Mel & Hoss

Author's Note: These are leftover scenes that were bouncing around in my head. I wrote them to be rid of them, and also perhaps to give more depth to the world in which November took place.

Mel's hands trembled, and he laced his fingers together to try to stop them. It would have been nonsense to get upset at this point - not when the opportunity for reason still existed. Hoss was chewing idly on the stick of meat in his hand and not looking at Mel. Mel raised his shaking hands to command attention.
"But...this isn't fair. You said I could finish up. I'm only one semester away."
Hoss raised one eyebrow crisply.
"I said I would think about it. I've thought about it. I don't want you going."
Persist, Mel told himself. Persistence is the key to success. Be logical. Be straightforward. Be evocative.
"But this is my dream, H. And I did everything we talked about - I went to the Dean and got his permission, I've taken care of things at home, I've had a perfect behavior record, and I've kept my grades up in the CEC classes. Just one more semester and we could have two potential incomes."
Hoss paused in his chewing and Mel backpedaled a little. "I mean, I'm not saying I have to work right now - not with maybe kids coming soon and everything, but it would be a good investment. It would mean we had a back-up source of income, just in case."
Hoss cast a stray eye over at Mel. He broke off a piece of the jerky and mouthed it slowly, thoughtfully.
"Just in case what?"
The long, drawling, intense way he asked the question made it seem like a response to a threat. Mel saw his misstep and withdrew immediately.
"I just mean in case we needed more money. That's all. Babies are expensive." he finished, lamely.
Hoss nodded, moving the jerky around in his mouth like a cow chewing cud.
Mel held his breath and waited for the reaction to descend, for Hoss to rage or snap or do anything. The silence was damning.
"No." he said, eventually, swallowing the meat and tackling the chewed-off end of the jerky stick again. "Ain't necessary."

Mel felt sick a little, but it was a tentative nausea - the kind that waited for further intel before deciding on a course of action. Hoss folded the page of the newspaper over and read something of interest on the back page.
"H, I really think -"
"No."
Mel actually stopped short. He had not been interrupted like this since he was a child. His face colored.
"Henry, I don't - "
"Hoss."
Mel couldn't keep the exasperation from his voice.
"What?"
The gray-eyed man looked solemnly up at him from the other side of the Times.
"My name is Hoss. Use it."
Mel hesitated. This wasn't going right. Things weren't going right. He was doing everything he could to keep from breaking down, from simply throwing himself on the mercy of his husband and making an impassioned plea, and it wasn't enough. Nothing he could say was enough to convince this man not to take away his life.
"Hoss, please."
The gray eyes fixated on Mel, stripping him, boring through him into his very core, into the raw exposure of his center. Hoss bit off another piece of jerky and put it between his back teeth, set the flat stick down on the table atop the newspaper. He stretched one hand out to Melvin.
"C'mere."
Mel wanted to say no, but knew it would just be fuel - would just give reason to the denial. He came forward, and his husband pulled him down onto his lap. He sat there quietly, tense but unflinching. Eventually, Hoss spoke.
"You're upset."
Mel couldn't resist a reaction.
"No shit I'm upset! You want me to drop out of school!" he snapped, before remembering himself. Mel closed his eyes for a second, opening them when he felt he was under control again. "Sorry."
Hoss shrugged.
"'S alright."
Mel shook his head.
"But it's not fair, Hoss. I mean, I really just have one semester left, and you're telling me not to finish, and that's really harsh, Hoss, it is. Especially after you told me 'maybe' before."
Hoss nodded as if he knew all this well.
"Yeah."
Mel felt despair growing in him.
"So why are you doing this?! Why do you keep telling me no?!"
Hoss sighed and shook his head.
"It ain't necessary." he repeated, and again, Melvin felt like he was talking to a broken machine instead of a human being.
"Oh, fuck you, Henry." Mel stood up abruptly, throwing the encircled arms off of him.
Hoss showed no reaction to this outburst; just let him go and chewed quietly.
"You're real upset."
It took all of Melvin's inner strength not to strike his husband.
"Of course." he uttered through gritted teeth, "Of course I am upset. You have taken everything from me. You took my friends and my car and my home and my habits. And now you want to take this, too."
Hoss nodded thoughtfully.
"'K. We c'n talk about it, but you gotta calm down first, buckaroo."
Mel shook his head furiously. Emotions he didn't even recognize were spinning torrentially upwards within him, darkening the skies in his head.
"No, I don't want to talk about it! There is no talking with us anyway, because you never listen! Never! You just show up and do stuff - you mess shit up. You mess my shit up!!"
Hoss blinked at him, slowly, and with the kind of caution one might use on a cornered animal.
"Alright. Alright. Come on back over here, baby. You gotta calm down."
Mel shook his head and slapped one hand on the table.
"I don't need to calm down! This isn't fair! It's not fair! I have four classes left, four fucking classes!! I have worked my life for this and you don't even care! You don't even think! You're just taking it all away and I'm supposed to sit by and - and fucking celebrate." Mel's face was a full-bodied red by now, choleric with blood and wrathful fury. Tears pinched at the edges of his eyes, but he ignored them. "You treat me like a pet! Like a goddamn pet! Like I mean nothing to you! Nothing! Nothing...!"
The onslaught stopped only because of the maelstrom of tears which then poured forth from the young carrier. Mel sucked in breath and shuddered and tried to get himself together, but it was all too much by then, and he was a small ship being tossed in the ravages of the high seas.

Arms were around him, presently, and he smelt Hoss's scent - the woodsy lift of cedar chips (his aftershave) and the low, sour tones of the old cigarettes he kept in his front pocket until they stained and the bland gray soap he used to wash his hair. Mel clung to those scents, mooring himself in the bulwark of his husband's presence. He stayed there for a few minutes, frozen and silent, bobbing in the soundless harbor of Hoss's arms, and crying his eyes out on Hoss's shoulder.

Then one of his husband's rough hands found its way under the edge of Mel's natori, and he jerked, cried out, and tried to wrench himself free of the inquiring grip. Hoss had been expecting this, and was prepared - he tightened one arm around Melvin's chest, just along the clavicle, putting tension on the sore spot there. Melvin yelped, but calmed and went still. He kept his voice low and even - a lion tamer's voice.
"Stop."
Hoss shook his head, his bristled jaw rubbing against the skin of Mel's neck as he did.
"Naw...naw, I ain't gonna stop because you need this." he rasped, sincere and inexorable.

Mel fought like an animal, then - like a wild thing caught in the unseen trap, with no predator in sight but cold death. Hoss held him fast and rode out the swell. The arm across Mel's chest tightened minutely, forcing him backwards against the body behind him. The other hand stroked its way up his thigh, the fabric of his natori creasing in imprecise folds where skin sought skin. Hoss's fingertips felt like sandpaper, but his palms were even, smooth. Hoss's thumb met and stroked the length of Mel's wet opening, and he flinched, then sobbed.
"Hoss, please, please stop, please don't do this, please, I don't want it, I don't want to - "
Hoss shushed him with equal fervor, meeting with equal vigor this new resistence. He forced two fingers up inside of Mel, into the cavern of warmth that squeezed tightly around his touch, soaking him in.
"Hush. Yes, you do. You want this. You need it, baby. You need me, OK? You want this."
Mel whimpered.
"No, Hoss, please, I don't - "
"YES, you do. You always feel better after. Just let me in you, baby, just do it. You need me; you need this, you know you do."
Mel whimpered another protest, but it was swallowed in the clash, submerged by the strength of Hoss's growl, low against his neck.
"I will fight you if I have to, baby. I don't want to, but I will."
Mel swallowed. It was difficult to think when things were like this - difficult to process, to understand what was going on. Who had initiated this? Had it been him or Hoss? Was this new? Part of a pattern? He couldn't seem to remember, suddenly. How had they gotten here? Hoss moved his fingers away, and Mel felt the uncomfortable dampness of his underwear press against his skin. They were wet -from who? From him? Everything seemed muggy somehow. All he could remember were emotions - wrenching, terrifying, devouring emotions that tore at his belly. Hoss had hurt him. The world had hurt him. He needed it out - all of it. All of the pain and the anger and the desire and the helplessness and the passion - he needed it all purged. Out.

Hoss was moving them, and he went dumbly along, like a puppet suspended, broken, between two strings. Against the wall, Hoss pushed his face to the wood and held it there. A message. Don't move.

Then there it was - the fingers pushing cloth aside and then it, the glorious rending heaviness that was Hoss's cock, forging a path inside of him, parting his walls and surging forward. Hoss went deep on the first thrust and Mel yowled like a cat in heat. Hoss took this as a good sign, instead of the warning it had been intended, and thrust again. This time, Mel clambered away, onto his tiptoes, and managed to breathe out a communication.
"Shorter."
Hoss grunted and went in again, his hips fitting perfectly to Mel's backside, the fabric getting caught uncomfortably between them, making the space between Mel's thighs sticky and chafing. Hoss thrust again, pulsing them both forward, and making Mel grunt and moan and scrabble at the polished walls. It was in him, still, and Hoss could sense it. The danger, the disease - it lingered in the corners of him, eating away at his consciousness and his evenness and his normal thoughts until everything had holes in it. Hoss wanted it out, wanted to force it out, fuck it out, make it leave. Make Mel so full of him there would be no room for it.

Mel was sobbing again, crying abstractedly into his wrist, begging Hoss, begging the wall, begging anyone who would listen. Hoss didn't know if he could do this, suddenly - he had never doubted himself before, but now he wondered. How long would this go on? How long would Mel go on?

~

Afterward, Mel felt better and Hoss took them both upstairs for a shower and a lingering bath. Mel shivered, even in the warm water, but at least he could look at Hoss again.
The sunlight rippled on the surface of the water where they disturbed it.
"So why?" Mel asked, in that small, acquired voice of a carrier. "Why not?"
Hoss sighed, looked away. Then he sat forward suddenly, rustling the water into licks of warmth along Mel's hips and knees. Intently, he said,
"It ain't good for you, Mel. Four more classes, then what? They gon' let you graduate? Graduate 'n then? Then nothing. You are never gonna be a doctor. They won't let you." then he sat back in the water.
Calmer, he added. "Just take your partial license. Help out like the rest of the carriers do. Nurse. Heal stuff. Work in the ER like you wanted. Up to four days a week's fine by me."
Mel felt a terrible, discerning illness come upon him.
"But I'm a doctor. It's all I've ever been or wanted to be."
From the other end of the white tub, Hoss shook his head.
"Well, you ain't no more."
Mel's chest felt tight. He was quiet. Eventually, he lifted hands to his knees, stirring water around them.
"You think I'm pregnant."
Hoss looked over at him.
"Might be."
Mel nodded, the tightness in his chest growing thicker.
"OK." he said, "OK."
Hoss watched him for a few long minutes.
"Mel? You gon' be OK?"
Mel shrugged and leaned his head back, the tips of his hair dipping into the water.
"Yes."
Hoss watched him one minute more, then nodded.
"OK."
"OK."

~:~