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The sidekick looked up at his captain like he was his entire world. I am yours, that look said. This is my body, in your hands, to love as harshly or kindly as you choose. “Fuck me,” Axel gasped. “Fuck me, please.”
With a single, primal yell, the captain collapsed, covering the sidekick’s body with his own. This was the superhero in his purest form, all of that strength and power fueled by a fierce and primal instinct.
“You’re mine. I just want to take care of you,” he whispered, and he saw tears form in the eyes behind Axel’s mask.
“I…” Axel whispered faintly. “Patrick, I…” Something in the world shifted, and it was no longer Axel beneath him but Will. At the sound of his own name, Patrick came tumbling back down to earth, crash-landing into himself. The soreness and lethargy of earlier returned, and he climbed off Will with a sudden, all-consuming weariness.
He needed to clean up. He padded into the bathroom and stopped cold when passing the mirror. His face was blotchy and red, his costume rumpled and smeared with lube and semen. His cock hung heavy and useless from the fly, and under the harsh overhead lights, the still-forming memory of what had just transpired between them began to wilt. Had it really felt so transcendent? Could it have truly been that much of a thrill, or had he simply been starved for so long that he hadn’t been able to control his own basest urges?
Patrick felt a great, unstoppable rush of shame. The panic that had threatened to swoop in earlier arrived now, turning instantly to red-hot anger.
When he returned to the bedroom, he tossed a washcloth to Will on the bed, hating what a porny cliché this was. Clean yourself up, says the minister to his acolyte, the doctor to his patient, the sergeant to his subordinate.
“I have an early call tomorrow,” he said.
“Oh, yeah,” said Will, swabbing delicately at his wet stomach. “Big day, innit.”
“Yes. It is.” Patrick reached behind him and grasped at thin air a few times before finally finding the zipper of his costume and tugging at it uncomfortably.
“I can—” said Will, starting to rise from the bed.
“I’ve got it,” said Patrick, already pulling his arms out of the loosened suit and shoving it down around his waist like a workman’s overalls. Cool air massaged his clammy, wretched skin. “I need to shower,” he announced.
“OK,” said Will, tossing the hand towel onto the floor next to the bed. What was wrong with him? Had he always been such a slob, and Patrick just hadn’t noticed?
“Could you…?” Patrick let the sentence trail off, hoping he wouldn’t have to finish it. Will followed his eyes to the door.
“Oh,” he said, eyes widening almost imperceptibly. “You want me to—”
“Yeah. Yes. Sorry. It’s just…like I said. Early call.”
“Right. OK.” Will stood, retrieved a bag he must have stashed under the bed, and began to extract himself from what remained of his Kid Kismet costume, taking an interminable amount of time to step out of the leggings and put on clean underwear, jeans, T-shirt.
“I’m gonna…” Patrick nodded toward the bathroom.
“Right this second?” Will asked, bent over to tie his shoes. “All right.” He rose up and crossed the room to kiss him. Patrick, lips closed, pecked him on the cheek and then went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He turned on the shower and stood next to the door listening, waiting for the sound of Will leaving the suite before stepping under the water.
Chapter 26
When Will got back to his apartment, shredded costume balled up at the bottom of his bag like a dirty PE kit, he immediately ran himself a steaming bath and opened a bottle of Malbec. He could feel the fat, hot tears coming any minute now and figured he might as well lean all the way in, like ritualizing the act of crying would somehow lessen how wretched he really felt.
I’m not really upset, he could tell himself. I’m doing a bit.
He thought getting it all out, however dramatically, would be cathartic. But sniveling under the bubbles struck him as merely childish, and as he lay in the long-cold water, fingers wrinkled and eyes puffy, Will felt no cleaner or lighter than before. It was far from the first time he’d been practically marched out the door after a hookup—knowing when to grant one’s host a speedy exit was all part of carrying oneself through life with a semblance of dignity—but this was the first time it had happened with someone he was seeing. Even Ry would’ve had the social grace to make Will a cup of tea or allow him to shower before calling him a taxi.
He had misjudged the idea of the costume, clearly.
Or had he? Patrick had seemed so into it, had thrown himself into the role-play with vigor, had almost become a different person entirely in the process. Maybe that was it, Will thought. Patrick had stepped so entirely out of himself that when he came back, he hadn’t liked what he’d seen.
That must be it. Why Patrick had acted so coldly, so suddenly keen to be alone when the person Will’d first met had been so deprived of touch that he would hold on to Will like a life raft.
Patrick would call in the morning, Will reasoned. He would apologize.
Or, he countered himself, he wouldn’t.
Tomorrow was the last day of filming, after all. What if that had been Patrick’s plan all along? To not talk about what might happen after he no longer had a reason to stay in Birmingham, to not even say goodbye, to ghost?
But that is so not Patrick, Will argued back. He’s so guileless—does he really have it in him to play such a tacky game? He’s too up-front.
