally Hunter stepped back and pulled at Zee so he would rise.
Zee followed the grip and tug until he’d lifted back to his feet again, head angled down to meet Hunter’s eyes instead of up. He refused to back away too far though, warmth still close enough to mingle with the heat of Hunter’s body between the two of them. His own hands found Hunter’s sides, pressing flat for just a moment before they curled into fists, capturing the worn fabric of plaid shirt with it.
“Fuck the doors,” he finally murmured, accompanied by a strange shiver along the back of his neck. Something felt wrong for that split second, but then it was gone again and he felt no different than he had a moment before. He blinked, frowned, but he meant the words. In that space, the thought of the hotel and what might happen to the two of them made him want to leave. To find someplace better, or at least safer for the two of them. Someplace they could figure out what the hell was going on between them without the constant presence of two other people, without family members or a fucking building that had a mind of its own. “We don’t owe that hotel anything. People have left before. We could do it too.” They were strong words, but forced to the surface by something that was still unsettled and almost scared by the previous night, and it showed in the single waver that caught in his throat.
Hunter understood how Zee felt about the hotel after last night. Hunter was angry and scared, too, because he remembered the thing he had been, remembered the need to find and take but not treasure. Even worse understood why that thing had been him, why he had been that thing, why its nature was something he hid down in his guts where he thought no one could see. Hunter understood that the way he acted about Zee didn’t endear him to anyone, but the prospect of someone having him if he could not made him turn into that thing again, raw and burnt and angry. He was quiet against Zee’s chest for a little while, thinking about it, not understanding the shadow of movement behind Zee’s eyes.
“We could,” Hunter replied, quietly, over Dorian’s hissing protests in the back of his mind. “But I... I don’t want to run off. With him in my head. Callum is here...” He trailed away again. His siblings were all over the place, and Raegan wasn’t even speaking to him, but Hunter wasn’t as willing to be the one to disappear in the night for greener pastures this time around. He had ties, and not just to Zee. “Dorian would drive me fuckin’ off a cliff two days out, anyway,” he added, smiling, but not entirely joking.
“You think he’d still be there if we left?” It was a murmured question, one that ignored the sweet girl in his own head (the one that was suspiciously absent in that moment) and one that was followed by a sharp shake of Zee’s head. No, of course they couldn’t leave. Not now. No matter how much he might want to. He eased his fingers from Hunter’s shirt and sighed as he smoothed down the fabric with flat pams that shook with the faintest tremor. Maybe he did still want to run, to leave the city behind him, but if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t going to leave Hunter behind. And if Hunter wouldn’t leave...
“Sorry,” he whispered, closing his eyes and swaying forward, stopping himself before he touched his forehead to Hunter’s. “I know we can’t. I just...” He finally closed that last gap, resting temple to temple and sighing. He didn’t finish his thought.
Hunter was visibly surprised by the idea Dorian might disappear from the effect of sheer distance. “He never gets quieter when I go out to the ranch, or a ways into the canyon,” he said, once he had leaned into the pleasant embrace and he was reassured that Zee wasn’t going to fall apart on him. The small buttons pressed hard into Zee’s stomach and chest, and as Hunter breathed they both moved together, sandwiched by the long spine of each. A moment longer and Hunter kissed Zee’s chin and broke away, stealing his hand as he did so. “I get it,” he said roughly, easier with the physical affection than the verbal. He looked away and shoved at his hair with his free hand before pulling Zee to the horrifically uncomfortable couch. Pulling him around, Hunter smiled into his face and then pushed him onto it, gently but allowing no resistance. “Relax for a second. Tough day.”
Zee could have kept talking about Dorian, about the two of them leaving, but he went quiet as Hunter leaned into him. The stretched knit of his tshirt caught on some of Hunter’s buttons, and while they were pressed close, Zee brought one hand around to worry at the bottom few. By the time Hunter pulled him toward the couch, he’d managed to work the three lowest ones open, leaving a triangle of skin exposed every time Hunter moved. He smiled at that, and in return for Hunter’s smile, and allowed himself to be pushed down onto the couch-folded futon, ignoring the annoyed creak the frame of it gave.
He refused to let Hunter go too far, even once he was sitting, and leaned forward to thread insistent fingers through the beltloop at Hunter’s waist, tugging him forward. “You too,” he sighed out around the hint of a frown. “Don’t wanna relax alone.” Tug, tug. His other hand found the opposite hip, and the tugs became more insistent pulls. Careful, but steadily trying to draw Hunter closer. If it ended with him having a lap or arms full of the boy in front of him, he would be very glad.
Hunter didn’t really have an intention to leave Zee on the couch there permanent, and even the idea of visiting the fridge wasn’t really all that appealing with a deliberate triangle of skin just above his fly catching cool air and running shivers over sensitive skin. So he smiled still, even wider maybe as Zee smiled too, and answered the tug with an all-too-willing shift in Zee’s direction. Another couple tugs pulled him effectively off balance, and Hunter tipped over into the long waiting arm with a short bark of a laugh.
The both of them were too long and lanky for there to be much grace involved, and the couch wasn’t going to hold up against the damage of them flopping into it for very many more months, but just then Hunter didn’t care. He let one arm curl up over the back of his head and he situated himself with his head on Zee’s lap and the rest of him stretched lengthwise as long as he could go. The soft brown eyes gleamed happily at all the attention. “There. Relaxed. Ya happy?”
The tumble of limbs caused Zee to laugh along with Hunter, low and warm and rich, something truly pleased with the outcome of his insistence. He ignored the creak of the cheap wooden frame beneath them. He’d known what a piece of crap it was when he bought it months back, but it was never meant to last even as long as it had, and especially not with two long-term users and a dog abusing it every day. Buying anything sturdier pointed toward a more long-term stay, and he never planned for anything like that. But since things had started changing, he’d thought more than once about a bigger place, a better bed, a real couch. Not that he would admit to it.
The sprawl of limb and skin, accompanied by the smile and pleased, easy look around Hunter’s eyes, went a long way in chasing off remnants of the night before. He could still feel it itching under his skin, along with something else that eeled around his awareness, refusing to be pinned down, but it was easy enough to ignore for the moment. Fingers quickly finding Hunter’s hair, he twisted through it absently, leaving waves and curls in his wake. His other hand found an easy place to rest on Hunter’s stomach, thumb against the bottom-most button that was still holding, fingers spread over the skin below. His fingers moved just enough to get the feel of the softness of skin under them, and then stilled. Using Hunter almost as a giant touchstone, Zee forced himself back into a slouch, shifting until he was as comfortable as the couch would allow, and then sighed out long and slow. His usual loose sprawl was returning, and he nodded. “Getting there.”