thecapitol | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Who | Maximus and Wyatt (closed)
What | Shameless shipping
Where | Wyatt's room, back int he capitol
When | night before the Arena
Warnings/Notes | cloudy with a 100% chance of smut

It had taken them telling him twice for Maximus to actually believe that he wasn't going into the arena this time. He'd been told he wouldn't be fighting after his victory, after all, and he'd still found himself in the arena, so he had a little difficulty grasping the fact that this time he really wouldn't be allowed to fight.

The argument that he had with his escort rattled the windows.

An hour later, however, Maximus was forced to admit a grudging defeat, slam his door behind him, and stalk to Wyatt's room. He disliked having to break this particular news and he disliked the fact that he had to even more - it felt like a betrayal, at best, and weakness at worst, and a very small dark part of him worried that Wyatt would think that he wanted to stay. That he wanted to be separated from him, that he wanted Wyatt to go into the arena alone. That small dark part of him was terrified, because it was so very opposite from the truth.

He was much more worried about himself, being forced to stay in the Capitol and watch Wyatt fight for his life.

(He could not concieve of what he would do if the man didn't return)

(~~Burn the Capitol to the ground.~~)

He knocked on Wyatt's door when he arrived at his rooms, but let himself in without waiting for the reply.

"They will not allow me to fight," He got out, before Wyatt could say anything.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wyatt was pushing out of his chair, not quite on his feet after the knock, when the door was flung open and slammed shut. A hard punctuation at the end of Max's sentence.

"Max..." Wyatt looked at him, uncertain what to say as he sank back into his seat.

As the days had gone by without any word, he'd begun to suspect that there wasn't going to be a repeat of the last arena. He couldn't say he was all that surprised by the news.

"...It's alright, Max."

He watched the disappointment in Wyatt's slump back into his chair, and it only added fuel to the rage boiling under his skin.

"I should be in there," He said firmly, his eyes blazing as he looked at Wyatt, but his anger was obviously directed elsewhere. "I should be in there, Wyatt, and they know that."

"I know ya want'a be, Max, an' I won't lie, part of me wishes ya could be." A small, selfish part that set guilt churning bitterly in his gut. "...But another part'a me's glad ya won't be."

Glad he wouldn't have to see another arena. That he wouldn't have to suffer more pain, another death because of him.

Wyatt met his gaze, blue against blue. Max's anger against Wyatt's steady resignation.

"Ya did yer time, Max. Ya shouldn't be doin' mine too."

"I'm better suited out there than I am here," Maximus said darkly. "I do my time all the same, locked in this tower, than I would out in the arena. It makes no difference."

He crossed over to where Wyatt was sitting and kneeled before him, grasping his arms. "You know I would not let you go alone if I had any other choice," He said, meeting Wyatt's eye and holding it.

"The hell there isn't--" he began, shifting in the chair, intending to stand and to cross to him, but Max beat him to it.

Automatically, without even pausing to think about it, his fingers wrapped around Max's forearms in turn, holding back. A firm grip, a desperate edge, as he felt the Capitol readying to pull them apart.

"I don't doubt that, Max, I ain't never doubted that... but yer wrong about there not bein' a difference." His fingers squeezed and he shifted again, leaning closer. "If I got'a go in there, it means -- it makes a difference to me to know you're out here. That you'll be here when I get back."

If... if. He didn't say it, but it was there, sharp in the back of his mind. A knife against his spine.

"I'll be here," Maximus said, and he squeezed Wyatt's shoulders as if to say 'So will you'. He didn't say it aloud. He wasn't convinced that it was wise to toy with the fates, even here, so far from Rome. Even if the gods couldn't hear him, here, he was sure the fates could. Best not to tempt their humour.

"But I would have rather been there, too." Maybe that way if Wyatt didn't come back, he'd share the man's fate.

Wyatt hesitated a moment, eyes searching across Max's face, a tangle of words caught in his throat. There was so much he wanted to say - things after tonight he might never have a chance to - but he'd promised patience. Time and space.

He struggled with it, the silence stretching as he wrestled with the halves of his heart. The part of himself that wanted to give Max what he needed whatever the cost, and the part that didn't want to die knowing he'd never told the man just what he meant to him.

That selfish bit of him that didn't want his last moments to be ones of regret because he'd never told Max that he loved him.

Finally, he took a breath, clearing his throat roughly and letting go.

"I... I got somethin' for ya," he rumbled, low and thick, as he shifted, turning to reach for one of the drawers in the desk. "I got it before, an' I know it ain't what ya really want, but I'd still like ya to have it."

He pulled out the book - that silly damn book (District 10: A Photographic Journey) he'd foolishly bought on a whim before Christmas, before he'd realized just how much of a dream it really was.

(A dream he still hoped in when no one was looking. Still foolishly wanted enough to build upon it. All those photos he'd taken during the tour stuffed into the pages.)

"It was yers first an'... I'd rather you have it than the Capitol do whatever with it that they do when someone don't come back."

He stayed crouched down as Wyatt moved, watching him quietly as he reached for the desk and pulled out the book. He took it when offered, frowning slightly as he opened it. I know it ain't what ya really want...

Farmland. The entire book was filled with pictures of farms in District 10, of endless rolling fields of wheat.

Of peace.

A sharp pang of guilt stabbed through his chest, but it wasn't for his lost family. It wasn't for his wife, or his son, or the ashen husk of their home. This was for Wyatt - only for Wyatt - who he'd made believe that he didn't want this. Who he'd somehow convinced that this wasn't what he wanted most in the world. (And that it was the wanting that was the problem.)

He knew what Wyatt meant. Knew the half joking hopes they had shared - a quiet farm in the country, a quiet peace. And he wanted it, more than he could ever say, and certainly a good deal more than he possibly should.

His fingers tightened around the book and his throat tightened in tandem, before he carefully closed its cover so that none of Wyatt's pictures would fall out.

Silently, he stood, and without letting go of the book reached his arms out around Wyatt to pull him into a hard and longing kiss. For all the words he couldn't say, he hoped this sufficed.

Wyatt wasn't sure what he should expect as the book flipped open, the pages turning gently beneath Max's fingers. He waited, silent, watching emotion flick across the man's face. Adam's Apple lurching hard when he stood.

"I ain't--" The explanation was there, the reaffirmation of his promise ready on his tongue... but then Max was reaching for him and the words died.

He'd prepared himself for hurt, anger, even to be pushed away again.... He had no defense against an embrace, against a kiss, warm and firm and tasting of all those things he told himself not to hope for.

His heart thumped, a twisting lurch in his chest, busting free of the fences he'd tried to wrangle it with, and Wyatt moved to meet him. His lips moving against Max's as his arms came up, closing the embrace around them.

"Max--" The rough, callused fingers of one hand slipped into his hair, the palm of his hand warm on the back of Max's neck. His forehead pressed against his as he dragged at a breath. "Max, I ain't askin' for nothin'. I jus' -- I can't go in there without..." One last hesitation as his eyes met Max's (that endless blue horizon). "I love you."

It wasn't a surprise. Not on any sort of level. He'd known - of course he'd known - even without thinking about it, without ever really considering it, he'd known. He'd known just as firmly as he knew that he loved Wyatt, with everything in him that he was almost just as certain he shouldn't be allowed to. (Shouldn't be allowed another life, when his family had only had one.)

He met Wyatt's eyes and the meaning shimmered there, reflected, but not a word left his lips - preoccupied, instead, with tipping forward and taking another kiss, firmer than the last and hungrier, as if everything in him was trying to burst forward from this point.

Didn't trust himself with words, not now. Not yet. Not until he could really mean it, fully and completely, and without a trace of guilt. Without looking, he set the book down at the table so that he could pull Wyatt into a firmer embrace.

It didn't matter that Max didn't say it back. Wyatt hadn't expected him to, and there, after it was said... he didn't need him to. Everything he needed was in the moment before their lips met. In the kiss that followed, that touch he felt all the way down his spine.

He'd told him the truth. Had shown Max his heart and the man hadn't turned away.

He didn't say it again, couldn't the way his mouth was preoccupied, moving against Max's, but he felt it there in his chest. A heat, pulsing beneath his ribs with every hard beat - the knowledge that he would go into the arena and that they could beat and burn him, break and bury him, but that the most important parts of him, his heart and his soul, would be here, with Max.

Love surged through him in a heated wave and he shifted, tipping his head to take the kiss deeper. His arms wound through Max's, pulled him closer until he feel him, chest to chest, hip to hip - molded together close enough that he could believe for a moment that nobody, not even the Capitol, would be able to come between them.

Maximus had always been a man of rigid dogma and firm faith. The fact was that both had been shaken - first by a man named Marcus Aurelius, asking him what he had really fought for, and now by a man named Wyatt Earp, who had destroyed the notion that he could never possibly live or love again. He never really thought about either - in his mind he was still firm and strong, still held the same beliefs despite the fact that really, they'd been utterly destroyed. It challenged him, constantly, laying there just under his consciousness, the truth that things never had been quite as black and white as he had thought them to be - that his idols and his gods were never quite as solid as he'd believed.

That he was fallible, and even worse - so were the ones he had once worshiped. His Emperor, his wife. His entire life had been built on worship, and though he still worshiped them in death (indeed had worshiped them ever the more fervently), life kept bringing back reminders that nothing was ever perfect. Not even beliefs.

And one belief, the one that had been the core of him since he had felt himself wither and die at the feet of his burning child, was crumbling.

I live only to hold you again, for all else is dust and air.

How could he possibly continue lying to himself that way? Wyatt's lips were warm and his pulse was strong and Maximus could feel his own pulse racing to match it, could feel the answering tide rising in him, easily, freely. Wyatt's touch was far from dust, far from ash, and maybe - just maybe - he could let himself want it.

Could let himself love, when he could hardly stop himself if he tried.

Wyatt couldn't say what tomorrow would bring. He might well die on the killing field of the Cornucopia and he might not come back. The odds, eight arenas in, were not in his favor.

Even if he lived, survived against everything, and came out with a crown upon his head... there was no promise of what the future would be. The rebellion might succeed or fall. The Games might end, or they might go on, an inescapable part of this world.

The only thing Wyatt knew for certain, without any question, was that he had this moment - this last small string heartbeats to call his own - and that he wanted to spend them loving the man in his arms.

Tomorrow he would fight for the chance for more - whatever they might hold - but tonight, now, he wanted to make the most of the ones he had.

His heart skipped, already kicking against his ribs in a heady race, but he willed his hands to slow, his lips to soften. Both to linger. To make every touch and every kiss last.

His hands were steady as the molded over Max's flanks, warm through the fabric of the simple tunic; his fingers purposeful as they worked at the leather of Max's belt. His lips worshiped, moving over the rough hair of Max's jaw and down to the heated skin of his throat - drawing in the taste of him in a slow memorization.

He felt the shift as clearly as if it had been his own - the kisses turning tender, the hands slowing. He understood it and answered in in kind, taking a long, lingering kiss as his own fingers moved to pull the fabric of Wyatt's shirt loose from his belt, to slowly work through the buttons.

Wyatt wanted to be loved, and that was not something difficult to give him.

His head tilted, neck arching to allow Wyatt's lips easier access, his fingers spreading against the man's chest as they worked the fabric from his shoulders.

Wyatt's eyes closed, wanting to lose himself in the other senses - touch and smell and taste. The leather coming loose beneath his fingers, the hollow lump of it as it fell to the floor. The chill, washing over his skin as his shirt was peeled away, the heat that replaced it - a slow wave under Max's fingers. The taste... an untamed wild made flesh, all salt and leather.

The sound of his own heart beating, a wild rush in his ears - the answering drum of Max's beneath his lips.

His shoulders rolled, easing the shirt over and down and finally off, and then his hands returned. Gathering up the fabric of Max's tunic, fingertips grazing across the man's thighs, over the dip of his hips. Just as slow, just as steady.

He was digging a well, building a library of memory to take with him.

Saying goodbye in the only way he could.

His blood pumped, throbbing through him to match Wyatt's fingertips, pooling in his groin the closer the man's fingers trailed up. He moved to help, grasping the edge of his tunic and pulling it up over his head before leaning in to take a slow, longing kiss, ever word he could possibly say and quite a few more poured into it.

It wasn't goodbye, however.

Because if Wyatt was going to his death, nothing would keep Maximus in this world for much longer.

(Just long enough to watch the world burn.)

He worshiped Max's lips with his own, kisses melting together as his hands skimmed over heated flesh. Roaming cross the plains of Max's back and dipping into the valley of his spine, fingertips kneading hard muscle. Reveling in the flex and play beneath beneath his touch.

"Max..."

He nipped lightly at the man's lip, soothed it away with another lingering kiss as his fingers curled into the small catch of fabric stretched over Max's hips. Tugging, as he took a small step back, and another, until the backs of his knees hit the bed. He sank onto the edge of the mattress, lips moving down Max's chest, over his stomach.

Teeth grazing his hip as he pulled the last barrier away. Pushed it down along Max's legs.

Maximus came down above him, bracing himself with both arms, hands gripping into the sheets next to each of Wyatt's shoulders. He couldn't help the incredibly fond smile as he kicked off the last fabric on himself. He shifted his weight to one arm, raising his hand to grasp Wyatt's chin and turn it up towards him, leaning down to take a long, loving kiss.

Only then did he let his fingers finally stray to Wyatt's belt and pull it free.

"I'm here, Wyatt," He murmured huskily as he went to work on the rest.

Wyatt's response was another kiss. His shoulders lifting off the bed enough to meet Max's lips again - the only answer he had voice enough to give. Everything he couldn't quite say in the heated press of his lips and the flex of his fingers, tightening. The desperate edge showing through even as he tried to stay steady, to stay slow and easy.

(As if the dawn wasn't coming. As if he could live here, in this moment, for the rest of his days.

He would, if he could.)

His back arched, hips twisting to help Max's hands as they wrangled with what remained of his clothes. His lips worked over Max's face - slipping over the hard line of his cheekbone, down along the curve of his jaw - hot, open-mouth kisses, tasting as he roamed. As his arms slipped around him and guided Max's heated body down to his own.

Maximus slid into place, and so did the world. In these moments it was painfully obvious how much he needed and adored Wyatt, though these weren't the only moments. Another might be forgiven for thinking that it was lust that turned his thoughts, but it wasn't. It was love that gave him the lust - the utter need to be as close to Wyatt's skin as was humanly possible.

That deep, aching desire to be complete that only Wyatt fulfilled.

He groaned, lowly, his mind following the warm trail of Wyatt's lips even as it was distracted by the aching need as he slowly began to rock his hips against Wyatt's, ducking his head down for his lips and teeth to find the man's shoulder.

Max slipped into Wyatt's arms and for a moment, nothing else mattered. Not the Capitol waiting just outside the door, not the looming arena, not even the wild race of his own heart - making demands of his body.

Everything he truly needed, he had.

He pressed his lips to burning column of Max's throat, taste and scent and the feel of his pulse drumming against his mouth, and wanted for nothing. The weight of death and despair lifted from his shoulders, the hollow in his chest warm and full - in that moment, he was whole.

Then, there a flash of heat, like a bolt of lightning, arching from Max's mouth at his shoulder - that small bite of pain - down his spine to his groin, and a hot stab of need spiked in his gut. His hips lifted to find the cradle of Max's, meeting the rhythm in a hard flex of muscle, his thigh squeezing against the other man's.

His love and his lust, both were Max's.

Unexpected, unimaginable... everything he wanted and needed.

His arms coiled around him. His knee pressed against his hip. And he shifted, rolling them together, opening the expense of Max's chest to his lips.

It was somewhat amazing, how effectively his mind could shut down the outside world in these moments - could shut down even the voices of his own mind, save one. Save the one that worshiped Wyatt in incoherent whispers, half in Latin and half in English, mumbled on his tongue.

Wyatt rolled him and his back hit the sheets, his leg still locked around Wyatt's as he rolled his hip up to meet him. He barely had the imagination for what he wanted, vague tumblings with pinpricks of heated lust in his mind.

He murmured Wyatt's name as the man pressed lips to his chest, his hand coming up to lace his fingers through Wyatt's short cropped hair.

Their hips met, a hard press of heated flesh, and a groan broke through the quiet. A heavy rasp buried in Max's skin as Wyatt's hips flexed, a helpless thrust. His fingers bit down, his teeth grazed - his heart thundered like a runaway train in his chest.

It was too much. It wasn't enough.

Never enough.

He braced himself on one wide, damp palm, fingers winding in his sheet beside Max. The other sought out, molding over his hip, played against his thigh, and gently worked himself enough to keep moving. To run his lips over Max one slow, agonizing inch at a time.

Over and back along the curve of his ribs. Down over the hard muscle of his stomach, clenching and flexing beneath his mouth.

Maximus let out a low satisfied groan as Wyatt's body slipped down his, his hips twisting uselessly to recover that heated friction, before getting lost again in the gentle scrape of Wyatt's mustache over his skin, in the purposeful march south.

His heart thumped, heavily, as he finally took Wyatt's intention and the groan he let out then was much more longing, a hand coming up to run fingers through Wyatt's short-cropped hair, to knead into his scalp.

He murmured his name as he pulled himself up, half propped on an elbow.

He hadn't planned it. It wasn't an act he'd ever imagined taking part in or even wanting to, but there with the salt of Max's skin on his tongue and that rumbling groan echoing in his ears like the thunderous roll of a growing storm (surging in his blood) he could think of nothing else.

He wanted to give - wanted to take.

Eyes dark with desire, he looked up as Max shifted, gazes tangling. Holding steady as his lips continued their slow journey, following the hard ridge of a scar down to the vee of Max's hips.

Unversed, to say the least, the first touch of his mouth was careful - an exploring brush along the heated length.

His breath caught, hard in his lungs, until he forced it to be released. He didn't realise how hard his heart could hammer until that moment, slamming into his ribs with an unrelenting force, the anticipation almost painful.

"Wyatt--" He murmured again, and he couldn't tell if the next words waiting at his lips were a plea for the man to continue or a reassurance that he didn't have to. In the end it didn't matter, he couldn't voice either of them.

He paused, lips still as he watched Max's face. It wasn't as if he ever done this before so he wasn't sure at first if that sharp breath was one of protest or pleasure... but the man's face didn't read as pain to him, and that low rumble certainly didn't make it sound like Max wanted him to stop.

His mustache twitched, the briefest edge of a smile, and he moved under Max's hands. His head pressing against Max's knuckles as he lifted and opened his mouth.

Tasted him with a curious curl of his tongue.

Maximus cursed, the words disappearing into a low and desperate groan, as his fingers curling in Wyatt's hair and digging into his scalp.

No. No, he most certainly didn't want to stop.

His muscles flexed and tensed and twitched - every ounce of him taut with anticipation, forcing himself to keep his hips still rather than press up to that delicious hint of wet warmth.

That was all the encouragement Wyatt needed. The thick, barking Latin, the pull on his hair -- his own hips jerked, a desperate roll against Max's calf, and his lips parted further.

His mustache brushed, his tongue curled, and Heat meeting heat as he drew Max into his mouth. As he tried to drag more from him.

Another groan, another hard pull... some part of Wyatt - some old, wild part him - wanted feel Max come apart. Wanted to push him over the edge.

Wanted to know he'd brought him pleasure.

That Wyatt brought him pleasure was plain simple fact - irrefutable and almost completely constant.

That he was currently bringing him an incredibly intense pleasure was not only fact, it was obvious - his entire body straining and twisting in Wyatt's hands, under the pressure of his lips.

His own lips fell open in a wordless moan, his blood racing through his veins and thundering in his ears. "Gods, Wyatt--" He cursed lowly, struggling to keep his own pleasure in check. "If you keep--"

If. As if there was any chance that this wasn't exactly what Wyatt was gunning for. As if he had intention of stopping.

Every twist and buck, every pant and groan echoed inside him - a hot rush in his veins, a hard twist in his gut, a tingle and twitch in his groin. Max's pleasure a large part of his own.

The only question was how to give him more.

Following instinct, more than design, it took him a moment to remember that he still had a free hand, but once he did, he was quick to put to use.

Maximus was nearly beside himself already, and when Wyatt's calloused fingers were added into the mix, it was impossible to keep himself from careening over the edge. With a deep shudder, a tight grip, and a groan that was half a curse, half an apology, half a plea, he was gone - lost in a blinding white haze of pleasure, his entire world the wet warmth of Wyatt's mouth, the rough pull of his fingers.

If there was something more erotic that a man could do or see or feel, Wyatt was a loss to think of any. He felt Max's release as fiercely as if it had been his own. The hard twist in the man's body, the muscles lurching beneath the skin - against his own; the rough, barking words as sweet as any endearment he'd ever heard.

The taste of him - salt, and earth, leather and steel. The smell, like a wild wind moments before the storm.

Wyatt rode the crest with him, along the arching strike of lightning, swallowing thickly. His lips loosing their hungry edge, turning soft as they played over Max's stomach in the aftermath, guiding him slowly back to Wyatt's arms.

Maximus was utterly spent, half collapsing into Wyatt's embrace, floating on a hazy cloud of pleasure as his lips sought Wyatt's, and missed. Peppering clumsy kisses around his chin and jaw and throat instead.

He was completely done, but Wyatt wasn't, and despite the warm exhaustion settling into his bones, he was going to reciprocate as fully as he possibly could.

"Lie down," He murmured against Wyatt's lips as he finally found them, taking them into a deep kiss.

His body was still hard and aching, but Wyatt's heart was full. A warmth balled up in his chest; enough, maybe, to live on in the arena. To see him through whatever would come, whatever end he might meet.

He would have been content with that - just to lay there in the hours he had left, warm with Max - but whatever words he might have said, the promises he'd have made assuring Max that he didn't need anything more, died in the kiss. The firm press of Max's lips against his own shuddered through him, a hungry, eager flutter of muscle and his good intentions slipped through his fingers like so much water.

"...Max," Wyatt rumbled, nipping at Max's lip, at his chin, as he leaned back and turned onto his shoulder, following the low order blindly.

He pressed Wyatt down into the sheets with that hard kiss, sliding himself up to straddle Wyatt's hips as his lips found purchase across Wyatt's jaw, down his throat.

He wasn't about to leave such a debt unpaid.

He shifted downward, sliding himself along Wyatt's body as his lips trailed south.

As he made his intended destination incredibly clear.

Wyatt shifted beneath him, hungry and eager. Restless and aching. His back arched to meet those lips, the rough scratch of the beard, heart surging into a frantic pace as both dragged lower. His hands groped across the wide plains of Max's back and found purchase in the short crop of hair, damp now against his palms.

He held to Max like a man drowning, for that's what he was. Heat and pleasure buffeting waves. The feel of Max's mouth on him, his body against his own, the wild tumbling of his own mind, the sharp edge of anticipation, all dragging him deeper.

"Max, I--" He meant to warn him, to tell him own close he already played the edge of his strength - the very edge of reason, but he couldn't get the words out. The very sight of it robbing him of his voice. Of his very breath.

Despite Wyatt's grip, despite his breathlessly plea (warning?), Maximus continued on, steadfast and sure. He'd never actually done this before, but it seemed straightforward enough and he had no qualms - so as he got lower, his hand slipped between Wyatt's legs to take him firmly into grip, his lips trailing down until he could press them against heated flesh.

Until he could pull the whole length of it into his mouth.

"Son of a bitch."

Later, if asked, Wyatt honestly wouldn't be able to remember the curse that ripped up through his throat. A spit of gravel and grit. Words that nearly strangled him as everything in him slammed to a hard stop.

Everything he was ceasing, existing in that moment only for the heat of Max's mouth. The scratch of his beard, the grip of his hand, the graze of his teeth.

In that moment, he knew suddenly why they called it a sin. A man wasn't supposed to glimpse Heaven outside of God's embrace.

The curse made Maximus chuckle, a rumble deep in his throat that vibrated through his lips as he worked, slowly but methodically worshipping Wyatt. He was far from adept at this particular occupation - hardly experienced - but if love could grant ability it did so now to its best, lavishing everything he could onto Wyatt, trying to grant him the pleasure that the man had already granted him.

It didn't take much, Wyatt already so near the peak after leading Max along. Already straining, already weakened, the rumble of Max's throaty laugh hummed along his skin and sweet stab of pleasure punched low in his gut and took the last of his will with it. The swollen tide of lust and love sweeping over the dam and dragging him under.

He stiffed, a hard, fast jerk of muscle and choked out a one last low, strangled word - more sound than speech, Max's name mangled between his teeth - and released. Hands clamped on Max, fingers fisted in the short, damp crop of hair, he rode out the hot, wet rush - wondering with his last conscious thought if it was possible to know death this sweet.

Thinking he would more than content if it was so.

It was completely surprising, though it shouldn't have been. The sudden rush of Wyatt's pleasure and he barely knew what to do with it other than swallow it down, pulling back to gasp for breath.

He chuckled, again, lowly, as he ran the back of his hand along his lips - nothing but relief and contentment in the sound, before he leaned down and pressed a clumsy kiss to Wyatt's hip. It seemed even without experience he'd managed to do well, and that was all he could ask for.

To do well by Wyatt.

For a moment, one breathless, heart-stopping moment, Wyatt was pretty damn certain he'd died - pleasure and lust and love to much for his old heart to take - but then his body started to come back to him, one slow sense at a time. The feel of Max's damp skin against his own, the weight of him, heavy, but satisfying. The sound of his own breath, a pant in his ears; the rough rumble of Max's laugh. Sight, the blue of the ceiling, the blue of Max's eyes.

And finally taste, rich and warm, as he dragged the man weakly back to him. Finding that mouth in a lazy kiss.

(One more, he told himself.

One more, he lied.)

He took and gave the kiss easily, completely, for once his mind completely clear of any guilt or concern. All he had was the warm contentment that filled him, utterly and truly at peace.

When he pulled away to breath it was only for a moment - then he returned to Wyatt's lips and kissed him deeply, just to prove that he would have whether the man had pulled him there or not.

The arena was hours away and there was no escaping the fact that he'd have to go and face the music, but there, just then, it felt miles away. That moment, with their lips pressed together - and then their foreheads as they both dragged for breath, the feel of it, all Wyatt had room for.

That warm, steady heat - the love, the happiness - in him, given to him by the man in his arms, more than enough to ward off the rest.

Another kiss, slow and soft, and Wyatt shifted, enough to make room beside him. The one hand slipping off Max to reach for the sheet.

Offering without prompting.

Silently, he let Wyatt pull the sheet back before he slid in next to him, a ruddy coloured arm sliding around the man and pulling him close, pressing a warm kiss to the side of the man's jaw. Completely exhausted, and more than content to stay the night.

When they came to take Wyatt away in the morning, they had to get through him first.

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