Boyfriend

Author's notes: These characters are dear to my heart. Insult them, show insensitivity or nastiness to them, and your reviews will be deleted. My boys love reviews so if you enjoy the story, please leave them!


"This is my boyfriend, Ben," Darren says, and Ben still gets a thrill out of that introduction, every time.

--

Before he goes into the bathroom in the morning, he starts with the sports bra and then the Ace bandage, wound around and around until his breathing is familiarly tight and uncomfortable. Tighter than he probably should, but he can’t stand to do it any looser. Then Ben slips on a plain undershirt and allows himself to enter the bathroom at last, to face the unfeeling honesty of the mirror. He keeps his shoulders a little bit hunched to mask the bulge of his chest. If he doesn't do more than glance beneath the neck as he brushes his teeth, it doesn't bother him too much.

Today, though. Today will be the very last day he has to do this. Ben rubs his fingers over the very mild hints of stubble on his chin and breathes deeply.

He ambles into the kitchen in his boxers. Darren's got coffee brewing and the newspaper scattered on the table. Ben gives him a light kiss on the cheek before grabbing a saucepan and a few cold smooth eggs from the fridge.

Ten minutes later there are scrambled eggs and cups of steaming coffee on the table, for both of them. Ben eases into a chair and takes a careful sip of his mug. His knee bumps Darren's beneath the table.

Darren smiles at him. "Big day," he says. Like it's nothing.

Ben takes a deep breath, exhales it slowly. "Yeah," he agrees, with a more tentative smile of his own. "I can't wait." It's true, he can't wait for it to happen, but he's also terrified. It's a change. A massive one. He concentrates on his scrambled eggs.

When he looks up again, Darren is looking at him with a knowing glimmer in his eyes. The other man sets down his fork and reaches across the table to squeeze Ben's hand. "It's going to go fine," he murmurs. "I'll be there, and I'll be here after. You're going to be fine. Better than fine."

Ben turns his hand over and laces his fingers through Darren's, squeezing back. "I know. It's just...you know change scares me. Even the ones I want." But he's finished all his second-guessing. He's gone back and forth, wavered and doubted himself and cried and raged, and this is what he wants. He's ready to move forward.

He looks across the table at Darren. Darren, with his tawny hair all mussed and his lips quirked in that gorgeous little grin he has. The other man has had to listen to more than his fair share of all this agonizing and Ben loves him fiercely. His eyes drift down to the bare hollow of Darren's throat above the neck of his t-shirt. He wants. They’ve got time.

Standing, he circles around the table slowly, holding Darren's eyes. Darren turns in his chair as he draws around and looks up at him. Ben braces one hand on the table and leans down and kisses him. Their lips meet, softly at first, and then he presses them together more firmly. He can feel Darren reach up to grip at his hipbones. His tongue probes coaxingly between Darren's lips until the other man parts them with a hitching sigh. One hand comes up to snake through his lover's hair and cradle the curve at the back of his skull; Ben tugs his head up and plunges his tongue into Darren's mouth at the same time, flicking against his teeth, gliding against the other man's tongue.

When they pull apart, Darren is panting, looking up at him with lips slick. Ben forces his lover to tilt his head back a little and groans quietly, heat rushing to his groin. He's still considering what he wants to do when Darren eases himself to the edge of his chair and then slides off it, settling down onto one knee and then the other, right at Ben's feet. Damn if that isn't the hottest thing he's ever seen.

Darren's gaze has floated downwards to rest on his groin, and just because he's looking at it with that kind of hunger Ben instinctively tugs Darren's head forward. He flattens his palm against the back of Darren's head and forces the other man's face right against his groin. Darren doesn't fight it, just opens his mouth and lets out a muffled moan against the packed bulge in his underwear. For a few moments Ben just pants and rocks forward against his mouth, looking down, enjoying that rush of masculine dominance and pretending. Darren's got his eyes closed and his mouth open on quiet noises and Ben knows that to him, it's as real as anything, and he loves that.

He loosens his grip and Darren pulls back to look up at him, his gaze questioning as his fingertips curl under the hem of Ben's boxers. Ben groans. "Yeah, go on," he breathes, a hot shiver rolling down his spine.

With unrestrained eagerness Darren pulls his boxers and the tight underwear beneath (he needs the latter but prefers the former) down to his thighs, shifting the rolled-up sock trapped in his briefs down and away. Ben trails the side of his thumb across Darren’s cheekbone and his lover stretches up, mouths over the fine trail of dark hair that snakes down his abdomen, making him shiver.

His breath is hot and his tongue is slick as Darren slides slowly lower, until, at last, his lips brush Ben's cock. Barely an inch long now--he measured last night--but god, that's more than he'd ever really hoped to get without surgery. And Darren tells him he loves it because it's just the perfect length to suck on and Ben always laughs and hits him when he says that, because it's a dumb excuse for a pathetic dick, and then Darren pins him down and tells him never to call himself pathetic and then rubs him off just to shut him up.

All of that hovers in the back of his mind as Darren closes that hot perfect little mouth right over his cock, and Ben hitches in a breath and tightens his grip on the man's hair. "Yeah," he growls. "Just like that. Fuck."

Darren plays his tongue along the underside and sucks firmly, all molten heat and teasing pressure. He lets out a long, hard groan, and the vibrations buzz all the way through Ben's pubic bone and he shudders, hard. The quiet kitchen is filled with the sound of his panting breaths and the small wet noises of Darren’s mouth.

His boyfriend knows just how to play him, and for a few long minutes Ben just watches him. He watches Darren's translucent eyelids, closed in concentration, the pink of his lips, the muscles in his throat shifting as he sucks and rubs his pointed tongue. The other man is an expert at sucking his cock, and Ben repeats that to himself--sucking my cock--my cock--and gets a hard thrill of pleasure from it every time. He forces Darren's head a little harder against his groin, eliciting another rough moan.

"Ahh...fuck, yes." All the muscles around Ben’s spine clench fiercely and he rocks forward in hungry little jerks as he comes. Pleasure spikes through him and his bare toes curl against the linoleum and it's perfect, Darren's eager grip on his hips is perfect, and Ben clutches at him and rocks against him slowly. His dick throbs against Darren's tongue.

At last he pulls back, looking down at Darren with a crooked and sated grin. Darren rocks back on his heels and smiles at him, licking his lips, and then pushes himself up to his feet. His knees crack loudly.

Ben immediately tugs him forward into a rough, powerful kiss, one that instantly makes Darren melt a little beneath him. Laughing into his mouth, Ben slaps his hip. "Into the bedroom with you, pretty boy," he orders. "We've got about twenty minutes before you have to go to work."

Darren scampers off to the bedroom in a manner that can only be described as flouncing, and Ben tugs his boxers back up and follows, laughing. He follows Darren straight onto the bed and crawls over his lover, pinning him, kissing him breathless, and then flipping him over onto his stomach. "You want me to fuck you?" he growls, hot and low against Darren's ear.

The other man shudders against him. "Yeah," he moans. "Please fuck me."

Stretching over the side of the bed and groping around near the floor, Ben finds a dildo beneath the edge of the bed and snags the lube off the nightstand. "Yeah, gonna fuck you," he purrs, mouthing at Darren's ear as he uncaps the lube and slathers it over the dildo. He bites down sharply at the man's earlobe and is rewarded with a needy whimper.

"Pull down your pants," he demands, and Darren hurries to yank his sweatpants down to mid-thigh, bracing himself on hands and knees with spine invitingly arched. Ben can never resist that sight. After the amount of fucking they did the night before, Darren doesn't need prep, and Ben knows he likes it a little tighter anyway. He presses the head of the dildo right against his lover's entrance.

Darren presses his face to his forearm and lets out a low groan as Ben penetrates him, pushing it slowly into him until he's just gripping it at the base. Ben slides up behind him on his knees, and he presses his hips against Darren's ass, closing his eyes for a moment and just rocking against him. He pulls back and draws the toy out a few inches as he does; then he pushes forward again in one smooth motion. Darren arches and whimpers beneath him.

Timing the motions of his body with it, Ben fucks Darren a little harder, pounding him just the way he loves it. His other hand slides over the outside of Darren's thigh, presses around and between his legs, curls slippery fingers around his cock. Darren immediately jerks forward into his fist and Ben rewards him with a few quick, firm strokes.

"You want my dick?" he breathes, fucking him steadily on the dildo, over and over.

Darren's shoulderblades flex as he clutches at the sheets. "Yeah, want your dick, want your fucking cock," he moans, unashamed.

Squeezing his cock, Ben shifts the angle of the dildo, until he knows he's found Darren's prostate--the other man tenses up sharply beneath him and fucks his hand urgently. "Shit, yeah, right there, oh fuck," Darren pants out, as Ben strokes him quickly, and then he arches his spine like a plucked bowstring and comes with a throaty moan as he shoots all over the sheets.

Ben slips the dildo out of him and drops it back over the edge of the bed. For a few minutes they just cuddle against each other, Darren breathing in soft puffs against his neck, Ben's arms wrapped around his lover’s waist.

"Time for work," Darren grumbles at last. He pushes himself up on one elbow, kisses Ben tenderly. "I'll meet you at the doctor's later. I love you."

--

Three days after the surgery, the studio where Darren works is having a small holiday party. Darren persuades him to come even though he's tired and cranky and his chest hurts. Ben agrees mostly because he loves being able to button up a pressed, collared shirt and admire the masculine lines of his torso in the honesty of the mirror.

The bandages hurt more than the ones he's been wearing every day for years, and yet in another way they hurt so much less. In a few weeks, Ben will be able to stop wearing them, though his new chest will be tender and sore for a long time still. A few months from now, he will just have scars; and a few months beyond that the scars will start to fade. One day, maybe, he'll even be able to go to the pool with Darren without feeling self-conscious. That's a long way off yet.

For now he shakes hands with Darren's coworkers. "This is my boyfriend, Ben," Darren says, and Ben straightens his shoulders and smiles.