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Robert's been missing Chad a lot more intensely ever since he started taking after-hours shifts. He never used to miss someone else's company.
The apartment still smells like fresh spices long after dinner has ended, long after Chad has left for the night. It smells like that a lot recently; what was once an aroma of cheap whiskey and half-cooked TV dinners has steadily become saffron and turmeric and garlic cloves. Chad is Robert's first ever live-in boyfriend, the kind that cooks him nice dinners, that cares for him. Not a one-night-stand or some asshole that pretends they don't know him when their family asks, but a guy who actually likes him, despite everything. A guy who wants to leave him well fed, not scarfing down pre-packaged meals. It's strange, sometimes, being liked.
Robert cleans the kitchen in silence— a full kitchen since Chad moved in and made it his own. He's been gone for a few hours now, and Robert misses him. He's become spoiled ever since the day he decided they'd move into his place. Delicious food and chatty company had gone from jarring and bizarre to welcome, expected comforts.
Now, spending nights without Chad feels like an affront against him. Tonight, for some reason, in particular. Maybe he's worn out. Maybe he hates the change.
The extra money he brings in is nice, though, and he's out saving lives. Sometimes that means long nights away from Robert twice a week while the scent of his cooking lingers for hours. At least he has that, the essence of him.
'Get your bitch ass in bed and stop whining. I'll see you in the morning.' He'd probably say something like that, Robert thinks. Crass and unfaltering. It would work, too, it would make him feel better. He hopes that imagining it will be enough.
He breathes in the lingering aroma of food before puttering off to the bedroom— their bedroom, he reminds himself solemnly— and undressing for bed. No shirt, same boxers he'd been wearing all day. Old habits and a perfectly silent night, free of incessant ramblings from his friends or drunken spats. He used to see solitude as a prize, but when he curls atop the blankets, all he can hope is that when he wakes up in the morning, Chad will be there, holding him and sleeping past noon.
The bed smells like him, a simple comfort. Chad hogs blankets and his pillows have silk casing to protect his hair, so it's no surprise that he's embedded in everything. Robert turns to stare at the empty space on the bed, sighing, like something crucial is missing.
He grabs one of the silk pillows, holding it tight in his arms. It's a little pathetic, sure, but fuck, if it didn't keep him sane.
When he holds it against his body, he breathes in the scent of it, of Chad's conditioner and body wash and cologne, of him. It's not him, but it still makes Robert feel better.
A little better, anyway.
It's almost like a trick, these items being available to him while alone and vulnerable, designed to capture him. The scent and feeling of holding something of Chad's at night makes him reminisce on mental images of him; how he looks after a shower or a long day at work. He squeezes the firm cushion and thinks of how the muscles on Chad's body wax and wane with his physical activity, how his chest gets softer during a bulk.
He thinks about that stupid silky hair he keeps in a stupid low ponytail. The way it curtains over his face and his shoulders, and how it looks draped across his soft skin.
His cheekbones, his toned body.
Other parts of him, too. Parts of him he had the pleasure of seeing intimately.
Robert misses Chad tonight. He misses his body, too, an unfortunate side effect of his longing— he knew when it happened that it would only be a matter of time before arousal began to claw at his mind and make itself known among the sweeter, more palatable yearning. Laying in his spot on the bed, breathing in his scent. It haunts the empty space like a ghost of his wanting.
Images of hair cascading over Chad's shoulders soon become images of it splayed across the sheets. The feeling of the cushion pressed against Robert's chest exacerbates his desire to feel all of the soft and hard edges of Chad's body. The aroma of fresh cooking wafting under the door makes the atmosphere all the more wanting. He squeezes the silk cushion tighter.
Robert should take a pill and go to bed. He shouldn't be feeling like this.
It itches, though, the way he feels. It's almost mindless how he inches upwards against the plush cushion, how easily it fits between his thighs without him really thinking about it. How he can bury his face in the blankets and close his eyes and how it's making everything better and so much worse.
This is a horrible idea. Frankly, though, Robert doesn't care. He's stubborn like that.
Slowly, he slots the pillow between his legs, and he's surprised how firm it feels, how its stability spreads his scrawny thighs apart. He instinctively squeezes around it, building a generous amount of pressure at his groin; Chad would probably tell him that sleeping with a firm-set pillow between his thighs would be fantastic for his bad back, and he'd be right. Soft enough to sleep on, but stable enough to keep him aligned— too bad he hadn't clocked Robert's more perverse uses for something like this.
He cants his hips a little, testing the feeling with a shallow grinding through his boxers at first; when he feels the burning friction emanate through his cock, it pulls a staggered breath through his teeth that's loud enough to echo through the near-empty bedroom.
Fuck. Yeah, that's good.
It's good enough to throw any amount of guilt or caution out the window.
The fact is, Robert knows this is probably a bad habit to indulge in. He knows it's, at the very least, a little bit pathetic, if not very. Hell, there's a good chance that if Chad knew to just the extent of which Robert was a weird, clingy freak, he'd dump him, or at the very least make fun of him for the rest of his life. Mecha Man would know far better than to tempt the beast of his own uncouth desires, but Robert has the self-restraint of a feral dog at his worst. And, god, was he at his worst.
So, instead, he slips his boxers off and onto the floor. He mounts the silk pillow this time and firmly rolls his hips into the softest part of it, feeling it grind against his bare cock as he clutches at its unburdened edges to press it closer to his body. He'd always liked touching himself like this, the soft fabric pressing against his skin and the unique, textured stimulation. He likes the friction, the way the textile sort of stings when it rubs against his skin, the way he can press the whole of his front against it.
It's like a person, almost. Like Chad's hot, stinging body is underneath him.
God, Robert misses him. When he rolls into the cushion again, this time building a gnawing pace, he clenches his eyes shut, the hazy image of his partner etching itself into his mind. Gorgeous and splayed against the bed, body soft and pliable in Robert's gasp.
"Fuck, Flambae," Robert moans out to nobody. He thinks about him in that suit, playing his role and saving lives. His hips stutter.
The rolling grind becomes faster and Robert keels over a little to relieve the strain on his knees. The friction against his cock becomes more of a flat pressure as he leans over on his belly, trapping his erection between the silk cushion and his own body as he buries his face into the bunched up blankets— it smells like a mixture of them both, like sweat and skincare products, like the body wash that they now shared, like being tangled up in the sheets together. The essence of Chad practically seeps into Robert's conscience and sticks there like glue.
"Haah, Flam—bae… Chad." His voice is muffled as he speaks into the blankets and his body relaxes as he breathes it in. "That's so good, baby. Fuck. You feel so good."
Like he's actually there. He imagines Chad there underneath him, rubbing their cocks together or maybe letting him grind against his thigh. It doesn't help that he barely manages the wherewithal to open his eyes. When they're closed, he can imagine him there, his face, his ass, his body. The soft lines and stubble, his plump lips and silky, refined hair.
Chad would smile when they laid together, and his eyes would crease in the most endearing way. His body would stutter when he laughed, and he'd try to hide the blush on his cheeks when he got well and truly embarrassed.
Robert aches for it. He wishes it wasn't just confined to his thoughts tonight.
Within moments, he's close to reaching his precipice, building into a crest of pleasure as the heat and friction and arousal and yearning become almost too much to bear. His eyes clench shut once more as he chases that high, canting into the firm pillow at a staccatoed pace with his nose and mouth buried into the sheets. The culmination of his racing thoughts quickly turns into a blurry mush.
At his peak, he peels back and cries a version of Chad's name, hazy from the throes of climax. It's loud, slurred, broken. Cum splatters across the silk cushion and onto the bed, which feels rather serendipitous; he cries out, rubbing himself through the last of it, his brain and ears slowly beginning to feel as though they are being stuffed with cotton filling.
The cooldown is accentuated by a muffled state that lags in his brain. In the haze of post orgasm exhaustion, he hears a distant, faint clicking or shaking.
Something like bells, or maybe… keys.
—
A door handle, he realises, far too late.
Robert's movements cease with a jolt as the door to his bedroom opens. The warm, hazy atmosphere of his imagination is jarringly replaced with the dark and spacious accesses of his own bedroom, his body still pulsing.
Warmth goes cold when he notices the face of his very tired, very confused partner standing in the doorway.
"Oh," Chad says at first. Then, an incredulous, "huh."
—
He's home early.
Robert stumbles over like he's just been shot, nearly toppling off the mattress in shock. He covers his bottom half with the silk cushion on instinct, as if it would be somehow better to see the ruined fabric than his dick. How fucking humiliating. If it were any other piece of furniture he'd been caught rutting himself up against, it would have been embarrassing, too, but this?
This was an odd, one-off, very vulnerable moment for him. He might as well have been stripped down to his bones.
Robert can practically see Chad putting two and two together in real time, though maybe he's just still amped. The nudity, the ruined sheets. The fact that Robert is using Chad's cushion to get his rocks off and not his own. So much for a live-in boyfriend.
"I— god, dammit." Robert's hand lands over his own flushed face, as if he could hide the horrors of his own existence with it. "I'm so sorry. Jesus, this is… I just—"
"You're a little freak," Chad decides to say, his expression initially unreadable. He saunters over slowly, taking the pillow away from Robert's lower half and tossing it flat on the bed. Ambar eyes trail over the silk case as he runs two fingers over the mess. "Had to ruin mine, huh? It's like you didn't want me to go to sleep."
"I…" Robert doesn't have it in his sleep deprived, humiliated body to laugh, but the notion is pretty funny, in retrospect. He's so fucking exposed. "You're home early."
Chad offers a smirk, a sign that he'd taken that remark in stride; he's still in his hero suit from the long work day, probably itching to get out of it when he sees Robert in this state.
Then, his body tightens, and he all but corners Robert to the edge of their bed, looking down at his vulnerable form.
"So, this what you want to do to me?" He asks like he's intrigued, genuinely curious. "Can only assume you were thinking of me, using my stuff."
Chad is too good at this, at reading Robert. It's scary, almost.
"I'm sorry," Robert mumbles, but he's not, really. He went into this knowing it was a bad idea. His body goes hot all the same, and frankly, he's not sure if he's being propositioned or made fun of at this point. Yet, against all laws of self preservation, he nods his head, desperately hoping it's the former— sprinkled with the latter, ideally— and waits to see where this is going.
"Don't apologize. If you're gonna be a freak, at least be fucking sure about it." The harshness in his voice is comforting, in a way. Chad's acceptance and interest, hidden behind tone. "I think it's cute when you're whining my name like you mean it. I should stop and stare next time. Could listen to it all day."
Oh. Robert's thighs tighten against himself. It is insane how fast that puts him back online.
Chad notices, too. His eyes burn and glimmer.
"It's too bad you've already made your mess," he says, gaze trailing back to the stained cushion. "Would've loved to have finished you off, but you got that done all by yourself, didn't you? Using my stuff." And he leans back, tipping his head upward as he looks at Robert's form on his bed. "Now look what you did to me."
With smeared fingers, Chad traces the hard line of his body from the top of his v-neck to the slightly visible threads near his groin, breaking eye contact to guide Robert's gaze downward. The smaller man feels as though he is short circuiting, almost; confused, copper eyes trail down the entirety of his still-clothed body, knowing he was at least a little into it. However, nothing could have prepared him for the hard, straining outline of an erection against the firestarter's muscular thigh.
"Oh," he says, this time out loud. Chad's a freak. This kind of relationship is still somewhat fresh for Robert, but if he found this hot, maybe Chad is perfect for him after all.
"You know, I could deal with this myself," Chad continues, and Robert becomes viscerally beaten. He almost has it in him to beg, but then Chad says, "…Or you could put on your little show for me this time. Let me see how much you want me."
And his eyes meet Robert's again, knowing, waiting. Robert's body stiffens as arousal rears its ugly head once more, this time with a vengeance, and he can feel himself throwing caution to the wayside. Screw humiliation, something much better had just presented itself.
"Shit. You really want… this?" Robert is bewildered, regardless. He has to pinch himself, to make sure that he hasn't made this up.
"I wouldn't have fucking asked if I didn't," Chad responds. "It's your shot to call. Or I can jack off in the bathroom and forget about this."
"No," Robert says embarrassingly fast. Chad's grin becomes cocky, like he likes the desperation. "What I mean is, yeah. Please. Fuck, Chad, get over here, I need you."
With no inkling of a protest, Chad puts himself within touching distance, and Robert is practically all over him within a matter of seconds.
His palms draw lines over Chad's toned body, light and sweet before clawing at the fabric of his hero suit. As always, it takes a little fanangling, but eventually they're able to get him out of it so that Robert can feel the texture of his bare skin against calloused hands. It's as if it's the first time he's touched him, the way he grapples at supple flesh, coarse with a thick spread of body hair. Robert knew he had been missing this at night, but he hadn't realized just how much until he finally got to hold him.
When Chad is finally down to his boxers, he takes his rightful place on the bed, letting Robert touch all over him. He leans in close, taking a candid glance at Robert's flustered face before pressing their lips together in a searing kiss and pulling him up onto his thighs. Sparks of warmth bloom where Chad's hands touch Robert's ever frigid body. It feels wonderful how perfectly they seem to fit together.
Sweet kisses turn to generous necking, and then to a rocking of bodies against one another. At a point, Chad pulls away breathlessly, his expression bewildered and his gaze fixated on Robert's eyes as he searches them for something.
"Jesus, you're like a feral dog," is what he comes up with. His hand trails down to where their groins had become pressed together where Robert had straddled him. Chad's face is flushed, though he tries to hide it with arrant words— his body betrays him, though, twitching in interest against the smaller man's. "Wanted me that bad, huh?"
Robert answers his question with a kiss, soft and precise. The gentle start does not keep him from prodding at plump lips with his tongue, however, nor does it keep him from changing his position so that he is pressed more effectively against Chad's still clothed cock.
In response, Chad presses against him with hands and hips, moaning into their kiss. He's loving this.
Robert moves from lips to chin to throat, suckling marks into sweat-licked skin. Chad's right, he's feral, practically starving.
"Fuuuck. You gonna get off by rubbing yourself on me this time?" With his lips free from any intrusion, Chad's wonderful sounds are untethered. Robert whines into his throat, met with a low groan in return. "Surprised you have it in you so soon after cumming. And here I thought I was gonna fall apart first, but just look at you."
Robert, with a thread of sanity, takes the snarky remark in stride, pulling away from Chad's neck just enough to breathe out a response against it. It comes out as more of an insult. "Fuck you. I missed you like crazy," he mutters, falling apart at the seams, "please, please, just let me…"
He can barely finish his sentence before Chad cants his hips into him once more, biting his lip when Robert babbles and shudders from the touch. Chad reaches up to grab at his chest with one massive hand, pinching a nipple between the knuckles of his index and middle fingers.
Robert, of course, cries out.
"You can do whatever you want, baby. I'm not stopping you." Chad's voice is crooning among the spooling whines. He moves over to the other nipple with a pinch. "Tell me, you wanna get off on me like this?"
It's a more difficult question than Chad probably thinks. Robert wants whatever he will give him, to mark him as his own. He wants to show him just how much he'd been needing him, to humor him, to press kisses into every inch of his body until all parts of him have been claimed.
Robert wants to be touched, however, in whatever way. He wants to taste him, to breathe in his essence, to be branded with it.
"I want your cock in my mouth," Robert says, like it'll kill him if Chad says no.
"Wow, look at you," Chad raises a brow, leering. His voice is bewildered, he draws a delicate hand to Robert's flustered face, half-comfort, half-ensuring. "Alright, I'll bite. And what about you?"
Robert's mind goes blank momentarily, trying to answer in earnest— Of course, Chad wants to offer something to him, too. Perhaps that little detail was it, the source of the yearning sensation that's been plucking at the strings of Robert's sanity ever since Chad started leaving him alone at night twice a week. Jealousy, desperation, plagues of his psyche.
His eyes trail to the bed. To the stupid silk cushion, the one he'd been caught with, the one that put him in the situation in the first place.
Chad looks to it, too, and his body goes loose and alight. He decides he doesn't need to wait for Robert to answer after all.
Wordlessly, the taller man crawls over to the edge of the bed and stoops over, grabbing the silk encased cushion off the side where he'd tossed it. He nudges his head from Robert to the ground, a wordless request to get on his knees; the latter happily obliges. When he does, Chad hands him that pillow and seats himself at the edge, his clothed erection placed within mouthing distance.
"Get on top of that," he says, eyes darting to the stained silk cushion. Robert wordlessly, knowingly obeys.
His eyes trail up, waiting for more direction. The sight of him from this lower angle is everything.
"Think you can get off like that?" Chad says.
Robert's heart skips a beat, and he nods.
"Yeah. Yeah, I can."
Robert slots the plush cushion more firmly between his thighs, shuddering at the wet spot on its case. He has to break away from the intoxicating view of Chad's starving countenance to hook fingers underneath his boxers and pull them down until they are loose enough to slide past his feet— then, he positions himself between muscular thighs.
Sizing him up is mandatory. He licks a stripe up Chad's cock languidly, building stimulation— Chad shivers, reeling back, impatient. He tastes almost like cooking smoke from using his powers for several hours on end, heady and sweet and irresistible on Robert's tongue. Chad's patience runs thin, he can tell, so he takes the head into his mouth with guiding hands.
Robert likes the feeling of Chad inching deeper down his throat, the familiar weight of his cock against his lips and tongue. Hearing his sweet little groans only makes Robert want to pull him deeper; he opens the back of his throat slowly and begins moving his head back and forth, and with shaking hands, he grasps onto the base of Chad's cock where his lips fail to reach.
"Damn, Rob—ert…" Chad practically chokes out the words, already on the verge of keeling. "Fuck, this is really good. You're all over me tonight."
Robert nods shortly, his body becoming hot and restless. Even this kind of touch feels like everything he's been needing for the past few weeks— when Chad's cock hits the back of his throat and he all but gags from the sensation, his body grinds into the cushion beneath him, feeling the rush of fine textured fabric create friction against his skin. His body is pooling with warmth at the groin, teetering on the verge of gorgeous overstimulation yet not quite enough to hurt, and he loves it. He needs it, needs Chad more than anything, needs to feel his body tighten and pulse as he brings him closer and closer to his precipice.
A three-fingered hand runs through mousy brown hair, pulling, light enough to stabilize without forcing himself down his throat. "You missed me, huh, baby?"
Robert whines around him at the little pet name. Yeah, he did miss him. It's strange, really. He never used to miss someone's company.
Being here for him, having him within arms reach. It's natural to them both, now.
Robert takes him in again and again, unrelenting in his desire to give. It's odd, it used to be so simple living along, not caring for anyone but himself and his pet. He never used to need. Now he does. Now, it's well within reach.
For just a moment, Robert pulls off, replacing the lost stimulation with his hands as he becomes unable to contain his spool of thoughts—
"Needed this so much," he whines, puffy, tired eyes on the verge of tears, "so much, baby. Chad."
And Chad looks taken aback for several moments; it's rare he becomes genuinely speechless in the midst of intimacy. A flame lights on his shoulders instead, a silent note of his own vulnerability. Robert takes advantage of the shocked silence to feed Chad's cock back into his mouth, tears forming at the corners of his eyes as he grinds below with more force, taking everything that Chad had to offer and offering himself in return.
Dammit. It's all out there now. Maybe that's for the best, though. Maybe he missed Robert, too.
Chad's body tenses like a vice, his voice gravelly as he moans out Robert's name. His fingers tighten in Robert's hair and his breath stops— without warning, Chad's orgasm wracks through his body with a violent shudder, almost as if he himself didn't expect it. It stings as it hits the back of Robert's throat and he falters, the milky spend seeping out of the corners of his mouth as he swallows as much as he can otherwise.
It's so overwhelming. It's just what he needed.
Robert is soon to follow, reaching his climax as Chad murmurs and shakes through the aftershocks. A scarred hand reaches down to stroke himself through it; it's not as punctuated as the first time, but buzzes through his body like a jolt of electricity all the same. By the time it's over, he just about collapses on the space between Chad's thighs.
The air is steamy, silent for several moments, interspersed only with heavy breaths and sniffs and groans. Robert is mindless. Chad is counting his own breaths.
Then, slowly, achingly, Robert stands to join his partner on the bed, laying next to him on his back. There's quiet, but it's a good silence— a note that they need nothing more than to be in each other's company, now.
Wanting, waiting.
"…I think I'm going to stop taking these extra shifts," Chad says, breaking the jarring silence.
Robert feels a small rush of shame whittle at his body. "Not because of me I hope," he says softly.
"Nah, not really. Make a baby with that pillow for all I care." He snorts, peering over to catch the inevitable look of mortification that graces Robert's face. "I'm just kinda bored of it. Also, I saw a zit yesterday. Stress zit. The extra cash isn't worth my beauty, Bob-bob."
"I think I'm gonna just take a melatonin next time." Or find better ways to deal with his feelings of loneliness. It would probably be for the best. He pinches his nose. "You're sure about this?"
"Please. You're obsessed with me, Bob-bob. Gotta keep up appearances for my fans and all."
The following laugh whistles through his teeth, infecting Robert like a virus. Maybe he's just exhausted from all of the emotional turmoil, but he finds himself laughing, too.
A little whistle of the teeth, a little smile. It's not even that funny. Maybe he just likes him.
When it simmers down, Robert curls his body into Chad's, laying his head against his shoulder and breathing in the scent of him. Expensive conditioner and sweat and the barest hint of cologne, clung to him like burrs. Like home.
"Well, if that's the case, I won't complain." Robert closes his eyes, burying his face against Chad's skin. "I've been missing you."
Chad's breath hitches—Robert can feel it against his chest. He can feel the tensing of muscles and the quickened pace of his heart.
"Of course you have," Chad says quickly, "like I said, obsessed."
Another moment of silence, another stolen heartbeat.
"I've missed you, too," he says.