Author: Jen
Rating: R
Summary: It burns inside.
Series: Companion piece to 'Snow'
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I am in no way connected to anyone at 'Big Wolf on Campus' or ABC Family. This story is not intended for profit.
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The heat had gone. That was what usually woke him up now. Not his alarm, or the birds in the garden, or the buzz of family activity on the floor above him. Most mornings, when he rose into that strange place that swam somewhere between sleep and consciousness, if he sensed the lack of heat, he would find himself pulled straight away into the waking world, to see where the other boy had gone.
Often, he would wake to find himself wrapped in warmth, and then he would float happily in not-quite-slumber, until the pull of sleep grew to weak and he could open his eyes comfortably. Those times, he would flutter his eyelids until everything dropped into focus, and he would usually find himself staring into another pair of eyes, warm brown, that smiled down at him until he mumbled a lazy 'hello'.
Not this morning. He didn't so much drift into waking as fall, hard and fast. Blue eyes snapped open, his gaze darting about the room. When there was no sign of the other boy, he rolled over, letting out a yelp of surprise when he saw his boyfriend staring down at him with a strange smile. Tommy lay on his side, propped up on one elbow, watching him. Nothing else. Just watching, and smiling, and looking far too comfortable for Merton's liking.
After a moment, when he felt his heart rate begin to slow, Merton allowed himself a sigh and shifted across the bed, one pale-skinned arm reaching out to try and pull the other boy closer to him. If he could only get Tommy to lay back down beside him, to wrap his arms around Merton and tangle their legs together 'til he was wrapped in warmth and Tommy and soft bed sheets, then he would feel okay again.
That warmth was all he needed, all he had craved, even before he'd met Tommy. It tore him apart thinking he might not ever find it, and so when Tommy had turned up and somehow managed to make him feel warmer inside than he'd ever been, he'd known he would never need anything else.
Because everything with Tommy was heat. Hot ache in his chest when Tommy wasn't there. Burning itch under his skin when Tommy was there. Fire in his belly when they touched, tiny flames in his skin where Tommy's lips had pressed, blinding white flash behind his eyes when the touches got too much, and ripples of warmth that ran from his very centre right to the tips of his fingers and toes and back again as everything else faded away. Heat.
Tommy refused to move. He kept right on laying there, his gaze fixed not on Merton's face, but at some indeterminate point around his mid-section. The dark-haired boy shot him a quizzical look, and when that went unnoticed, he whispered "what?" in a voice that sounded a lot more timid than he'd expected.
Tommy was the only one who could ever make him feel timid. He'd never been shy. Self-conscious sometimes, when people made him nervous, but never quite so meek as when Tommy fixed him with one of those smiling stares that seemed to pass through his eyes and right inside him. Like X-ray vision, and sometimes Merton even visualised it as two comic book red beams shooting from Tommy's eyes straight to his head, or his heart, and he just knew Tommy could read what was happening in there. How else would he know exactly when to slip an arm around Merton's shoulders, or steer him away from a crowd so that they could be by themselves?
As one strong arm reached out to his waist, Merton couldn't help the contented little moan that worked its way past his lips. A hand stroked the sensitive skin of his bare backside, and he was ready to let his eyes slide shut and his head fall back to the pillow, when he realised Tommy was craning his neck, trying to see something behind him. Or rather, something on his behind.
Suspicious immediately, Merton batted the hand away, twisting his own head around to see just what Tommy had been trying to look at. Only, he couldn't see his own backside. What he could see was a faint black smudge on the other boy's right hand, a mark that had definitely not been there last night when they'd eventually drifted off to sleep, enveloped in each other.
Pausing long enough to shoot Tommy his most annoyed look, Merton scrambled from the bed, for once not giving a thought to the cold, and dashed over to the wardrobe, pulling the full-length mirror from its casing. Ignoring Tommy's chuckles from across the room, he twisted around in front of the mirror until he could see the words printed in bold black capitals on his backside.
Property of Tommy Dawkins
His shoulders sagged as he realised what the other boy had done. He ought to have been prepared for something like it, given the way Tommy had kept trying to sneak hickies and bite marks on to his skin while Merton was too occupied to realise. Although he probably couldn't ever have been prepared for Tommy writing on his butt while he slept.
"Just tell me it's not permanent." He wanted to sound angry, but it was hard enough just feeling angry, and his voice ended up shaky and strangled. To make things worse, Tommy seemed to find the whole thing far too amusing: he still lay on the bed, watching Merton with a dopey grin.
"How should I know?" The other boy laughed softly as he climbed lazily off the bed, sauntering across the room to stand just a couple of feet away from him. Merton half watched him in the mirror, still trying to focus on his own reflection as he checked to make sure Tommy had stopped with those four words.
Already the cold was beginning to creep back in, and he fought to hold off a shiver as he pivoted in front of the mirror. In a voice that was whinier than he'd have liked, he tried to find out from Tommy if the words on his behind had been scrawled in permanent marker or harmless regular black ink, but Tommy did nothing more than chuckle at his anger and say he didn't know. As if it didn't matter to him that he might have scarred Merton for life. Perhaps not scarred, exactly, but if the other boy had written on him in permanent ink, then he was definitely going to have to live with the mark for a long time.
Not that he minded Tommy claiming parts of his anatomy, he reminded himself, as the taller boy began to pout at the possibility of Merton letting someone else own his backside. He wanted to belong to Tommy, to have that warmth, for as long as he lived. There were just more subtle ways for him to show it, and even if he could get away with keeping the words out of sight for a few more months of gym class, until they could get away somewhere where they wouldn't have to be seen by anyone else ever, if they so chose, he didn't want to be stuck with Tommy's bold, careful handwriting on his butt forever.
If Tommy cared that he'd annoyed Merton, he still refused to show it. He seemed far too preoccupied with watching the words on Merton's behind as he twisted in front of the mirror, insisting that he liked the way Merton looked with Tommy's name printed on him. In fact, when the other boy suggested he get his lover's name tattooed there, Merton knew he had no hope of convincing Tommy otherwise.
Still, as he said it, he consoled Merton by stepping forward and wrapping those long, strong arms around his waist, and when Merton felt warm skin against his back, he couldn't bring himself to care anymore. He was wrapped up and cosy once more, and if he had that, then the rest of the world could fall down around them and he wouldn't even notice. When he was held like that, he had everything. When he couldn't tell where he ended and the other boy began, when he felt as complete as he did then, there was nothing else.
Words didn't do it justice. He could say, and had said, 'I missed you, I need you, I love you,' but those words were like a kindergarten story book compared to how he really felt.
There were words that came close, but even the thought of saying them out loud, especially to Tommy, made his cheeks burn and his stomach twist. They wouldn't make sense, not to Tommy. He couldn't look at the other boy and say, 'I burn, I'm an inferno, and it's because of you, and it's for you. You know how the sun's been burning for millions of years, and it'll burn for millions more, and before it does, it'll get bigger and bigger and consume everything in its path until there's nothing left? Well, that's me, and it's all because of you.' How could you say all that to an eighteen year old boy who didn't know how he'd feel in the morning, never mind in a billion years when the sun finally burnt out?
Tommy had his own way. The dark-haired boy knew the point of the marks Tommy kept trying to leave on him, and his suggestion of a tattoo was merely a part of that. He just wanted to know that Merton was for him, but all Merton had to let him know that was words, and the words scared him. So maybe one day he would let Tommy mark him, because if he could say with ink on his arm what he couldn't say with actual words, it would probably be less painful. The words wouldn't even last, or they might come out wrong, and he'd be left with fire burning his face the way it always did when he embarrassed himself, and without Tommy to keep him warm at night.
Just that thought was enough to terrify him, and he nestled back against the taller boy, reassuring himself that for now, at least, Tommy was still there, still holding him. A hand picked up a gentle, barely-there stroke over his back, triggering those miniature fires beneath his skin and making him tremble at the same time. But they'd been out of bed for a while, and even Tommy's embrace wasn't enough to block out the cold, early morning air. There was still the matter of the ink on his backside too, and as Tommy cause another shiver to roll through him, an idea drifted into his mind.
Eager to find warmth as soon as possible, he took hold of Tommy's hand and, ignoring the other boy's whimper as he pulled out of the embrace, he set off in the direction of the bathroom, his lover in tow. The shower might go some way to clearing what he hoped was just the temporary mark on his behind, and the steam and hot water would make him feel better. Especially if he still had Tommy wrapped around him, keeping him warm.
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