Late-Night Concerns
by elfin
 

Three fifteen am.

They’d been back from Babylon for an hour, saying goodnight and going to bed almost as soon as they’d got in.

But hearing Emmett moving about in the lounge, Michael got up too.  Opening the door of his room, he caught his room mate hovering next to the telephone.

Michael looked from the gadget to Emmett and back again.  Then he let his gaze settle on his friend for a few long seconds before Emmett reached out and grabbed the receiver.  “I have to call him.”

Michael nodded.  “I know.”

Emmett dialled Ted’s number and tapped his fingers on the sideboard as it started to ring. Michael closed up on his friend, waiting, almost as wound up as Emmett.
 
A sudden thought struck him.  “What if we catch him… you know?”  Emmett looked at Michael, biting his bottom lip, but he didn’t hang up.  “What if he’s… on the brink and we call?  Hey, he might have gone back to that guy’s place….”

Emmett started when the ringing stopped, the call answered.  For a moment there was just silence, a couple of hot breaths.  And then Ted’s barely controlled voice.  “What?”

“It’s me….”  Now he could hear that Ted was obviously okay, Emmett was lost for an explanation.  “Umm… we just… we were worried… you know, after last time, and… well… we had to make sure you were okay.”  The words gushed out of his mouth.

“Em?”  Ted’s squeaked, not quite believing his own ears.

“Yes….  Um… so, you’re okay.  Obviously.  So we’ll… leave you to it.”

“Yes.  Thank you.”

Ted hung up before Emmett could.

Emmett looked guiltily over at Michael, pouting his lips, holding the phone in both hands.  “Oops.”

Michael couldn’t hold in his chuckle.  “I take it he’s okay.”

“He’s… fine.  Absolutely fine.  He’s… busy.”  Emmett let the laughter bubble up from within.

“Shit.  He’s gonna kill us in the morning.”  The chuckle became a giggle, then a belly-laugh.

A couple of minutes later they were propping each other up, tears rolling over their faces, fighting to pull in deep breaths between laughs.

“You don’t think he was…” Michael waved his hand in the air, “…doing it, do you?”

Emmett shook his head.  “No one would… answer the phone… while he was….  Would he?
Michael sat down on the arm of the couch.  “Would you?”

“No!”

The looked at one another and burst into hysterics again.

Finally, they had to breathe.  Emmett leaned over the back of the sofa, shaking his head.  “Okay….”  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.  “Now I should be able to sleep.”

Michael nodded, sniffing.  “Me too.”

“I was worried, after what happened with that tweaked out twinkie, Blake.”

“Me too.”

“And I didn’t want him, well, you know….”

Michael held up his hand.  “Em, it’s Ted you’ll have to explain to.  Not me.”

“True.”

Straightening, Emmett drew in a long breath.  “It can’t believe I have to be at work in five hours.”  He looked at Michael.  “Come to bed with me.”  Michael’s eyebrows leapt almost comically.  Emmett almost started to laugh again.  “Not like that, Honey.”  He spread his fingers over his chest.  “I couldn’t possibly compete.  I just… I could do with a warm body tonight, that’s all.”

Michael looked at Emmett.  It was taking him time to get used to sleeping alone again.  He didn’t want to admit that part of the reason he couldn’t sleep was loneliness.  “Okay.”

Michael lay with Emmett in his arms, his friend’s head on Michael’s smooth chest.  “What do you think of Vince?” he asked Emmett quietly.

Emmett tried to read the tone of the other’s voice.  “Okay, without sounding too… for him, I think he’s adorable.”

Michael chuckled.  “Yeah.  Bastard.”  But his humour held.  “Brian’s hooked on him.”

Emmett was relieved that Michael had seen that.  “I know!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so… attached.”  He wasn’t sure that was the right word.

“He’s falling in love.”  Michael spoke quietly as though he were admitting it to himself for the first time.  “Ever since this thing with Vince started, he’s been… different.  He and I have never been closer and that… it’s odd.”

Emmett considered that for a time.  “You’re not jealous?”

Michael nodded.  “Desperately.”  He watched Emmett as he moved his head back to look up.  Michael stroked his hand over his roommate’s hair.  “I’m fine.  I meant everything I said to Justin.”

“Sweetheart, Brian’s been everything for you ever since I’ve known you.  I was as guilty as Deb in pushing you and David together cause I wanted you to see Brian wasn’t all there was.”

Michael squeezed Emmett gently.  “David wasn’t the right guy for me.  I’m not saying Brian is….”

“He is.”  Emmett wrapped long fingers around Michael’s arm where it lay over his chest.  “You and he look great together.”  Sighing, he closed his eyes.  “That night, just before he was raped, when he was so excitable.  Remember that?”

Michael smiled at the memory.  “Uhha.  Vince had sent him this aluminium butt-plug.  He’d been… wearing it all day and all night.”

Emmett’s eyes widened.  “Wow.  Suddenly I have a whole new respect for him.”

Michael chuckled.  “He showed me… rather, made me feel it out for myself, when we were dancing at Babylon.”  He sighed.  “When we got back to his place, I heard him telling Vince over the phone that he had to masturbate or he’d die.  You have no idea how turned on I was at that moment.”

Emmett snorted.  “I can imagine, Hon.”

Silence fell between them for a while, and after a time, Michael thought Emmett had fallen asleep.  Until he heard his next quiet words.

“You know, I’ve always thought he was beautiful.”

Michael tried to trace back their conversation but couldn’t link this to it.  “Who?”

“Brian.”

Emmett’s answer took Michael by surprise.  “You did not.”

“Of course I did!  I’m not blind, Sweetie.  Those eyes, that hair, body… that perfect smile.  I used to masturbate to that image when I first met him.  Mind you, then I got to know him.”

Michael laughed softly.  “His looks… I don’t see that anymore.  Guess I’ve known him too long.  I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever caught sight of him on the dance floor and thought, ‘look at the arse on that!’.”

“I did.  Once.  Remember two years ago at the Leather Ball, when he wore those PVC trousers that could have been painted on?”

Michael grinned.  “Oh yeah.  How could I ever forget those trousers?”

“I almost begged him to fuck me.”

There was a moment of pause, then they both burst into laughter again.
 

fin part eight
elfin

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