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TITLE: Reserve
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: NC-17
LENGTH: 6,000 words
SUMMARY: Nathan is reserved. That's why, when a Trouble cracks apart all that stoic resolve, it takes maybe a week or so to come to terms with it. (Duke/Nathan, Audrey.)
NOTES: 'The Cluebat Trouble'. Crack, verging on fluff. Crack!fluff.
THANKS: To Kattahj for beta-reading!
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
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Reserve
1.
Day one, immediately after the Incident, Audrey Parker said to her partner, "It's not so bad as all that. Everyone made an ass of themselves today, and everyone makes an ass of themselves over sex sooner or later. You've just escaped that longer than most. Also, you know, Haven's pretty open-minded for a small town..."
She said to Duke Crocker, who was hovering around looking needy and wide-eyed, "You need to give him space. Nathan's... reserved. If this Trouble really brought out the truth, I’m sure that sooner or later he'll get over what happened enough to face up to what it actually means."
Audrey, frankly, was somewhat perplexed, having gone from two fine looking men she rather liked her chances with to none at all in one fell swoop. But she was a big believer in sucking it up and getting the fuck on with things, so she exercised her private inalienable rights to make the most of the Incident that night in the shower, and then later some more in bed, and who the hell needed men anyway?
***
Day two, she ran damage control, arriving outside the police station in time to catch and stop Duke. "Do not give him the flowers."
It didn't put a dent in her mood, and neither did Nathan's personal raincloud of gloom over at his side of their office. But as the day wore on, she did have to pretend to sigh a few times and brood a little, because Nathan had started shooting injured looks her way after she accidentally burst out whistling.
Truth to tell -- indeed -- it probably wasn't a fun position for Nathan to be in, considering that most of the town had by now heard how he’d grabbed Duke in the middle of the Gull at its busiest time, declared his undying love, and practically assaulted him. Most of the town included his dad, the Chief, who'd swung by the office a few times to hang outside the door wearing an amazed, confused look that really couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
Audrey had pointed out to Nathan soothingly, or so she'd thought, that he hadn't been outright disowned and this was probably a good sign, because the Chief was a direct man and if he was going to do that he'd have done it at once.
"All that sensitivity training you must've got in the FBI, Parker?" Nathan responded. "It's... amazing. Really." But he was exasperated, not angry with anyone save himself -- and Duke, but that was always a given.
***
Day three, Nathan took a day off, which was ample proof the whispers were getting to him. Audrey worried, and with ill grace spent the morning trying to solve, alone, the problem of the bank clerk with the Midas touch -- which nearly caused a minor riot until some jostling ass inevitably got himself turned into a statue.
Around lunchtime she got back to the police station and found Duke hovering nervously around their office. She frowned at him, sighed, gestured for him to take Nathan's seat and flopped into her own. "He took the day off."
Duke obviously understood the momentous nature of that, because he sort of slumped in Nathan's chair and looked appropriately concerned.
"This sucks," he said, and they regarded each other carefully across the room from their separate desks.
"He'll come around," Audrey said again.
"In another few decades?" Duke returned sourly.
She wanted to comfort him, but he did have a point. Nathan could do 'stubborn' better than anyone. Instead she offered the two shiny, glittering loops that she'd been spinning in her fingers all the way back from the bank fiasco. "Cheer up and I'll let you have my golden handcuffs?"
***
On day four, she eavesdropped as the Chief pulled Nathan aside and told him that whatever his choices, as bat-crazy-unfathomable as they were, they were his own, and Nathan was still his son. It was heart-warming in a really bizarre way. Audrey had to duck and sprint back to their office as it broke up with unexpected speed, and she was pretty sure she'd been spotted.
Nathan didn't say anything though, just walked back in and sat down with a dazed look upon his face.
Audrey studiously typed her reports, pretending she'd barely noticed him come in at all.
Nathan stood up again, casting around, long arms awkward as he looked out the exterior windows, then checked the interior ones for their view into the corridor. "Duke--" he began, way too loud, and caught himself. "He's not hanging around today."
He sounded disappointed.
"Nope," Audrey said, judging it safe to peer at him over her monitor. "I think he went out on his boat."
Nathan scowled. "Typical Duke. Of all the contrary... I'm gonna go on a coffee run." He ducked out, angry steps wide and fast, and was gone before she could open her mouth to ask for a pastry from Rosemary's.
Still, this was good. This was progress. The gossips at the bakery and coffee shop were the worst in town, and he'd been avoiding the coffee run ever since the Incident.
***
Day five and Nathan's brief change of heart had been worn down by time. Actually, fuck day five. Day five was the day with the dweeb whose Trouble could control rats. They spent half the day running and the other half at the hospital, hanging about while Nathan got every immunisation shot in existence for his nibbled legs. Day five sucked, and Audrey was done with it.
***
Day six Nathan spent doing paperwork and working from the office couch, because he'd already had one day off that week and if he took any more the fabric of reality would probably collapse. Audrey knew the feeling. Quite a few of the townspeople who'd been nastier with their comments dropped off pies. Pies of Guilt.
"It's blueberry," Nathan corrected around a slice.
"Right. All you have to do to make them think you're a nice homosexual is save the town from a rat infestation," she said. "And get... chewed. And by the way, still 'ew'."
"Parker," he said, suspiciously, "are you turning into a girl?"
"It's the rat thing. I just... I can't." She shuddered, and jumped up and down on the spot, brushing her hands over herself. But she could still feel their scratchy, crawling little feet.
"I'm not, you know," he mumbled.
"Not...?" Her brain was still on rats.
"Homosexual. It's just Duke."
"...Huh," Audrey said. But he'd hit his maximum word limit for the morning, and that meant she probably wasn't getting anything else out of him at least until lunchtime. He bowed his head and fiddled with his pen, staring very intently at a file. "...I am going to get some coffees," she announced, "because you got them yesterday. I'm not fleeing from this awkward silence. Not at all."
No reply. Big surprise.
Outside, she got out her phone and texted Duke. The ring tone made her jump and she turned in time to catch him ghosting out from behind the steps. "...Asshole!"
"I hear he's... mellowed." Duke said.
"He says it's just you," Audrey told him. On the day they were not speaking of she and Duke had had an evening conversation wherein he had thrown many darts, only most of them at a dartboard, after he'd heard Nathan had been ripe for plucking and he'd missed it.
"Just me?" A blissful smile took over him.
"I know! It's almost sweet. Now, go! He's injured. Strike while he can't run away."
Duke's smile went a bit fixed and he gave her a doubtful look, but cautiously turned and mounted the steps to the police station.
Audrey went to get the coffees and left them to it. When she returned, it was to discover she'd apparently been naive to think they could do this without audience, interpreter and general negotiator. She passed Duke, storming out of the door with a bloody nose, and found Nathan stumbling around guiltily picking up in an office that was a wreck.
She shooed the small audience, shoved the coffee at Stan, and rubbed her forehead. She was starting to get a headache.
***
By day seven, which was incidentally one whole week of this crap, Audrey was losing patience. It had been hot, cute, funny, awkward, heart-warming, plain ridiculous, and now it was just annoying.
"All right," she said to Nathan, as she stormed into their office and pelted his desk with the items she'd stopped on her way in to buy, hence her unaccustomed lateness. "You blurted out some stuff and kissed Duke. In public." He fumbled and dropped the packet of condoms and the jar of KY as he spied what they were. "Because of Troubles, which by the way? Means it's no-one's fault. Including Duke's. Or yours. Dragging him into the storeroom afterward, that might be harder to write off, especially considering the noises -- but really, who gives a fuck? Go. Make up. Make out. I will cover for you and lie to your dad, because that shit is fun for me."
He stood there gaping at her and doing not very much in terms of actually moving.
Audrey put her hand on her holster and tapped her foot. "Ask yourself this: do you really believe I will not pull this weapon and force the two of you to have sex at gunpoint if you do not get to it, ASAP, on your own initiative?"
***
2.
Since the day of the attack, or whatever else you were supposed to call it when a sometimes-friend grabbed you, kissed you, and dragged you off to have his wicked way with you, Duke had felt like he'd lost his balance. Seriously, like as in all sense of up or down or the proper way of the world.
Fucking Nathan Wuornos! And he meant that every way it could be interpreted.
Anyway, he was blaming his messed up brain for the flowers. Aside from how ridiculously bendy Nathan was, and how he knew that and was still reeling from the circumstances of the revelation. Either way, he was pretty glad that Audrey had shut him down on the flowers.
He'd been shocked stupid by Nathan's willingness and enthusiasm. But Duke had known there was a Trouble afoot and Nathan hadn't, and that had made the aftermath very tricky indeed. Not to mention throwing the whole thing into decidedly shady territory, according to Nathan.
Duke had tried to point out he'd barely been given chance to speak. It had been Nathan who'd gone for the olive oil, therefore escalating the situation out of hand and stunning from him any words he'd been trying to muster. Protest hadn't been an option, and he would have protested (don't look at him like that) because he had hygiene certificates and a restaurant full of people to worry about.
Okay, most of him was happy he hadn't been allowed time to speak. But then, afterward. Horrible discomfort, descending violence... Nathan's utter horror when he realised the public consequences of his abandon. Duke clung to hope that it wasn't the deed, per se, but that the whole town knew. Nathan was a man of few words and most of them were succinct -- hello, goodbye, great pie, you're under arrest. That kind of thing. He kept to himself. The strong, silent facade, occasionally annoying but with its own kind of allure, had to make his uncharacteristic Trouble-driven behaviour all the more galling.
Then the aftermath wouldn't freaking go away. Duke tried to fix things. First to reciprocate and convince Nate that so what and who the hell cared if it had come about through a Trouble, this could be great, and the Verity fiasco was no more than fate stepping in. When that didn't work, hollow-hearted, he tried to push for fixing things back the way they were. A return to semi-amicable enmity, where at least they'd finally got to the stage that moderately civil conversation was possible again for the first time in years.
When that didn't work, he had to hope that Audrey could figure it out. Because, him? He didn't have the slightest goddamn clue what Nathan Wuornos wanted.
***
The day of the attack had started so innocuously.
Okay, lie. He'd had quite an uncomfortable conversation with Arnold Washstock where the old man had rambled at length about his sex life as if he was talking about the weather, and he didn't even smell of whiskey. (It was also 9AM, but Duke was more inclined to go by the test of his nose.)
"While I'm... privileged and awestruck that you would feel comfortable enough sharing this with me," Duke finally interrupted, able to take no more, "I'm trying to serve people breakfasts. So perhaps you could share your wrinkled penis with someone else?"
Mr Washstock had been followed by Aileen Bertrand, a couple of hours later, who was less chatty but did tell him with casual unconcern that she was secretly a lesbian but had always been entranced by his soulful eyes, ever since they'd sat for one another in Mrs Wilks' art class twenty years ago.
"That's... lovely," Duke said. "I wish you and your girlfriend every happiness. And if you feel inclined to send pictures..."
Ten minutes of quality conversation later, Aileen wandered happily out, happily Out, and almost immediately after that Verity MacDougal entered the Gull with a clipboard. "If you could talk to me candidly on a few matters, to the best of your ability...?" she'd said smartly. "It's a feedback questionnaire for the Mayor's office." Her long red hair was pulled into a tight bun, the tailored lines of her business suit emphasized her curves nicely, and to his absolute horror in some trapped, screaming corner deep in his psyche, Duke had found himself cheerfully telling her that.
Verity smiled fixedly at his inappropriate but truthful answer. "Why, thank you, Mr Crocker. It's amazing how many people have been remarking on this suit today. But let's focus on questions of civic responsibility, shall we?"
Duke had babbled his heart out for what felt like an age, then when she'd finally gone, dashed for his cellphone to call Audrey and tell her that Troubled shit was afoot.
...Also that he liked her very much, but the love of his life was her grumpy, irritable sonuvabitch partner, at which point he'd entered a soliloquy about Nathan's steely eyes, smoky voice, fine, artistic hands, and the many possible uses he could put his handcuffs to if Duke ever had chance. He didn't even know at what point in that half hour she'd actually put the phone down on him.
***
Nathan had been out of town, liaising over a case up in Derry, and sadly out of the loop. Audrey didn't call him because he was expected to be gone all day, and Duke didn't call him because while they were talking again, they weren't talking that much and he'd already told Nathan's much-brighter-dispositioned other half. Frankly, no way was he risking talking to Nathan that day, even an hour of locking himself in his own storeroom later, spent stuffing whole oranges in his mouth whenever any of his staff knocked on the door.
When Nathan did walk into the Gull, much later that afternoon, Duke was back behind the bar, only occasionally twitching when people spoke to him, and his automatic reaction was deer-in-headlights paralysis.
***
Duke's reaction wasn't vastly different when, exactly a week after the attack, Nathan walked into the Gull again.
Nathan wasn't smiling this time (and really, Duke should have known something was amiss the moment he'd seen that last time), and their every interaction of the past week told Duke to duck.
He listened to Nathan's footsteps slow and stop.
"Hiding behind the counter? Seriously? I saw you when I walked in."
Duke clanked a few bottles and trays with deliberate volume as he rearranged them, then stood up, wiping his hands off on a dishtowel. "You wanted something?"
Nathan rolled his eyes, then looked around the bar. There were a few interested faces, some of them regulars who'd been around last time. "Not here," he said firmly.
"Fine." Duke tossed the towel behind him. "We can go out front." He tentatively herded Nathan out onto the terrace that overlooked the water, where a table was conveniently empty in one quiet corner, not the least because it was not warm and was intermittently drizzling. But Nathan wasn't going to care and Duke figured he could cope with cold and drizzle. He wondered if he should take heart that Nathan hadn't flicked away the hand on his back, until they parted and sat down and it occurred to him Nate had had no idea it had ever been there.
Shit.
"Okay..." Duke lifted his hands, at a loss where to put them or what, exactly, he was feeling. "So you avoided me all week. Then there was the massive fight. For your information, yes, my nose does still hurt. What now?"
"Parker gave me a 'get-the-fuck-on-with-it' pack and pep talk," Nathan shared. Somewhat angrily, he shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and slapped items on the table top.
"It's a bit late for those," Duke observed. Sometimes he was glad his smart mouth could work much faster than his brain, because it so neatly averted attention from his intense discomfort.
"Right. I guess she doesn't know exactly what went on in there."
"Small mercies," Duke muttered.
Nathan steeled his jaw. "The Chief gave me the 'son, it's-okay-that-you're-gay' speech."
Duke winced and didn't have a comeback for that.
"Everyone made me pie." Why he was looking quite so shifty about that... confession, if that was what these were meant to be, was a genuine mystery.
"Yeah, but that was because of the rat thing." Duke shuddered. He and Parker were together on this one. It was just as well they had Nathan to save their wimpy asses.
"That was guilt," Nathan said stonily. "Because of the gossip this week."
"Hey..." Okay, so the sympathetic hand on his wrist had been a mistake, as Nathan whipped his arm up and off the table and out of reach, but Duke ploughed on determinedly. "It's not you, it's them. Verity nailed half the town that day. This was just everyone's convenient excuse to take the focus off what they'd done."
Nathan scowled. "You took advantage."
The way he sat back after that, the gravity of the pronouncement, the unflinching, angry gaze, made it clear this was the main point he'd been working up to.
Duke said, "I did not!"
"Yes, you did--" Nathan broke off, probably as wary as Duke was of getting into the kind of circular exchange that could go on all night. They had done that before. "You knew it was a Trouble. I didn't. What else would you call that?"
"I barely had a choice," Duke insisted, again. "Besides..."
"A choice?" Nathan scoffed. "Are you really casting yourself in the role of the helpless, blushing victim? Claiming you couldn't have fought me off? Shut it down by saying, oh, I don't know -- 'By the way, there's another crazy Trouble in town'?"
"Firstly," Duke interrupted, annoyed, "Hell, no. Just that you didn't exactly give me time to protest. Or get my breath. Or my mouth was... busy. Anyway, Nathan, the Trouble was more like some kind of truth serum shtick, so whatever I did, I did not take advantage."
"What?" The table almost went over as Nathan stood up. "I should have known it was a mistake trying to talk this over."
That was what he was doing? He sure as hell did a great job disguising it.
"Yeah, man, swallow that." Duke stood up, too, pushing the table back hard. Nate got sandwiched between a couple of chairs and the wall, and cursed as he found he couldn't easily extricate himself from the tight space. "Your inhibitions should have been your own, at least physically. Me, I got hit with it too, blabbed my mouth off to customers and Audrey, then gagged myself and hid for an hour until it wore off. Most the rest of the town spilled their innermost secrets then ran off home to cry. It's not my fault you're the stubborn bastard who because he says it has to act on it."
"That was... me." Flat disbelief in Nathan's voice, but he'd gone still and stopped ramming the table back into Duke's thighs -- which, by the way, was going to leave hell of a bruise.
"All you," Duke said with relish. "It's... nice. Refreshing. That you're so direct, I mean. It's cute. So, I'm sorry that this Trouble trampled all over your obsessively clung-to reserve, but I embrace the truth, man!" He spread his hands, half jest, half... maybe a little bit imploring. "And I can completely without guilt say that I enjoyed it, and as far as I'm concerned we should do it again. Often. The oftener the better. But... probably not in the kitchens of the Gull, because I am not flirting with having my hygiene certificate revoked."
He stopped and swallowed hard. Watched Nathan's chest rise and fall in heaves. He wasn't sure if that was anger or the prelude to some kind of aneurysm.
"Nathan...?" Duke waved his hand cautiously in front of Nathan's face. "C'mon, buddy. You all right?"
***
3.
Nathan needed to see Duke. The almost consuming need had burned in him ever since he spoke to the woman with the clipboard. While he was talking to her, something had just inexplicably clicked, and now he couldn't find Duke to share what he'd figured out fast enough.
Verity had caught up with him stopping to grab a coffee on Main Street on his way back to the station. Now his coffee, long-promised on the tedious drive home, was wedged in the unoccupied passenger seat, going cold next to the one he'd got for Parker.
He was barely aware of the journey to the Gull until he found himself striding into the bar and seeing Duke Crocker -- who looked up, flinched, half ducked, and looked around wildly for escape. Not seeing one, he crouched wide-eyed in place. Nathan felt the corners of his lips curl up fondly at the familiar sight of Duke's guilty conscience. What he'd done today that he didn't want the police around for, Nathan didn't know. For once, he didn't care. It had been going on for years, and Duke wasn't going to change. His secrets, his smuggler's games. Sometimes you just had to accept.
"Duke," he launched off, coming up close to him. Quite a lot of the clientele were looking their way, and why was Duke this skittish?
"You're... smiling. Why is that? Why are you--?"
Nathan ignored the stumbling, awkward questions. Words weren't his thing. He always figured actions were the proof. Duke was a liar anyway. Nathan didn't stop when he hit the counter, but leaned and reached across, curling his fingers in Duke's collar and pulling the other man to him. It was funny and even... cute, in a weird way, how Duke automatically lifted his hands anticipating a blow.
Nathan had no intention of punching him today. Instead, he brought their lips together hungrily, keeping his eyes open and watching because... yeah. Although the textural subtleties of the exchange between their lips were lost on him, he fully saw Duke's surprise give way to enthusiastic return.
Feeling and not-feeling were irrelevant abstracts next to the fact he was kissing Duke. He'd come to terms with the way the world worked for him, after Jess. A mechanism of force and pressure, letting himself be guided by opposing force. Maybe that made him rough, but he was less worried about that here than with Jess. If Duke couldn't cope with a little rough from him, their interactions of the last thirty years had been a mirage.
Nathan pulled clear finally because he probably should clarify with at least a few words. He picked them almost arbitrarily, sliding his hands up Duke's neck to the side of his face. "I've loved you since about forever. Think it's time we did something about it."
Duke gulped, the soft part of his throat and his Adam's apple jumping between the frame of Nathan's wrists. "All right, now I'm not... not arguing here, Nate, but there is just one thing--"
"Shh." Nathan blocked his lips with a further, swift kiss and then--
***
Did he vault the counter? Nathan screwed his face up, trying to remember as he sat down again slowly. It was all a bit of a haze. An induced haze. For God's sake, he might as well have been drugged. He hadn't been responsible for his own actions.
"You vaulted the counter like fucking Don Juan," Duke confirmed, his lips a wide upturned arc, his voice a drawling, soft burr that reached deep into Nathan's stomach. Grinning, Duke reached over and patted Nathan's hand, carefully and quickly, before he beat a retreat. "Didn't know you had it in you."
"I don't," Nathan said sourly. Seriously, what part of this did Duke not get? He'd been under the influence!
"No. No, no, no, no, no. No," Duke disagreed, emphatically enough to pin Nathan's eyebrows up in his hairline as he waited for him to finish. "That's just you." He waved his hands in weird circling gestures over the general vicinity of Nathan's midsection. "You. All those layers of... of you-ness. But buried underneath--"
Nathan rolled his eyes. "I'm not secretly a wild man, Duke." He slapped the table with his open palm. "This is me. That was a Trouble. Which you--" He grimaced and turned his head to look anywhere else. He spotted an instant's glimpse of blonde hair disappearing behind the side of the restaurant and was pretty sure his face twisted up even more sourly.
"That's what makes you angry?" Duke picked up, grasping the wrong end of the stick, as usual. The fact Audrey was spying on them made him angry, and... "You think I didn't fuck the real you."
"...What?" Okay, he had no clue what his face was doing now.
Duke stood up, shoving his chair back so nonchalantly it fell over. "You think..." there was a brief moment when Nathan saw him eye the table, assessingly, and then decide hell, no-- "that I wouldn't want to..." Then Duke was too close for comfort and Nathan stood again himself, but was still surrounded by furniture. Duke solved his side of the problem by wrenching the table over, but stepped in close before Nathan could get out, pressing forward to trap him in place instead. Duke's hands caught Nathan's shoulder and jaw, and Duke swallowed and faltered, but concluded, with husky determination, "You think I wouldn't want the real you."
Nathan squared his jaw, ignoring the hand there. Not-feeling had its advantages, sometimes. He could always choose not to be moved by this. Duke had managed to corner him because he was off-balance. Since Duke still had yesterday's black eye and Parker was somewhere, watching, he gave fair warning, "Let go."
"Is it true?" Duke asked... and then winced noticeably at his choice of words.
***
The watching eyes weren't particularly of consequence to Nathan, but were a distraction for the way Duke's gaze was darting beyond him to them, so Nathan fielded their activities back through an open door, slammed it shut, and wrenched a few things standing nearby in place to block it. Duke made a brief mmf! of protest against his lips as something fell and broke. Nathan pulled back long enough to say, "I'll pay for it."
That seemed to satisfy Duke, because he said, "Oh, to hell with it," and finally started to kick loose. Finally. After all these years of jibes about loosening up, he had some answering to do for that. Later. Now, Nathan had Duke to himself and intended to make the most of it.
Duke had already gotten the idea, working on the buttons of Nathan's shirt. Returning the favour was a challenge amid the many potential distractions, as Nathan let his eyes and his hands roam over the skin he exposed. Wasn't like he'd never seen it before -- hell, if there was a chance to strip off, you knew Duke Crocker was there already -- but it was the first opportunity he'd really had to appreciate. Touch was all about knowing his hand was there, and that sliding it across a pectoral, catching his battered thumbnail on a nipple, made Duke shiver like that.
But Duke had overtaken him. Nathan hadn't even registered his arms being drawn out of his shirt. His jeans were unfastened already. All that considered, Nathan decided to leap ahead, that Duke still partially wearing a shirt was probably more novel anyway, and dropped to his knees. His fingers attacked Duke’s button and zip, yanking down baggy, oversized fabric, unwrapping muscular legs… but gave up mid-way down the legs on account of other distractions.
Nathan found his head locked abruptly in place as he dived in to tongue the end of Duke's cock. Nervous laughter clued him in, and he unlocked a hand from Duke's hip to wrest with the hand twined in his hair, irritably twisting himself loose. "What's the idea?"
"Uhm... just no," Duke said. "Sorry, man, and I almost can't believe I'm saying this. But not with you in this mood. 'Cause I know you can't feel what you're doing and I'm already gonna have bruises tomorrow, so your teeth down there? No freakin’ way. But let me..."
Normally, he'd have been more annoyed, but Nathan's anger couldn't do anything other than dissolve in the face of that offer. The biggest surprise was that Duke was for it. They swapped places. Nathan, already hard as a rock, had a frustrating wait while Duke finished tripping over his own pants, but once Duke's mouth was enveloping him greedily, it was all Nathan could do to keep from losing it. If he could have felt anything right then, it would all have been over very quickly.
There was an extent to which he didn't have to, today, but Jess had begun to help him develop a mechanism of sorts -- to layer the world over with a conscious film of imagined sensation where he knew real sensation ought to be. Jess had been the first time in three years he'd been inclined to try, but it hadn't been this easy. Just the knowing of Duke's mouth on him... He groaned and even -- even, for a moment, closed his eyes.
When he opened them, Duke was swallowing and grinning up at him like the devil. "Wasn't even sure you could do that," he said, voice hoarse and cheeky.
"I'm a working model, Crocker." Bastard, he thought, but it felt almost like a term of affection. Nathan kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his rumpled jeans. "Your turn..." He grabbed a bottle of oil from the store-room shelves while Duke clutched his head and hyperventilated.
"Fuck, Nate!"
That was the idea. Nathan shut off his protests by kissing him again, noticing, as fire sparked in his belly that he didn't even need to encourage with imagination, the new flavour on Duke's lips.
...He didn't do this. Things like this weren't him, and he knew, even then, that something here was wrong. But he'd never had this much, and everything he wanted was right in front of him, so he shoved down the upsurge of doubts and seized it with both hands.
When he pulled Duke down on top of him on the store-room floor, the still-open oil bottle discarded on the floor, he was thinking about now and making the most of this while it lasted. Duke pressed over him, and Nathan clung on hard, looked Duke in the eye, and took the moment for all it was worth.
***
Nathan averted his eyes. Duke's question hadn't been one he'd thought of, but then he couldn't say he'd organised anything much into conscious specifics. The question certainly stung enough.
"Do you?" he responded back, hollowly.
"Yes." Although Duke sounded annoyed, and while Nathan didn't feel the rough hands that boxed his ears, that response wasn't exactly endearing, nor the word, "Idiot," that fiercely followed the blows. In amongst the pique, though, that first single word of Duke's reply lit inside him and continued to burn, growing brighter and making itself felt, and he forgot the urge to hit Duke back.
"Y-you do?"
Duke raised his eyebrows and didn't bother to verbalize his answer, but replied with another question. "Do you still... love me?"
Nathan grimaced and turned his face away again. "Can't believe I said that..." He mumbled. Who said that? People didn't really say that. Bad romantic movies said that.
Duke laughed at him and said, "Unless you contradict me now, I'm going to take that as a 'yes'." He waited, his eyes light.
Nathan swallowed and kept his silence.
...What? It was generally the easiest thing to do. And it was the thing people most expected of him, after all. Silence, reserve, and few, few words.
"You're funny," Duke said, and kissed him. Nathan wasn't sure how they'd got to this point, but didn't feel inclined to fight him off. He was pushed with his back to the wall, Duke's hands behind his neck and curling inside his shirt. Nathan caught up and wrapped his arms loosely around Duke. Awareness seeped through, somehow, of his body responding where they ground against each other.
Other awareness descended, sharply. Was that a flash of bright blonde hair to the side, again, the same general direction of that strange, excited little "yip!" sound, so quickly muffled? A thin wooden wall and far too many windows away was a bar full of people. Nathan wedged an arm between their two bodies and roughly pried Duke back from him, set hands on his shoulders and answered Duke's aghast and entertaining outrage with one very firm declaration:
"Not here."
END
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: NC-17
LENGTH: 6,000 words
SUMMARY: Nathan is reserved. That's why, when a Trouble cracks apart all that stoic resolve, it takes maybe a week or so to come to terms with it. (Duke/Nathan, Audrey.)
NOTES: 'The Cluebat Trouble'. Crack, verging on fluff. Crack!fluff.
THANKS: To Kattahj for beta-reading!
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
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Reserve
1.
Day one, immediately after the Incident, Audrey Parker said to her partner, "It's not so bad as all that. Everyone made an ass of themselves today, and everyone makes an ass of themselves over sex sooner or later. You've just escaped that longer than most. Also, you know, Haven's pretty open-minded for a small town..."
She said to Duke Crocker, who was hovering around looking needy and wide-eyed, "You need to give him space. Nathan's... reserved. If this Trouble really brought out the truth, I’m sure that sooner or later he'll get over what happened enough to face up to what it actually means."
Audrey, frankly, was somewhat perplexed, having gone from two fine looking men she rather liked her chances with to none at all in one fell swoop. But she was a big believer in sucking it up and getting the fuck on with things, so she exercised her private inalienable rights to make the most of the Incident that night in the shower, and then later some more in bed, and who the hell needed men anyway?
***
Day two, she ran damage control, arriving outside the police station in time to catch and stop Duke. "Do not give him the flowers."
It didn't put a dent in her mood, and neither did Nathan's personal raincloud of gloom over at his side of their office. But as the day wore on, she did have to pretend to sigh a few times and brood a little, because Nathan had started shooting injured looks her way after she accidentally burst out whistling.
Truth to tell -- indeed -- it probably wasn't a fun position for Nathan to be in, considering that most of the town had by now heard how he’d grabbed Duke in the middle of the Gull at its busiest time, declared his undying love, and practically assaulted him. Most of the town included his dad, the Chief, who'd swung by the office a few times to hang outside the door wearing an amazed, confused look that really couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
Audrey had pointed out to Nathan soothingly, or so she'd thought, that he hadn't been outright disowned and this was probably a good sign, because the Chief was a direct man and if he was going to do that he'd have done it at once.
"All that sensitivity training you must've got in the FBI, Parker?" Nathan responded. "It's... amazing. Really." But he was exasperated, not angry with anyone save himself -- and Duke, but that was always a given.
***
Day three, Nathan took a day off, which was ample proof the whispers were getting to him. Audrey worried, and with ill grace spent the morning trying to solve, alone, the problem of the bank clerk with the Midas touch -- which nearly caused a minor riot until some jostling ass inevitably got himself turned into a statue.
Around lunchtime she got back to the police station and found Duke hovering nervously around their office. She frowned at him, sighed, gestured for him to take Nathan's seat and flopped into her own. "He took the day off."
Duke obviously understood the momentous nature of that, because he sort of slumped in Nathan's chair and looked appropriately concerned.
"This sucks," he said, and they regarded each other carefully across the room from their separate desks.
"He'll come around," Audrey said again.
"In another few decades?" Duke returned sourly.
She wanted to comfort him, but he did have a point. Nathan could do 'stubborn' better than anyone. Instead she offered the two shiny, glittering loops that she'd been spinning in her fingers all the way back from the bank fiasco. "Cheer up and I'll let you have my golden handcuffs?"
***
On day four, she eavesdropped as the Chief pulled Nathan aside and told him that whatever his choices, as bat-crazy-unfathomable as they were, they were his own, and Nathan was still his son. It was heart-warming in a really bizarre way. Audrey had to duck and sprint back to their office as it broke up with unexpected speed, and she was pretty sure she'd been spotted.
Nathan didn't say anything though, just walked back in and sat down with a dazed look upon his face.
Audrey studiously typed her reports, pretending she'd barely noticed him come in at all.
Nathan stood up again, casting around, long arms awkward as he looked out the exterior windows, then checked the interior ones for their view into the corridor. "Duke--" he began, way too loud, and caught himself. "He's not hanging around today."
He sounded disappointed.
"Nope," Audrey said, judging it safe to peer at him over her monitor. "I think he went out on his boat."
Nathan scowled. "Typical Duke. Of all the contrary... I'm gonna go on a coffee run." He ducked out, angry steps wide and fast, and was gone before she could open her mouth to ask for a pastry from Rosemary's.
Still, this was good. This was progress. The gossips at the bakery and coffee shop were the worst in town, and he'd been avoiding the coffee run ever since the Incident.
***
Day five and Nathan's brief change of heart had been worn down by time. Actually, fuck day five. Day five was the day with the dweeb whose Trouble could control rats. They spent half the day running and the other half at the hospital, hanging about while Nathan got every immunisation shot in existence for his nibbled legs. Day five sucked, and Audrey was done with it.
***
Day six Nathan spent doing paperwork and working from the office couch, because he'd already had one day off that week and if he took any more the fabric of reality would probably collapse. Audrey knew the feeling. Quite a few of the townspeople who'd been nastier with their comments dropped off pies. Pies of Guilt.
"It's blueberry," Nathan corrected around a slice.
"Right. All you have to do to make them think you're a nice homosexual is save the town from a rat infestation," she said. "And get... chewed. And by the way, still 'ew'."
"Parker," he said, suspiciously, "are you turning into a girl?"
"It's the rat thing. I just... I can't." She shuddered, and jumped up and down on the spot, brushing her hands over herself. But she could still feel their scratchy, crawling little feet.
"I'm not, you know," he mumbled.
"Not...?" Her brain was still on rats.
"Homosexual. It's just Duke."
"...Huh," Audrey said. But he'd hit his maximum word limit for the morning, and that meant she probably wasn't getting anything else out of him at least until lunchtime. He bowed his head and fiddled with his pen, staring very intently at a file. "...I am going to get some coffees," she announced, "because you got them yesterday. I'm not fleeing from this awkward silence. Not at all."
No reply. Big surprise.
Outside, she got out her phone and texted Duke. The ring tone made her jump and she turned in time to catch him ghosting out from behind the steps. "...Asshole!"
"I hear he's... mellowed." Duke said.
"He says it's just you," Audrey told him. On the day they were not speaking of she and Duke had had an evening conversation wherein he had thrown many darts, only most of them at a dartboard, after he'd heard Nathan had been ripe for plucking and he'd missed it.
"Just me?" A blissful smile took over him.
"I know! It's almost sweet. Now, go! He's injured. Strike while he can't run away."
Duke's smile went a bit fixed and he gave her a doubtful look, but cautiously turned and mounted the steps to the police station.
Audrey went to get the coffees and left them to it. When she returned, it was to discover she'd apparently been naive to think they could do this without audience, interpreter and general negotiator. She passed Duke, storming out of the door with a bloody nose, and found Nathan stumbling around guiltily picking up in an office that was a wreck.
She shooed the small audience, shoved the coffee at Stan, and rubbed her forehead. She was starting to get a headache.
***
By day seven, which was incidentally one whole week of this crap, Audrey was losing patience. It had been hot, cute, funny, awkward, heart-warming, plain ridiculous, and now it was just annoying.
"All right," she said to Nathan, as she stormed into their office and pelted his desk with the items she'd stopped on her way in to buy, hence her unaccustomed lateness. "You blurted out some stuff and kissed Duke. In public." He fumbled and dropped the packet of condoms and the jar of KY as he spied what they were. "Because of Troubles, which by the way? Means it's no-one's fault. Including Duke's. Or yours. Dragging him into the storeroom afterward, that might be harder to write off, especially considering the noises -- but really, who gives a fuck? Go. Make up. Make out. I will cover for you and lie to your dad, because that shit is fun for me."
He stood there gaping at her and doing not very much in terms of actually moving.
Audrey put her hand on her holster and tapped her foot. "Ask yourself this: do you really believe I will not pull this weapon and force the two of you to have sex at gunpoint if you do not get to it, ASAP, on your own initiative?"
***
2.
Since the day of the attack, or whatever else you were supposed to call it when a sometimes-friend grabbed you, kissed you, and dragged you off to have his wicked way with you, Duke had felt like he'd lost his balance. Seriously, like as in all sense of up or down or the proper way of the world.
Fucking Nathan Wuornos! And he meant that every way it could be interpreted.
Anyway, he was blaming his messed up brain for the flowers. Aside from how ridiculously bendy Nathan was, and how he knew that and was still reeling from the circumstances of the revelation. Either way, he was pretty glad that Audrey had shut him down on the flowers.
He'd been shocked stupid by Nathan's willingness and enthusiasm. But Duke had known there was a Trouble afoot and Nathan hadn't, and that had made the aftermath very tricky indeed. Not to mention throwing the whole thing into decidedly shady territory, according to Nathan.
Duke had tried to point out he'd barely been given chance to speak. It had been Nathan who'd gone for the olive oil, therefore escalating the situation out of hand and stunning from him any words he'd been trying to muster. Protest hadn't been an option, and he would have protested (don't look at him like that) because he had hygiene certificates and a restaurant full of people to worry about.
Okay, most of him was happy he hadn't been allowed time to speak. But then, afterward. Horrible discomfort, descending violence... Nathan's utter horror when he realised the public consequences of his abandon. Duke clung to hope that it wasn't the deed, per se, but that the whole town knew. Nathan was a man of few words and most of them were succinct -- hello, goodbye, great pie, you're under arrest. That kind of thing. He kept to himself. The strong, silent facade, occasionally annoying but with its own kind of allure, had to make his uncharacteristic Trouble-driven behaviour all the more galling.
Then the aftermath wouldn't freaking go away. Duke tried to fix things. First to reciprocate and convince Nate that so what and who the hell cared if it had come about through a Trouble, this could be great, and the Verity fiasco was no more than fate stepping in. When that didn't work, hollow-hearted, he tried to push for fixing things back the way they were. A return to semi-amicable enmity, where at least they'd finally got to the stage that moderately civil conversation was possible again for the first time in years.
When that didn't work, he had to hope that Audrey could figure it out. Because, him? He didn't have the slightest goddamn clue what Nathan Wuornos wanted.
***
The day of the attack had started so innocuously.
Okay, lie. He'd had quite an uncomfortable conversation with Arnold Washstock where the old man had rambled at length about his sex life as if he was talking about the weather, and he didn't even smell of whiskey. (It was also 9AM, but Duke was more inclined to go by the test of his nose.)
"While I'm... privileged and awestruck that you would feel comfortable enough sharing this with me," Duke finally interrupted, able to take no more, "I'm trying to serve people breakfasts. So perhaps you could share your wrinkled penis with someone else?"
Mr Washstock had been followed by Aileen Bertrand, a couple of hours later, who was less chatty but did tell him with casual unconcern that she was secretly a lesbian but had always been entranced by his soulful eyes, ever since they'd sat for one another in Mrs Wilks' art class twenty years ago.
"That's... lovely," Duke said. "I wish you and your girlfriend every happiness. And if you feel inclined to send pictures..."
Ten minutes of quality conversation later, Aileen wandered happily out, happily Out, and almost immediately after that Verity MacDougal entered the Gull with a clipboard. "If you could talk to me candidly on a few matters, to the best of your ability...?" she'd said smartly. "It's a feedback questionnaire for the Mayor's office." Her long red hair was pulled into a tight bun, the tailored lines of her business suit emphasized her curves nicely, and to his absolute horror in some trapped, screaming corner deep in his psyche, Duke had found himself cheerfully telling her that.
Verity smiled fixedly at his inappropriate but truthful answer. "Why, thank you, Mr Crocker. It's amazing how many people have been remarking on this suit today. But let's focus on questions of civic responsibility, shall we?"
Duke had babbled his heart out for what felt like an age, then when she'd finally gone, dashed for his cellphone to call Audrey and tell her that Troubled shit was afoot.
...Also that he liked her very much, but the love of his life was her grumpy, irritable sonuvabitch partner, at which point he'd entered a soliloquy about Nathan's steely eyes, smoky voice, fine, artistic hands, and the many possible uses he could put his handcuffs to if Duke ever had chance. He didn't even know at what point in that half hour she'd actually put the phone down on him.
***
Nathan had been out of town, liaising over a case up in Derry, and sadly out of the loop. Audrey didn't call him because he was expected to be gone all day, and Duke didn't call him because while they were talking again, they weren't talking that much and he'd already told Nathan's much-brighter-dispositioned other half. Frankly, no way was he risking talking to Nathan that day, even an hour of locking himself in his own storeroom later, spent stuffing whole oranges in his mouth whenever any of his staff knocked on the door.
When Nathan did walk into the Gull, much later that afternoon, Duke was back behind the bar, only occasionally twitching when people spoke to him, and his automatic reaction was deer-in-headlights paralysis.
***
Duke's reaction wasn't vastly different when, exactly a week after the attack, Nathan walked into the Gull again.
Nathan wasn't smiling this time (and really, Duke should have known something was amiss the moment he'd seen that last time), and their every interaction of the past week told Duke to duck.
He listened to Nathan's footsteps slow and stop.
"Hiding behind the counter? Seriously? I saw you when I walked in."
Duke clanked a few bottles and trays with deliberate volume as he rearranged them, then stood up, wiping his hands off on a dishtowel. "You wanted something?"
Nathan rolled his eyes, then looked around the bar. There were a few interested faces, some of them regulars who'd been around last time. "Not here," he said firmly.
"Fine." Duke tossed the towel behind him. "We can go out front." He tentatively herded Nathan out onto the terrace that overlooked the water, where a table was conveniently empty in one quiet corner, not the least because it was not warm and was intermittently drizzling. But Nathan wasn't going to care and Duke figured he could cope with cold and drizzle. He wondered if he should take heart that Nathan hadn't flicked away the hand on his back, until they parted and sat down and it occurred to him Nate had had no idea it had ever been there.
Shit.
"Okay..." Duke lifted his hands, at a loss where to put them or what, exactly, he was feeling. "So you avoided me all week. Then there was the massive fight. For your information, yes, my nose does still hurt. What now?"
"Parker gave me a 'get-the-fuck-on-with-it' pack and pep talk," Nathan shared. Somewhat angrily, he shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and slapped items on the table top.
"It's a bit late for those," Duke observed. Sometimes he was glad his smart mouth could work much faster than his brain, because it so neatly averted attention from his intense discomfort.
"Right. I guess she doesn't know exactly what went on in there."
"Small mercies," Duke muttered.
Nathan steeled his jaw. "The Chief gave me the 'son, it's-okay-that-you're-gay' speech."
Duke winced and didn't have a comeback for that.
"Everyone made me pie." Why he was looking quite so shifty about that... confession, if that was what these were meant to be, was a genuine mystery.
"Yeah, but that was because of the rat thing." Duke shuddered. He and Parker were together on this one. It was just as well they had Nathan to save their wimpy asses.
"That was guilt," Nathan said stonily. "Because of the gossip this week."
"Hey..." Okay, so the sympathetic hand on his wrist had been a mistake, as Nathan whipped his arm up and off the table and out of reach, but Duke ploughed on determinedly. "It's not you, it's them. Verity nailed half the town that day. This was just everyone's convenient excuse to take the focus off what they'd done."
Nathan scowled. "You took advantage."
The way he sat back after that, the gravity of the pronouncement, the unflinching, angry gaze, made it clear this was the main point he'd been working up to.
Duke said, "I did not!"
"Yes, you did--" Nathan broke off, probably as wary as Duke was of getting into the kind of circular exchange that could go on all night. They had done that before. "You knew it was a Trouble. I didn't. What else would you call that?"
"I barely had a choice," Duke insisted, again. "Besides..."
"A choice?" Nathan scoffed. "Are you really casting yourself in the role of the helpless, blushing victim? Claiming you couldn't have fought me off? Shut it down by saying, oh, I don't know -- 'By the way, there's another crazy Trouble in town'?"
"Firstly," Duke interrupted, annoyed, "Hell, no. Just that you didn't exactly give me time to protest. Or get my breath. Or my mouth was... busy. Anyway, Nathan, the Trouble was more like some kind of truth serum shtick, so whatever I did, I did not take advantage."
"What?" The table almost went over as Nathan stood up. "I should have known it was a mistake trying to talk this over."
That was what he was doing? He sure as hell did a great job disguising it.
"Yeah, man, swallow that." Duke stood up, too, pushing the table back hard. Nate got sandwiched between a couple of chairs and the wall, and cursed as he found he couldn't easily extricate himself from the tight space. "Your inhibitions should have been your own, at least physically. Me, I got hit with it too, blabbed my mouth off to customers and Audrey, then gagged myself and hid for an hour until it wore off. Most the rest of the town spilled their innermost secrets then ran off home to cry. It's not my fault you're the stubborn bastard who because he says it has to act on it."
"That was... me." Flat disbelief in Nathan's voice, but he'd gone still and stopped ramming the table back into Duke's thighs -- which, by the way, was going to leave hell of a bruise.
"All you," Duke said with relish. "It's... nice. Refreshing. That you're so direct, I mean. It's cute. So, I'm sorry that this Trouble trampled all over your obsessively clung-to reserve, but I embrace the truth, man!" He spread his hands, half jest, half... maybe a little bit imploring. "And I can completely without guilt say that I enjoyed it, and as far as I'm concerned we should do it again. Often. The oftener the better. But... probably not in the kitchens of the Gull, because I am not flirting with having my hygiene certificate revoked."
He stopped and swallowed hard. Watched Nathan's chest rise and fall in heaves. He wasn't sure if that was anger or the prelude to some kind of aneurysm.
"Nathan...?" Duke waved his hand cautiously in front of Nathan's face. "C'mon, buddy. You all right?"
***
3.
Nathan needed to see Duke. The almost consuming need had burned in him ever since he spoke to the woman with the clipboard. While he was talking to her, something had just inexplicably clicked, and now he couldn't find Duke to share what he'd figured out fast enough.
Verity had caught up with him stopping to grab a coffee on Main Street on his way back to the station. Now his coffee, long-promised on the tedious drive home, was wedged in the unoccupied passenger seat, going cold next to the one he'd got for Parker.
He was barely aware of the journey to the Gull until he found himself striding into the bar and seeing Duke Crocker -- who looked up, flinched, half ducked, and looked around wildly for escape. Not seeing one, he crouched wide-eyed in place. Nathan felt the corners of his lips curl up fondly at the familiar sight of Duke's guilty conscience. What he'd done today that he didn't want the police around for, Nathan didn't know. For once, he didn't care. It had been going on for years, and Duke wasn't going to change. His secrets, his smuggler's games. Sometimes you just had to accept.
"Duke," he launched off, coming up close to him. Quite a lot of the clientele were looking their way, and why was Duke this skittish?
"You're... smiling. Why is that? Why are you--?"
Nathan ignored the stumbling, awkward questions. Words weren't his thing. He always figured actions were the proof. Duke was a liar anyway. Nathan didn't stop when he hit the counter, but leaned and reached across, curling his fingers in Duke's collar and pulling the other man to him. It was funny and even... cute, in a weird way, how Duke automatically lifted his hands anticipating a blow.
Nathan had no intention of punching him today. Instead, he brought their lips together hungrily, keeping his eyes open and watching because... yeah. Although the textural subtleties of the exchange between their lips were lost on him, he fully saw Duke's surprise give way to enthusiastic return.
Feeling and not-feeling were irrelevant abstracts next to the fact he was kissing Duke. He'd come to terms with the way the world worked for him, after Jess. A mechanism of force and pressure, letting himself be guided by opposing force. Maybe that made him rough, but he was less worried about that here than with Jess. If Duke couldn't cope with a little rough from him, their interactions of the last thirty years had been a mirage.
Nathan pulled clear finally because he probably should clarify with at least a few words. He picked them almost arbitrarily, sliding his hands up Duke's neck to the side of his face. "I've loved you since about forever. Think it's time we did something about it."
Duke gulped, the soft part of his throat and his Adam's apple jumping between the frame of Nathan's wrists. "All right, now I'm not... not arguing here, Nate, but there is just one thing--"
"Shh." Nathan blocked his lips with a further, swift kiss and then--
***
Did he vault the counter? Nathan screwed his face up, trying to remember as he sat down again slowly. It was all a bit of a haze. An induced haze. For God's sake, he might as well have been drugged. He hadn't been responsible for his own actions.
"You vaulted the counter like fucking Don Juan," Duke confirmed, his lips a wide upturned arc, his voice a drawling, soft burr that reached deep into Nathan's stomach. Grinning, Duke reached over and patted Nathan's hand, carefully and quickly, before he beat a retreat. "Didn't know you had it in you."
"I don't," Nathan said sourly. Seriously, what part of this did Duke not get? He'd been under the influence!
"No. No, no, no, no, no. No," Duke disagreed, emphatically enough to pin Nathan's eyebrows up in his hairline as he waited for him to finish. "That's just you." He waved his hands in weird circling gestures over the general vicinity of Nathan's midsection. "You. All those layers of... of you-ness. But buried underneath--"
Nathan rolled his eyes. "I'm not secretly a wild man, Duke." He slapped the table with his open palm. "This is me. That was a Trouble. Which you--" He grimaced and turned his head to look anywhere else. He spotted an instant's glimpse of blonde hair disappearing behind the side of the restaurant and was pretty sure his face twisted up even more sourly.
"That's what makes you angry?" Duke picked up, grasping the wrong end of the stick, as usual. The fact Audrey was spying on them made him angry, and... "You think I didn't fuck the real you."
"...What?" Okay, he had no clue what his face was doing now.
Duke stood up, shoving his chair back so nonchalantly it fell over. "You think..." there was a brief moment when Nathan saw him eye the table, assessingly, and then decide hell, no-- "that I wouldn't want to..." Then Duke was too close for comfort and Nathan stood again himself, but was still surrounded by furniture. Duke solved his side of the problem by wrenching the table over, but stepped in close before Nathan could get out, pressing forward to trap him in place instead. Duke's hands caught Nathan's shoulder and jaw, and Duke swallowed and faltered, but concluded, with husky determination, "You think I wouldn't want the real you."
Nathan squared his jaw, ignoring the hand there. Not-feeling had its advantages, sometimes. He could always choose not to be moved by this. Duke had managed to corner him because he was off-balance. Since Duke still had yesterday's black eye and Parker was somewhere, watching, he gave fair warning, "Let go."
"Is it true?" Duke asked... and then winced noticeably at his choice of words.
***
The watching eyes weren't particularly of consequence to Nathan, but were a distraction for the way Duke's gaze was darting beyond him to them, so Nathan fielded their activities back through an open door, slammed it shut, and wrenched a few things standing nearby in place to block it. Duke made a brief mmf! of protest against his lips as something fell and broke. Nathan pulled back long enough to say, "I'll pay for it."
That seemed to satisfy Duke, because he said, "Oh, to hell with it," and finally started to kick loose. Finally. After all these years of jibes about loosening up, he had some answering to do for that. Later. Now, Nathan had Duke to himself and intended to make the most of it.
Duke had already gotten the idea, working on the buttons of Nathan's shirt. Returning the favour was a challenge amid the many potential distractions, as Nathan let his eyes and his hands roam over the skin he exposed. Wasn't like he'd never seen it before -- hell, if there was a chance to strip off, you knew Duke Crocker was there already -- but it was the first opportunity he'd really had to appreciate. Touch was all about knowing his hand was there, and that sliding it across a pectoral, catching his battered thumbnail on a nipple, made Duke shiver like that.
But Duke had overtaken him. Nathan hadn't even registered his arms being drawn out of his shirt. His jeans were unfastened already. All that considered, Nathan decided to leap ahead, that Duke still partially wearing a shirt was probably more novel anyway, and dropped to his knees. His fingers attacked Duke’s button and zip, yanking down baggy, oversized fabric, unwrapping muscular legs… but gave up mid-way down the legs on account of other distractions.
Nathan found his head locked abruptly in place as he dived in to tongue the end of Duke's cock. Nervous laughter clued him in, and he unlocked a hand from Duke's hip to wrest with the hand twined in his hair, irritably twisting himself loose. "What's the idea?"
"Uhm... just no," Duke said. "Sorry, man, and I almost can't believe I'm saying this. But not with you in this mood. 'Cause I know you can't feel what you're doing and I'm already gonna have bruises tomorrow, so your teeth down there? No freakin’ way. But let me..."
Normally, he'd have been more annoyed, but Nathan's anger couldn't do anything other than dissolve in the face of that offer. The biggest surprise was that Duke was for it. They swapped places. Nathan, already hard as a rock, had a frustrating wait while Duke finished tripping over his own pants, but once Duke's mouth was enveloping him greedily, it was all Nathan could do to keep from losing it. If he could have felt anything right then, it would all have been over very quickly.
There was an extent to which he didn't have to, today, but Jess had begun to help him develop a mechanism of sorts -- to layer the world over with a conscious film of imagined sensation where he knew real sensation ought to be. Jess had been the first time in three years he'd been inclined to try, but it hadn't been this easy. Just the knowing of Duke's mouth on him... He groaned and even -- even, for a moment, closed his eyes.
When he opened them, Duke was swallowing and grinning up at him like the devil. "Wasn't even sure you could do that," he said, voice hoarse and cheeky.
"I'm a working model, Crocker." Bastard, he thought, but it felt almost like a term of affection. Nathan kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his rumpled jeans. "Your turn..." He grabbed a bottle of oil from the store-room shelves while Duke clutched his head and hyperventilated.
"Fuck, Nate!"
That was the idea. Nathan shut off his protests by kissing him again, noticing, as fire sparked in his belly that he didn't even need to encourage with imagination, the new flavour on Duke's lips.
...He didn't do this. Things like this weren't him, and he knew, even then, that something here was wrong. But he'd never had this much, and everything he wanted was right in front of him, so he shoved down the upsurge of doubts and seized it with both hands.
When he pulled Duke down on top of him on the store-room floor, the still-open oil bottle discarded on the floor, he was thinking about now and making the most of this while it lasted. Duke pressed over him, and Nathan clung on hard, looked Duke in the eye, and took the moment for all it was worth.
***
Nathan averted his eyes. Duke's question hadn't been one he'd thought of, but then he couldn't say he'd organised anything much into conscious specifics. The question certainly stung enough.
"Do you?" he responded back, hollowly.
"Yes." Although Duke sounded annoyed, and while Nathan didn't feel the rough hands that boxed his ears, that response wasn't exactly endearing, nor the word, "Idiot," that fiercely followed the blows. In amongst the pique, though, that first single word of Duke's reply lit inside him and continued to burn, growing brighter and making itself felt, and he forgot the urge to hit Duke back.
"Y-you do?"
Duke raised his eyebrows and didn't bother to verbalize his answer, but replied with another question. "Do you still... love me?"
Nathan grimaced and turned his face away again. "Can't believe I said that..." He mumbled. Who said that? People didn't really say that. Bad romantic movies said that.
Duke laughed at him and said, "Unless you contradict me now, I'm going to take that as a 'yes'." He waited, his eyes light.
Nathan swallowed and kept his silence.
...What? It was generally the easiest thing to do. And it was the thing people most expected of him, after all. Silence, reserve, and few, few words.
"You're funny," Duke said, and kissed him. Nathan wasn't sure how they'd got to this point, but didn't feel inclined to fight him off. He was pushed with his back to the wall, Duke's hands behind his neck and curling inside his shirt. Nathan caught up and wrapped his arms loosely around Duke. Awareness seeped through, somehow, of his body responding where they ground against each other.
Other awareness descended, sharply. Was that a flash of bright blonde hair to the side, again, the same general direction of that strange, excited little "yip!" sound, so quickly muffled? A thin wooden wall and far too many windows away was a bar full of people. Nathan wedged an arm between their two bodies and roughly pried Duke back from him, set hands on his shoulders and answered Duke's aghast and entertaining outrage with one very firm declaration:
"Not here."
END