Chapter Text
Curled up in an armchair he had pulled in from the living room, he watched Sean sleep.
Sean had been doing so for most of the afternoon, and for most of the forty-eight hours since he had gotten back.
Sean slept like a man under a spell, his head partially buried under a pillow, his arm flung across the bed and his breaths coming in deeply.
And he watched like a man reading the signs.
There was a crease in the middle of Sean’s forehead, an interruption in his otherwise calm face. It was what was making it clear that even in sleep, something was bothering him.
And he was having trouble of his own accepting it. He kept replaying Hannah Storm’s interview in his mind, how Sean had frozen up when she had mentioned a “history” that might repeat itself during the season.
And he’d be stupid if he didn’t know what that history was.
He pushed his hair off his forehead, stilling as Sean stirred. But Sean but didn’t awake.
He released a breath and lowered his head, bringing his eyes to the gleaming hardwood floor.
What was he supposed to do if Sean couldn’t move past this…thing. This anger he’d been carrying for years over things he couldn’t even remember?
He felt strangely foreign to himself. He’d thought their separation wouldn't affect him but he was feeling a newness to the moment that he hadn’t anticipated.
He prided himself on being a person who could look problems in the eye and take no issue with solving them. But this was a problem too frightening to look at. He was no good when it came to Sean. He was too affected by him, too scared of fucking it up when it came to handling things between them.
Last night when he had finally let Sean leave the bed, Sean had gone into the kitchen to get himself a drink of water. He had watched Sean move toward the door. His movements had been slow and deliberate, always so after the last and toughest game of the season.
He knew Sean’s body would heal, if there was anything it did like clockwork it was that. But when Sean had returned he had noticed that Sean had avoided making eye contact with him, finding anything to look at but him.
He couldn’t pretend he hadn’t seen that.
And now, seeing the frown that wouldn’t leave Sean’s sleeping face, he wondered what came next for them. Would things just normalize if he left them alone?
What exactly was he supposed to be feeling? Relief and nothing else? Should he be focusing on their wedding plans and let Sean catch up? Or should he be waiting until after the spring when everything football related, and concerns of being away from each other, would have gone and left them alone?
He traced the line breaks in the wood, seeing if their straight, clean pattern could help form a track for his thoughts.
He just wanted Sean. He wanted the perpetual happiness he knew Sean was capable of giving him. For him it was just that basic. He didn’t care about specifics and he didn’t care about perfection. And he sure as fuck didn’t care about some past he could barely remember.
But here was precisely where that past had brought them.
He wanted simplicity and a chance at pure happiness. But he was afraid he was about to get something else entirely.
Sean stirred, pulling his his head out from under the pillow. Slowly his eyelids lifted.
Upon focusing his eyes Sean slowly moved off the bed and came toward the chair, and into his waiting arms.
He made room for both of them as Sean settled in his lap, his knee over the chair’s arm and the other across his legs. He held him and Sean put his arm around his body, buried his face against his shoulder and within seconds of settling in, Sean once more passed out.
~*~
Checking his phone one last time, he stretched his neck and tried to see to the intersection of Sean’s cul-de-sac.
Media vans still sat at the interaction, along with the bodyguards he had hired last offseason, but just then he saw the black Mercedes pull up to the stop sign. The hotel’s timing was perfect.
Sean walked slowly out of his bedroom and toward the edge of the living room’s glass walls. He stood aside and peered down the street at the parked vans. Sean, only interested in the news crews, wasn’t paying attention to the Mercedes pulling through the clutter.
Sean stared at the vans for a long time, and he wondered whether they brought back specific memories from this time last year. They had tried living a life of normalcy for two nerve-fraying days, but the media had resumed following him around like cans on a string. This time it was for a good reason, all the buzz in the sports world being whether he would be named the Associated Press’s most valuable player of the year.
But for Sean, all the attention had turned his house once more into prison, and he could see it on Sean’s face.
He heard the car pull into Sean’s driveway, at which point Sean looked in that direction and noticed it.
Sean glanced over his shoulder at him, and he was finally able to look up from his phone. He met his gaze.
“What’s that all about?” Sean asked, an edge to his voice.
“We have a bungalow at the Beverly Hills.”
Sean turned fully to him, holding his eyes. “Why? I just got home. I don’t want to anywhere.”
“You can’t stay here.”
Sean went silent, obviously wanting to resist but knowing he was right.
“For how long?”
“Just for a few days. As long as you want it.”
Sean was silent once more. “I’m not packed,” he then said.
“They’ll wait.”
~*~
Two hours later they were standing in a white stone living room with French windows opening out to an intimately furnished garden. Rose scented breezes billowed the curtains, and sunlight dappled everything in sight.
Despite Sean's mood, he saw the way Sean looked around at the flower garden—if he couldn’t get him the ocean he knew he could always get him flowers—at the secluded sections already pinpointed with banana fronds and tea lights, and saw the way his eyes softened and his body relaxed.
When Sean closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he caught it, and for some dumb reason thought that was the end of their problems.
~*~
They were making love and it wasn’t going right.
Sean, who could normally set them both on fire as reliably as an old seamstress could thread a needle, couldn’t seem to make himself fit. Literally.
He was on his back, his hands on Sean’s arms, his knee propped over solid muscle, waiting. For that smooth pressure that would cause the feeling that he was coming apart through every nerve ending of his body, that only Sean’s weight on top of him was keeping him from screaming and disintegrating. It didn’t come.
Instead when he dropped his eyes to Sean’s downturned head, Sean was staring down at their bodies, fumbling to position himself and missing, over and over.
He stared in fogged confusion, seeing the moment when Sean loosened his grip on himself, both physically and mentally, and turned away, letting out a breath. There was a deep flush on his face.
“What is it?” he asked gently, pushing up on his elbow and making Sean shift slightly off him.
Sean kept his face turned away, and looked very far away. “Nothing, I’m just— off my game, I guess.”
He touched him on his nape, aware that even without being able to get it off the ground, their naked bodies were still burning each other up, flexing with each other’s movements.
He had forgotten to take off his engagement ring. But as always it worked out, as Sean seemed to love the sensation of it, and often kissed it while they fucked. Now, it made him turn and press his lips to it when he stroked his jaw, and he pulled himself forward and kissed him on the shoulder, moved up the corner of his mustache.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, shoving his hand into his hair. He began lowering them back to the bed. “Come here.”
Sean moved with him, staying on his side to leak a warm kiss into his mouth. Then he stopped and stared down at him. He was clutching him, trying to recover from the brief taste of his tongue and his mouth, with Sean just staring down at him.
“What?” he asked defensively. Jesus, he didn’t want to do this.
“What do you want?” Sean said, mumbling the exact question he didn’t wanted to hear. Especially not in this position.
“Wh-what do I want?” he repeated mindlessly, shrinking into the sheets.
“Yeah,” Sean mumbled. “In here.”
He stared down in confusion at the finger planted left of center on his chest.
“In-in my heart?”
“Yeah,” Sean said tenuously. “It feels as though you’re… hiding something.”
He closed his eyes and arched in resistance. “Oh God, I’m so not.” Why was this happening? “Why would you even say something that?” he asked helplessly.
Sean began pulling away, taking his knee from under him, and he quickly reached for his shoulder, stopping him. “Don’t—”
But Sean seemed so far away. All he wanted was to stop the moment and start all over again.
He collapsed on the bed and moaned. “Sean, Sean…”
There was a beat of silence. “Yeah?”
“Please fuck me. You’ve been gone for three months and I don’t know what else to do or say. I can’t think. Please just do something to me.”
And at last Sean moved over him, pulling him tightly in his arms and turning him over.
He clutched the pillow and gasped thankfully into it, and closed his eyes.
Frantically reaching behind him, he pulled Sean’s arm around him and locked it. And when Sean brought his face against his, breathing hotly all on him, and he reached backward for his hair and held him still while he gave him everything.
Sean needed nothing past that. And he need nothing, past this.
~*~
He had arranged for massages and physical therapy and spa treatments, and he made sure that the hotel stayed on top of Sean keeping the appointments. He needn’t have worried, as Sean seem capable of nothing much besides moving from the bedroom to the spa to the garden, or the hot tub, and letting him do whatever he wanted to arouse his body when he came home from work.
It was as if his mind had been switched off, leaving a body that didn’t wish to stay upright for too long on its own.
He made love to him, fed him, and tried to think of nothing else. He did half days at work when he could and tried to be back before lunchtime.
Slowly, he saw physical improvement. But mentally, he saw the distance asserting itself between them.
One afternoon he returned from work to find Sean sitting in the garden with his laptop. Walking over, he saw the quick glance Sean shot in his direction, then drop his eyes back to his task.
He sat down on the arm of the bench and stroked Sean’s hair. He kissed his temple and asked him how his day had been going. Sean muttered a response. After a few more moments of silence, he readied himself. He had to at least— he could at least do this.
“You’re… being a little quiet,” he told him softly. “Is everything all right?”
When Sean didn’t speak for a full minute, his own breaths were refusing to come. And he was mortified with himself that he couldn’t take control of the situation. It was why he pushed forward.
“Sean.”
“I love you.”
And that was when he realized just how bad it was.
He stood up, straightening from the bench, startled when Sean’s arm was suddenly snaking inside his jacket. He turned to him, suddenly having to steady himself by holding onto Sean’s shoulders, as Sean was pulling him closer, burying his head inside his jacket.
He shuddered out a gasp, feeling an erection that came as suddenly as Sean had grabbed him, trying to stay upright for the tongue that was freeing and lapping at his cock. His teeth chattered when Sean’s scraped lightly at his head, cooking his thoughts faster than he couple produce them.
Bent over, he gripped tufts of Sean’s hair with both hands, whispering his love into the strands, and hoped with all his heart that Sean could hear him.
~*~
The days following their return to Malibu were uneventful. Elliot sent him a text begging to schedule a drinks for them to meet Sean, pointing out that it was the least he owed them after having them babysit him for twelve weeks.
It was an offer he had no problems declining, as he’d done just as much for them in their times of need and he didn’t think he was ready to deal with that probable disaster just yet, seeing that his friends represented everything Sean hated about his past life.
But when his father left voicemail essentially asking the same thing, he felt he had to at least communicate that offer to Sean.
Alastair obviously only wanted to see what they were like again after their separation, perhaps hoping that they were already secretly broken up and he could finally have Sean all to himself, free of his insolent, impudent son.
Sean, back home in Malibu and holed up since their return from Beverly Hills, only gave a soft grunt in response.
“You don’t have to,” he said to Sean. He was in his office and staring at a stack of industry artwork on the floor, seeing nothing. “He was being weird while you were away, and was acting like—” He cut himself off, wondering why on earth he had been about to spill that.
“Acting like what?” Sean asked harshly.
He pressed his lips tightly together. “It doesn’t matter. He was just being his usual weird, annoying self. I don’t think we should have dinner with him.”
“Well, I think we should.”
He let out a silent sigh. A huge one.
Was he, ultimately, marrying his dad just like the books said one would? Sean was driving him crazy.
“Fine,” he said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he added.
“About what?” Sean asked darkly.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said tiredly. “I’m sure you two’ll be back to being besties in no time. Annoyances aside, I think he really did kind of miss you.”
Sean mumbled a response.
“Well, you can tell him yourself. Is tonight all right?”
“Yeah.”
“All right then, I’ll make reservations. It’ll be at the hotel.” Which meant only one hotel in his father’s world, and he was sure by now Sean knew that. “So we can meet at my place at eight?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
He hung up and tried to get back to work. And failed.
~*~
Craig, the most efficient of finance SVPs, however lacked anything resembling basic understanding when it came to human subtleties. Believing he was passing on a bit of good news, he told Petey about why Holden wouldn’t be able to meet them out tonight, because Holden was having dinner with Sean and his dad.
What that caused was a problem for him come seven-thirty.
Elliot and Petey showed up at his building, and being on the standing guest list, had the call automatically placed to his penthouse. Internally cursing Craig, he answered and asked for them to be sent up. Then he spent the fifteen minutes after that explaining to them why they had to be gone before eight o’clock.
Petey, lying on his side on his antique chaise, looked bemusedly at him. And Elliot, pouring himself a whiskey sour from his wet bar, looked neither interested nor, to be honest, apparently paying any attention to him. Elliot did however, eye him where he stood in the foyer, still in his work clothes sans jacket.
“You look darling in that etiquette suit,” he said fondly.
“I told you Versace would look good on him,” Petey chimed, looking pleased with himself.
“Guys,” he said, staring at them. “Is anyone listening? You can’t be here.”
“Why not?” Petey asked in amusement. “Holden, you’re acting very strangely.”
Elliot set down the decanter and picked up his tumbler, swirling the brown liquid. “We have it all figured out, H,” he said. “We’re going to pretend we were dropping by on our way out, which we were, and we’ll leave the minute he gets here. We’re literally going to pass him at the door.”
“Why?” he asked, trying not to groan.
“Because we’ve never seen him before. And, we’ve never seen the two of you together. We want to make sure everything’s on the up and up,” Elliot went on mildly. “You know, as in, good.”
“Everything is fine,” he said coming into the living room. “Please leave.”
“Oh, classic you,” Petey moaned. “No one knows what’s going on, ever. Why are you so nervous anyway?” he suddenly asked, narrowing his eyes. “Are you ashamed of us?”
God, he wished it was as easy as shame. Shame you could overlook and carry on.
No matter how well behaved Petey and Elliot chose to be, Sean was about to receive an unpleasant shock if he had to say two words to them. Elliot only had to smell a problem for him to attempt to rip Sean a new asshole. Meanwhile he wasn't up to refereeing anything while thinking about dealing with his father.
Elliot was looking attentively at him. He suddenly put down his tumbler and crooked a finger at Petey.
Petey began groaning in disappointment, but he was standing up. “I want so badly to see him.”
“Maybe next time,” Elliot said, sliding his arm through Petey’s. “Holden’s right. It’s a little too early in the year for dramatics.”
And then his phone buzzed. He reached instinctively into his pocket for it, pulling it out and staring in horror at it.
Sean was downstairs. He was fifteen minutes early.
He shot a look at Elliot, who, now close enough, leaned in and saw the name on the message.
“Tell him you’re not dressed, and to give you a few,” Elliot said smoothly.
He quickly texted the words to Sean. Sean’s reply came in at the same time his land line started ringing.
Sean’s message said, “No problem, I’ll come up and wait in the foyer.”
Petey reached over and picked up the ringing phone by the door. “Holden’s place,” he said casually into the receiver. He calmly listened to the concierge. “Hold on a moment.”
Petey put the receiver to his chest, made eye contact with him, and said softly, “They want to know if they can send him up.” He made a face, nodding. “You should send him up.”
He looked at Elliot. Elliot looked calm.
“Hey, Lewis,” Petey said appealingly into the phone. “Go ahead and send him up.”
Elliot raised a hand. “We’re outta here.”
But they were going to meet Sean at the elevator. There was one per penthouse, and his was coming up right that moment.
Elliot gave him another assuring look, opened the door and walked himself and Petey out.
He followed them out into the circular foyer.
Holding his breath while Elliot and Petey went over and stood to one side of the doors, he waited for the lights to ding and the elevator doors to open.
Sean saw him first, standing at the entrance to his penthouse, and stepped out of the elevator. Then he turned and saw Elliot and Petey standing to one side with their eyes locked on him.
Sean narrowed his eyes, the corners twitching imperceptibly as he stared wordlessly at them.
Elliot, jaded and worldly as he was, softly caught his breath. Petey simply stared with an open mouth.
Excruciating moments passed, and then Sean moved aside, evidently realizing there was no way for them to enter with him blocking the way.
Petey, five-nine in his bare feet, slid around Sean’s body with his mouth open and his eyeballs in real danger of drying out.
“Hello,” Elliot said amiably, walking in behind Petey and immediately hitting the lobby button. Turning around and leaning against the back of the elevator, Elliot raised an eyebrow, impressed. Petey looked stunned.
“See you later,” he mouthed, as the doors slowly closed.
He didn't release his breath until he heard the door dinging to indicate that it had the closed. Then suddenly feeling like an ass for not introducing his closest friends to his fiancé, he looked at Sean and said hello.
“I’m early,” Sean said, staring intently at him.
“Yeah, no problem, come in.” He quickly moved aside and Sean walked in, following behind him and shutting the door.
Picking up his phone from the side table where he had dropped it, he stuttered, “I k-keep forgetting t-to give you the access code for the elevator. I’ll do it right now.”
He brought the phone high so that it was all he could focus on, and shakily pulled up the message screen.
Sean silently occupied his peripheral vision.
He sent the message without trying to look flustered, though he was no good at faking cool and Sean knew it. He only hoped Sean didn’t think it was anything else. Like stalling.
He finished and looked up, then fumbled the phone under Sean’s intense, unmoving gaze.
The phone went tipping out of his hand, but with him doing his best to catch it it was still going to go clattering to the floor. Sean caught it without seeming to move.
Gently placing it back into his open palm, Sean merely kept looking at him.
He dropped his eyes as a sudden trill sounded in Sean’s chinos. He stared at the bulge pushing out from the side of Sean’s pocket.
And then he struggled not to look any lefter.
“I guess you— have it now,” he said softly.
Sean wrapped his arms around his chest and nodded. Then he lifted his hand to the staircase. “Aren’t you gonna go get ready?”
“Oh, yeah, I am. Would you like something to drink?”
“No.”
“Yeah, of course, that makes sense. I’ll, um, be back. In-in a few. Just— make yourself—”
He stalled completely. Then he inhaled and looked a little desperately at Sean, wondering what on earth he thought he was doing.
Sean's soft, inquisitive eyes were full of uncertainty, and it made him let go of a deeper breath, realizing he was acting like a lunatic.
He hooked his finger into the top button on Sean’s shirt and leaned over and pecked his lips. Then he stood back.
“I’ll be right back,” he said placatingly, before turning for the staircase.
~*~
Alastair Wilson was not his problem.
Alastair had already had his chance to throw him off balance during the summer, and it wasn’t going to happen twice. Besides which, he’d seen right through him and knew that Alastair’s own problem was Holden, not him.
Despite fighting with him all the time, or maybe due to it, it was painfully obvious that Alastair wanted to be the shining star in Holden’s life. Likely because he had nothing else besides his real estate empire he could be proud of, and he was most certainly proud of his son.
So it wasn’t really a problem for him any more to listen to Alastair’s loaded remarks about what he might have been up to during the football season. In his own warped way, he was trying to ingratiate himself with his son.
But Holden looked badly distressed by it, his complexion paler than ever, and laboring under a blush that seemed permanent for the evening. Under differing circumstances, Holden blushing like that would have excited the life out of him. No matter what he himself was going through.
But right now Holden was in a bad place. And it was knowing that, and not because of anything Alastair was insinuating about his season, that he reacted out of a need to diffuse the situation.
Instead, however, when he opened his mouth the words that came out were very different than what he had intended.
“Well,” he said slowly. “I don’t really think I’m the one we needed to be worried about during the season.”
And then he froze, the words slowly floating up to his ears.
He couldn’t possibly have said that.
The silence accompanying his words assured him that he had.
He set down his fork.
And there, in front of Alastair Wilson of all fucking people in the world, he was finally able to make himself look at the man he loved.
Holden was white with shock, his eyes enormous with hurt and genuine confusion.
He looked away, blushing so hard he couldn’t speak.
Alastair, seated across the table from him, silently watched the two of them.
He moved his hand to take Holden’s, but Holden sat back, taking his hand with him.
He kept his hand on the table, embarrassment robbing him of movement.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Aw, c’mon Sean,” Alastair groused, cutting up his food. “Holden knows you didn't mean anything by it. It was just a little marital jab, nothing more. It’s all in good fun. Right, Holden?”
They were both completely silent.
~*~
“You think I cheated on you while you were away? This isn’t even about the past?”
Holden looked even paler than in the restaurant, dazed.
They were standing near the drive-in entrance to the Hotel Bel-Air, Alastair long departed, and Holden’s car was coming any moment from the valet.
“Holden, sweetheart, I—”
“You think that while I was drinking myself into stupors, puking my guts out because I couldn’t go two nights without you, that I was having fun? Fucking any guy who came within two feet of me because that’s what I do?”
“Sweetheart—”
“What, Sean?”
“I don’t—” He stopped, caught a breath. “There’s nothing—”
“Don’t lie to me, Sean.”
He brought his startled eyes to Holden. Holden was staring at him, and looked drained.
Holden shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut while holding his forehead. “Uh…” he began, but he seemed to have nothing more.
“Sir!”
It was the valet calling.
Holden turned toward the sound before turning back to him. “I can’t do this,” he said mindlessly, his expression unreadable, and began wandering aimlessly in the direction of the valet. “I think you should take a cab home,” he called back dazedly over his shoulder. “I’ll have your car brought up to Malibu in the morning.”
He remained where he was and watched Holden climb into his car and drive off without him.
~*~