Break My Heart

by becausethathappens

Summary:

Link has an extremely vivid nightmare about Rhett.

Notes:

This deals heavily in themes of loss and grief. Please take care to heed the warnings if you choose to read it.

Thank you to the anonymous messenger that told me to do as the title reads, way back when, and has potentially waited this long to read it. I had a hard time going back to this too frequently, as you'll understand. I got carried away trying to fulfill the request so that it still fits within the scope of my "no unhappy endings" personal rule. Hopefully this is in the realm of what you meant!

Also thanks to @apparentlynotreallyfinnish for encouraging me to revisit and post this. 🖤

This was written in July of 2021, so any incongruity in the background events that I've missed in edits has that to blame.

‡

 

A tire swing is added along one of the embankments where Rhett and Link entered into the swift waters of the Cape Fear River, most often, back when they were kids.

 

It's made of strong corded rope, the kind someone stole from their parents’ shed, and looped around the never used rubber circle twice-over. It disappears up into the huge old oak that had roots in the ground older than entire neighborhoods within a good distance.

 

The small inlet it’s placed at recedes further into ground above it — an old tobacco farm — every year. 

 

Rhett loves to holler when they get to the right parcel of land. He'll sniff the air and yell out, “Mr. Cranville’s brand!” in honor of their late middle school math teacher.

 

The way in is deep into the acreage of the farm, off the main road, but perfectly far enough to stow bikes out of sight and enter the river unimpeded, for hours on end. 

 

Once the tire swing is put in, more people show up at their place for a while, which is annoying. But before long, it’s back to being merely an eyesore, in their view, as they go less often and run into fewer interlopers. 

 

It’s about the most low-tech enhancement you can ask for that still has them bemoaning change. 

 

After some years pass, however, they regret their initial resistance. Eventually, it becomes downright helpful. 

 

As they return to the river with friends, family, and everyone in between, it’s easier to figure out the safe place to jump in and cross. Thanks solely to one or the other remarking “there’s that damned tire swing they added, few years back,” every time.

 

When they show the crew that, back when they took them out, someone pointed out that the entire brand manufacturer went under, decades ago. 

 

Link remembers barking out a laugh and holding his hips, feeling vintage instead of seeking it out, for a change.

 

They’ve entered and exited the river on mortal terms, more than once, and they both now consider it dangerous to swim without knowing your way out.

 

They never underestimate the pull of the current, after those experiences, and tended to look for the tire swing when they’re heading to shore, on instinct, anymore.

 

It’s a lifesaver, if nothing else, and those aren't easy to come by these days.

 

‡

 

Link startles alert in bed, but he remains still where he’s laying.

 

His mind is still on the image of the swing. It feels like he’s surfacing after a long swim and he’s been looking for land.

 

He feels things attached to his body, to his nose, to his arms — like licks of water trying to pull him back under an unseen surface. He fights the urge to shake his body free of it.

 

Instead, even though he can’t seem to open his eyes to confirm it, he knows they’re hospital wires when he runs one free hand up and down to confirm at least one feels hooked in at his wrist.

 

He’s had this happen before and tries to stave off the terror building inside. If he moves too quickly it could end up snagging the wrong thing and chaos might ensue. Link hates that kind of chaos.

 

He’s in a hospital, but he doesn’t know why.

 

This old game.

 

“Rhett?” he asks, voice hoarse.

 

Maybe there’s other names he can call out — should call out — but he goes with who he knows will be there. No matter what year it is, no matter what state, or whatever they got into.

 

There’s silence for a while as Link tries to blink himself awake.

 

He’s still feeling like his eyes are closed but his other senses help him take in the room.

 

He hears nothing besides the steady beeping of the machines monitoring his vitals. 

 

Then there’s breathing, steady breathing, and he knows it’s Christy sleeping in the chair to his right. Her hand is still in his when he moves to reach for her, he feels it, rubs his thumb over it.

 

Right before he starts to say something more, he hears the soft steps of another person entering, and a voice that can only be described as awestruck greet him.

 

“Link.”

 

“Rhett.” 

 

“Yeah, buddy. I’m here with you,” Rhett says, even softer. 

 

He abandons the things in his hands and they clatter to the floor with a soft THWUMP. 

 

Link still can’t see, but he can picture Rhett dropping a teddy bear gripping a plastic balloon from the gift shop or a couple spare cups of applesauce he sweet talked away from a charge nurse on duty, for Christy (it’s her favorite).

 

“What’s going on?” Link asks, meekly. He’s always scared to ask this from a hospital bed, trussed up, and clueless.

 

There’s an epoch of silence that makes Link feel scared on a level he’s never felt. 

 

Or hasn’t felt for a long time. 

 

It sounds like Rhett has to do it again. Confront that he’s dying — almost died — the mortality of it.

 

He hears it in the ragged intake of air, over and over, working up to speaking again. 

 

It’s a dialect in his breathing Link realizes he’s only heard scant few times.

 

He doesn’t want to have to hear him go through that again.

 

Link can’t stand it, picturing Rhett trying to come up with something to comfort him and failing.

 

He’s always able to talk and to fill space. 

 

Link lets the seriousness wash over him.

 

Finally, Rhett’s voice is found and it’s already tight with fear and pain. Whatever he tries to say comes out in a squeak first.

 

Link wants to reach out and grab him, but the cords on him make that feel unwise.

 

“Rhett?” his own voice sounds childlike to his ears, suddenly, but he can’t help it.

 

He didn’t even want to repeat himself, necessarily, but his body's stubborn. 

 

He breathes Rhett’s name like a prayer, the only kind he still gives any credence towards, and begs him to reply.

 

Unlike so many he's called on, Rhett answers. He always does.

 

“Y-You,” Rhett begins, voice hoarse with emotion. It’s bad, it’s real bad. Link’s mind translates the underlying reality.

 

Link can feel the pain settle back into his bones. He doesn’t hurt or ache anywhere, internally. He’s probably chock full of meds to avoid that, but hearing Rhett in pain is doing a fine job of making him think he can. He winces.

 

“It’s — " Rhett struggles to go on. He clears his throat. “You had a massive — m-massive — your heart,” he stutters out. “Is — it couldn’t —”

 

Link knows Rhett enough to know he has been hanging on every word the doctors have told him and probably also can go into detail about what WebMD forums further explained their options were. But, the fact that he can’t put it to words feels deadly ominous and a new pain starts to settle into Link’s weakened body.

 

Regret.

 

He’s asking Rhett to relive the most painful thing that's ever happened to them both and it’s killing him faster to hear it done.

 

“Rhett, it’s okay. It's —" Link struggles to reach out in the darkness. He can feel the lights behind his closed eyes, but he still doesn’t see full shapes or people or anything.

 

His hand only lifts for a second before he feels Rhett’s massive, clammy palm take his.

 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Link says, holding his hand.

 

Rhett squeezes his hand. From the way it sways to the left and right, he can tell Rhett is shaking his head in disagreement. 

 

“No,” Rhett finally adds to his movements, sounding like he’s on the edge of hysterics. 

 

Link feels warm droplets of tears hit his hand when he realizes maybe Rhett’s already there.

 

“It’s — the way they were — they thought you were already — but I knew, I knew you wouldn’t. You’d come back, you’d — you’d h-have to say,” Rhett rambles on, tears clearly evident in his voice. Link starts crying and finally turns his head towards where he knows Rhett’s standing above him.

 

Through his own tears that have collected heavy enough to stream down his cheeks, he realizes he can almost make out Rhett’s face. Or his mind is playing tricks on him.

 

“I-I know you miss ‘em and you’re probably ready, but I’m,” Rhett says taking a massively deep breath to steady himself. His voice pitches high into another squeaky, wet whimper. “I’m not.”

 

“Well, I’m not eager,” Link says, as he breathes out what sounds close to a laugh, determined to joke up ‘til the end. His voice is so soft, it sounds like he’s slurring.

 

“Please,” Rhett says, holding his hand tighter to his chest and leaning down so that Link is close. They’re breathing the same warm air and Link is nearly sure he can see Rhett’s eyes, finally, full of tears, and terrified. 

 

It sends a bolt of fear through him: this is it. It feels final and he understands the emotions better that are devastating his friend. He wants so badly to end his pain, but he knows that anything he does right now can likely only serve to exacerbate it.

 

He only grips Rhett’s hand harder and squeezes back.

 

“Link,” Rhett says, finally bawling. He seems absolutely wrecked, suddenly, like he’s somehow been keeping it together while crying before. This is a different sound. 

 

It’s like a wounded animal crying out, a caterwaul, like a sharp wind whipping through an empty home. It’s a nightmare of a sound — something haunted and ugly and broken. Link’s heart thumps in his chest and he feels as though, from the reaction Rhett’s having, maybe he should start counting the beats.

 

There is bound to be a limited number of them left.

 

“It’s okay,” Link repeats.

 

“No, it ain’t,” Rhett says, barking out over another sob.

 

“It’s gonna be,” Link says, to himself, and to the room. He won’t lie to Rhett directly.

 

“No,” Rhett says, softly, shaking his head.

 

“Rhett,” he begs.

 

“Don’t leave me, you said you’d never, you swore we’d never — please. No,” Rhett sobs.

 

“Rhett,” Link says, his body feels like it’s lifting from the bed.

 

Rhett’s leaning over him so heavily that he feels where the larger man must have sunk to his knees to the floor and is still tall enough to drape his body and hold his hand where it lays on the hospital bed. Rhett’s curls are soft as Link gently pulls his other hand, sets Christy’s down on his kneecap, and touches his head.

 

Rhett’s got his face pressed to Link’s side and Link isn’t sure what he meant by ‘miss ‘em' but it feels like there’s more that he’s not aware of that’s going on right now and he feels so incredibly tired all of a sudden.

 

He pats Rhett’s head again and squeezes his hand harder.

 

“Link,” Rhett cries out, harsher, his voice stabbing Link like a knife, with pain and anguish.

 

His body grows even more tired and his hand feels like it’s slipping from Rhett’s before he can prevent it.

 

Rhett clasps it tighter, enough so that Link should probably flinch in pain, but he doesn’t. He sighs out an exhausted half-sob of his own. His body can’t muster much more.

 

“Rhett,” he repeats, even softer.

 

“DON'T — Link, don’t!” Rhett screams. It wakes Christy from her slumber, Link thinks, hearing something to his right. He can’t look away from where he’s still trying to hold on to the distant, spotty vision of Rhett’s eyes.

 

Rhett’s looking up at him, absolutely wracked with sorrow in a way Link has only seen forsake his posture beside deathbeds, car crashes, or funerals.

 

Unchecked anger swirls — at the universe, at god, at whatever he sees fit to blame. The heat behind them is like a pyre and Rhett lets out a matching wail.

 

“Link!” he screeches again.

 

“Rhett, calm down, Rhett,” Link hears Christy shout and try to extricate their hands, as though Rhett is hurting him, but Link grips harder. “Rhett?!”

 

“He’s — he’s — Link,” Rhett is muttering nonsense and Link can feel Christy’s hand instead settle on both theirs. Everything slows down to a standstill.

 

“Please,” Rhett begs, “Don’t leave me.”

 

“Us,” Christy corrects, rubbing their hands, trying so hard to comfort them both even while she herself also suffers. Link’s heart breaks again, hearing her try to sniff at her own tears to clear her voice. “Don’t leave us.”

 

Link still can’t see, but he can practically feel Rhett turn to look at her.

 

Link can feel Rhett shake his head. 

 

“Don’t leave me.”

 

Christy hiccups a tearful breath. “Rhett,” she warns.

 

“Don’t say it,” Rhett stammers, voice wet with spit and tears combined.

 

“Rhett, what’re you — wh-what,” Christy calls over at where he braces himself, unable to follow.

 

“We said never,” Rhett admonishes, hysterical, breathing in harsh pants. His face is so red and wet, he looks decades younger from the way it paints his features.

 

Christy doesn’t seem to catch on to his meaning and instead leans over to run her hands across Link’s face. She touches the edges of his jaw to feel his breathing rattle slow and shrieks when she sees his hand finally slip from Rhett’s.

 

Link can just make out where their fingertips still graze, his and Rhett’s, one against the other, and he tries to smile.

 

“Rhett!” Christy cries out. “Rhett, oh, God, he’s — oh, god, oh, god, oh, god — he’s,” she grabs Link’s hand and Link feels it limply fall back atop where Rhett’s has fallen below it since he can't form a grip.

 

“Oh, my god, NURSE!” she screams at the door beyond.

 

There’s a flurry of movement while Christy screams for someone again. 

 

“Rhett, get the nurse — Rhett, get a nurse!” Christy shouts again at Rhett’s exhausted frame. 

 

She’s rubbing Link’s hand and it’s all he can do not to squeeze it, but he’s so tired. Everything seems so far away. Like a picture hung on a far wall of a black box theater.

 

If he were in the audience to see it, he’d ask for his money back.

 

“Rhett,” she begs, but when she moves over to shake Rhett into action, a worse sound escapes her mouth. It’s a moan that forms around another, compounding terror. Like a dark-suited pair splitting the river, wild. “Rhett?!”

 

Link is fast fading, but when he looks over to see what Christy’s upset about, he’s confused. He’d swear he could still see Rhett staring up at him, waiting, right by his side. Same as always.

 

Everything feels warm and although Rhett doesn’t say anything more, the room lights up when he smiles.

 

“Goodbye,” Link concludes. 

 

Rhett shakes his head again and grins.

 

“Link. Oh, my god, somebody!” Christy shrieks for help. 

 

But they’re already gone.

 

“Link! Wake up, oh my god. Wake up, wake up, wake up!” Christy screams.

 

‡

 

Rhett sits upright in bed already nearly fully awake.

 

He doesn’t startle when he’s in a deep sleep, too often, especially at his age, so it only takes a second to realize his phone is ringing even though it’s on vibrate.

 

The noise sounds like a power drill to his side table.

 

Jessie is wiggling to his left side knocking a hand out to grab for his face. She winds up hitting his abandoned pillow. She lifts it and shoves it towards his general direction.

 

“Too early,” she says, in a grumble.

 

“Hey,” Rhett answers the phone. He walks as quietly as he can into the bathroom, so as not to disturb Jessie further.

 

It’s Link calling this late. He doesn’t even need to glance at the phone to know, it’s a hunch, and he’s right when he hears his friend’s noisy breathing on the other line. 

 

There’s no answer at first, only frantic yowls and sniffling. He’s still crying.

 

Rhett feels even more awake. “What’s wrong? Everyone okay?”

 

Rhett steels himself for horrible news, but Link does his best to let him off the hook.

 

“Y’— ah, h-hhh,” he gets out above the crying. Negative on anyone dying, Rhett assumes. Unsure about the okay part. “Oh, your voice, I had to hear — I-I,” he begins to try to form a full sentence but recalling the cause that set him off resurfaces the same emotions all over again. He hiccups throughout his attempt to speak so deeply that it sounds like a gasp combined with a sigh.

 

Link’s voice breaks when he tries again to speak and the sound of the sob he lets out when he clearly gives up aiming to articulate at all nearly guts Rhett.

 

Rhett’s knees crack as he braces himself on the bathroom sink to keep from swaying, using his free arm, the one not holding the phone. The wave of empathy he feels almost knocks him over.

 

“Hey, I’m here. It’s okay,” Rhett says, softly, trying to outwait the panicked cries.

 

It doesn’t let up.

“Link, it’s gonna be okay. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere,” Rhett continues. He’s trying to get him cogent enough to try a deep breathing exercise or to talk about it more. So he can help.

 

This is the wrong thing for him to have said, he realizes, as the cries increase in noise and pitch.

 

Rhett’s heart aches at what could possibly be upsetting him like this. Something that isn’t to do with someone being hurt. The only time he’s seen Link this upset is when the stakes are too great and he’s feeling like everything is crumbling around them, but they’re doing good and — again, no one’s hurt.

 

“I-Is it, did you hear something bad? Something I don’t know about?” Rhett tries to help him talk through the stress.

 

Link makes an appreciative sound, but only tuts another muffled, negative sound.

 

“Nh-hh, hh, hh. Y-You know all ‘bout, that-thi-hh,” breaks through Link’s incoherence, his mouth so used to reciting full sentences without thinking that he manages to speak part of it as if by accident. 

 

Then, it’s right back to crying when he considers again what he’s referring to, but it’s a softer, pervasive sniffling. Soon, he’s almost calmed, but not quite.

 

Rhett wracks his head to think of what he’s known all about that would cause him to call someone crying in the middle of the night.

 

“Nightmare?” Rhett asks, his voice trained to be as smooth as possible.

 

Link still struggles to articulate more than a singular positive hum.

 

“Was it — h-how bad?”

 

Rhett doesn’t want to think back to which of his recurring nightmares woke him up like this. He wants to keep it together for Link on the phone. They had him similarly shaken every time and even recalling them briefly made his stomach turn.

 

A lot of Link’s composure clicks into place.

 

Link hasn’t come up with an answer. He hiccups while trying to further steady his breathing. 

 

“I’m coming over,” Rhett says, abruptly.

 

He hasn’t even thought it over, but not seeing Link’s face and knowing he’s this upset is not a recipe for him going back to bed very easily anyhow. Especially not given the slew of memories this has stirred up about his own horrible nightmares.

 

“N-nhh. Y’don’t,” Link starts, but Rhett’s not even listening to the protest. He’ll show up and just check he’s okay through a closed window, if he has to, from the way he still sounds broken up over the nightmare.

 

“Yeah, I do. ‘Sides, only gotta get shirt and shoes,” Rhett says. It’s chilly with the A/C on higher in the summer so he slept in light sweats. 

 

He’ll grab a shirt in a second, too, but it’ll take only a couple minutes to go over there and hug Link and tell him it’s okay. It will be well worth it.

 

“Be right over, ‘s it okay if I hang up and skedaddle? It’ll be faster. Give you a minute to take a breath. Get some water.”

 

“Y-Yeah.” 

 

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

 

“Okay, yeah,” Link says, his voice sounds almost steady already, but still tight.

 

Rhett rushes back through his bedroom to get a shirt and shoes as swiftly and quietly as possible. Jessie appears to have fallen back into slumber. Just when he thinks he’s cleared the room without perturbing her, she startles and groans again.

 

Launching up to rest half on all fours, like a displeased cat, she arches her neck back to him, stopping him in his tracks. Her hands are stilled under the pillow she’s been face down on. 

 

“Are you going out?” she asks, confused. 

 

“Link had a nightmare,” Rhett explains.

 

She sighs. “Pretty big to-do just to get you to tuck him in and give him a g’night kiss, huh? What time is it?”

 

Rhett bristles and she senses it. “It’s, uh, it’s about one, but it’s no bother. Sorry I woke ‘ya.”

 

His careful tone sets her further awake and she leans down on one arm while still keeping her neck turned to look at Rhett.

 

“Is it bad or something? Everything okay?”

 

Rhett is thrown, since he’s not sure himself. “He was crying real hard. Haven’t heard him sound like that in years, sorry. I’m a little shook up.”

 

Jessie shakes herself even more awake. 

 

“Is it — is everyone okay?”

 

“Yeah. He says so, at least,” Rhett explains. “I think it was just a real bad dream. Nightmares, you know. You remember how mine got.”

 

Jessie nods. She’s no stranger to the same kind of late night compassion when Rhett has had similar panic-fueled wake-ups that send his mind for a trip.

 

“Yeah, I do.”

 

They share a look and Rhett’s eyes fall to the ground. They went over a lot of this in therapy separately, then together, and it’s all rushing back up to choke him. 

 

It feels like progress that they can acknowledge that time without both breaking down.

 

It’s haunted Rhett for a long time and the meditation he’s done to resolve the insomnia that once gripped him over it usually acts as a shield against it. Something he’s gotta pass on to Link, now, too.

 

He only hopes it’s not anything like what he dealt with, for Link’s sake.

 

“I’ll just be a minute,” Rhett says, not sure why. It feels very dramatic to be doing this, all of a sudden.

 

Jessie shoots him a look and frowns.

 

“Okay, maybe two.”

 

“Rhett, tell him about your nightmares,” Jessie says, softly. Her voice is sleepy, but she’s firm. “I think he’ll be glad you can relate.”

 

“I don’t wanna freak him out any more than — " Rhett starts to say, but he sighs. There’s no fight in him when Jessie turns, sits upright, and continues to frown with purpose. 

 

Rhett nods. 

 

“Give him my love, too,” Jessie says, her eyes refocusing on the door behind where Rhett is finishing slipping his sneakers on.

 

“Always do,” Rhett says, trying to sound cheery.

 

“I’m serious," Jessie responds, pulling her knees close, under the covers, and wrapping her arms interlocked around them. “Stay there as long as you need to to talk it out. Let him know you’re not going anywhere. Neither of us are. You know that. Make sure he does.”

 

Rhett holds his left arm to his side with one hand. He rubs the skin there, thinking back to those nights.

 

He knows Jessie’s words are true, but sometimes it still feels like he’s not fully accepted it himself. He worries for just a second if he’s not strong enough to be there for Link, if he’s proven no expert in fixing this fully for himself, but he pushes that aside. He steels his nerves back up thinking of how desperate Link’s voice sounded.

 

He has to try.

 

“Love you,” he says, eyes drawn up finally to where Jessie sits, in a pool of twisted sheets, holding a smile.

 

“Love you back,” she says, sounding sleepy again. 

 

He smiles, too, and watches her flop backwards into their bed.

 

Time to go.

 

‡

 

Rhett arrives at the Neal house shortly thereafter. 

 

He shuts his car door softly but it still echoes like a shot through the dark residential street. He hopes it doesn't wake anyone.

 

The lights in the house are all off and Rhett goes with the instinct, given the warmth of the night, and walks into Link's backyard.

 

He hears Link before he sees him. A soft sigh echoes from the corner near the glass slider. 

 

Rhett is sure to latch the gate slowly so that if Link hears the intrusion, he isn’t startled.

 

When Rhett tears his gaze from where Link’s at, he also takes a second to stare at the reflection of the mostly cloud-obscured moon in the pool to the left of them both.

 

“Hey,” Rhett says in a whisper.

 

He’s not sure how raw Link is since he doesn’t appear to still be crying, but the way he holds himself makes it clear he’s maybe not fully recovered from it. His arms loosen from the tight cross-body grip instinctively and Rhett knows he’s looking for a hug.

 

Normally, they’re both the type to try and limit the touchy-feely stuff to when necessary, to spare the awkward bits, but sometimes people just need a hug. He can see that. He crosses the remaining distance and scoops Link up, one arm under each of his, until his large form is draped over his friend’s torso like a heavy blanket.

 

“Sorry you had to go through that. Whatever happened,” Rhett starts to say and he can hear Link already sniffing back more emotion.

 

“Sorry you had to come all the way over here f-for a nightmare, like I’m some kinda toddler,” Link says to Rhett’s large shoulder where it bumps against his nose.

 

“Link, you know that’s not — I’ll always be here for you, you gotta know that by now,” Rhett says and he can’t help rubbing Link’s shoulder blades, to additionally soothe him.

 

Link gulps a heavy breath. “Y-Yeah, that’s, uh,” Link stammers and his eyes look like they’re stinging again with fresh tears. “That’s kinda what set it —” Link continues until the tears win and he breaks down again, latching onto Rhett’s form.

 

He makes a noise halfway between a gasp and a sigh, like he’s taken a hit to the chest, and then lets loose some hiccupy cries before his chest pushes hard into Rhett.

 

He’s breaking down again and Rhett keeps him tight against him, like he’s afraid he’ll shatter if he moves.

 

Link sobs silently and on the phone Rhett may not have heard it, but holding him like this, Rhett can feel it rack through his body, too, given their closeness, the tremors that come with each sob and the echoey wheeze after. 

 

He knows the sensation from when he laughs so hard he’s hysterical, it’s so alike, but this is so the opposite that it brings tears to Rhett’s eyes to consider it. 

 

He holds onto Link tighter and tries to direct them to the lounge set a few feet away. Link understands his intentions and they slowly glide together, arm in arm, to a sitting position.

 

Rhett still crouches down, but now Link has more surface area to lean on and his legs nearly pull up into Rhett’s lap. Rhett figures he stays this way so they can keep half-hugging as he’s held and it makes his heart ache. Link tucks his knees sideways so that when he finally allows his posture to deflate and fully collapse on top of the bigger man, Rhett feels the full weight of his body.

 

Link’s crying doesn’t let up for at least a few more solid minutes where Rhett wipes at his own face, wet with empathy, and waits for him to feel like he’s gotten it all out.

 

Eventually the sniffles are there, but they’re infrequent, so Rhett rubs his back again and decides to try to press on and see if he can help resolve some of the onerous pain.

 

“‘Y all right?” 

 

He can feel Link’s chin clamp down then back open, slowly, like he’s figuring that answer out manually, first, before his hands go up to swipe at his face. 

 

There’s a soft laugh, first, then a throat clear to try and build Link’s ability to speak, Rhett knows. “D’ I seem, all right?”

 

Rhett chuckles against Link, happy that his friend can find some joy, even for a second.

 

“We all been there, man. You don’t gotta try to act perfect. Nobody is, not even you,” Rhett rambles out.

 

Link finally pulls back, but seems careful not to let Rhett drop his arms from him entirely. He lays his head against Rhett’s neck and pulls his knees up further, laying them half into Rhett’s left thigh. He lays back against his side at an angle like they could stargaze, if they had the sky for it still, using Rhett’s tilted, big shoulder as a makeshift recliner. 

 

“Perfect always seemed boring, to me, anyways,” Rhett continues, hoping Link will expand on any of the thoughts or elaborate on his troubles without having to pry or further upset him. 

 

“Well, I know you’ve had some bad nightmares, but this was — this was diff’rent. Felt so real that when I woke up, I felt my arms for wires,” Link explains. 

 

“Wires?” 

 

“I was in a hospital, I-I — we — then I think I died,” Link says.

 

There’s silence.

 

“Sorry, bud. That does sounds horrible.”

 

“Yeah, but — yeah, it really — it really fucking was,” Link breathes out, expelling the bad feelings that came along with the bad dream. He smooths his hands on his thighs, then moves one arm back behind Rhett in a sideways hug.

 

“D’you — did you already tell Christy?” Rhett asks quietly.

 

“No, not yet. I was too upset. I was, well, I honestly needed to hear your voice and make sure it didn’t happen, so I didn’t need to wake her, I thought, if I could just — if I knew you were okay,” Link says, softly.

 

“Oh, I was there, too?” Rhett responds, voice small. He looks up at the cloudy sky, rubbing his thumb along Link’s elbow where he still has his arm around the other man. “Been dreamin’ about me, Neal?”

 

Link blows a soft laugh out like a raspberry, but not as coy as he would if were feeling more himself. 

 

“It wasn’t a dream, Rhett. It was not a dream at all,” Link says, plainly, his voice finally falling to an octave close to his usual.

 

“Okay, so what happened. Something bad happened to you, ‘ya said, but me, too?”

 

Link nods upwards, still not moving his head from the crook of Rhett’s neck, his hair brushes at his friend’s jawline. Rhett uses his other hand briefly to scratch at where it tickles, not caring that he has to reach partway across Link’s front to do so. 

 

It’s comfortable, Rhett thinks. He’s left it this way in his best effort to encourage Link to share. He wants him to feel safe to. “How bad?”

 

Link swallows.

 

Rhett actually, for once, considers bringing up his own experiences, to relate to Link, but he wants to make sure he’s had space enough to talk. 

 

When Link is still struggling for words, he adds, “That bad, huh?”

 

He looks down and tries to fight the instinct to space them out and eschew the intimacy. He knows what he wanted so badly on those nights where he woke up screaming, clutching his body, talking himself out of calling. He looks at Link and blinks back more tears. 

 

Link, especially, needs contact, anyway. The presence of Rhett certainly helps, too. Now and always, he’s been the more handsy of the two, however, so Rhett’s not about to challenge him on it when he can still hear the congestion in his voice from crying when he talks.

 

First, he lets out one shuddery, grounding sigh, and looks off to the pool again. 

 

“Rhett, it was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced and I’ve been in the hospital. For real.”

 

Rhett frowns, sure Link must be building it up in his head, but eager to let him find his own way to best go on.

 

When Rhett doesn’t interrupt, Link finds it in him to do so.

 

“So, I guess, well, in the nightmare — I was in the hospital, but I don’t even — I can’t remember what for,” Link says, scratching his head and looking up at Rhett. “Christy was sleeping, in a chair, but she was so peaceful I didn’t wanna or, I guess I didn’t realize she was there, first.”

 

There’s only the low buzz of insects and freeway traffic echoing around them. 

 

“I think I called out for you, or at least, I didn’t know what happened and how I got there, but I figured, you know, me and an emergency room —” Link says, putting a hand up to wave around the air as a signifier for their actual shared past.

 

“I’d be there, too,” Rhett says, soft. “Yeah, you bet.”

 

“Well, at first you weren’t. You were, I guess out getting a snack or a gift or something. Don’t remember. Couldn’t see much of anything, but I heard you coming. Like maybe you were wearing your boots, or that — the, no, well, I guess maybe it was just a general sense, kind of otherworldly, like they describe from them lucid type trippy ones. I felt like I knew Christy was restin’ and not to disturb her and you were walking towards me at the ready a-and, even, that Jessie was at home holding down the fort, or, just off safe with the rest.”

 

Rhett nods. Sadly, during the times that Link has been in one crisis or another, that is a strikingly familiar layout of how the chips tended to fall.

 

“Then when you came, you were, oh gosh, Rhett — that was the worst part,” Link says, his voice straining. “You were just so upset that I was there and, well, I guess that I was really at death’s door or not going to make it, ‘cause I-I well, I think as you were crying, I started to fade. I was startin’ to say my piece, sss-say,” Link stammers as his eyes fill back up with tears and he fights succumbing to them and the memory. 

 

He powers through but takes a pause to breathe. 

 

Rhett nods, sorrowful. He tries to lift the weight for his friend. 

 

“Goodbye,” Rhett supplies and when Link nods, he continues, “You were saying your dying words. It’d be an honor to hear ‘em, but I wouldn’t want it for the world, Link. Especially not if you’re breaking our promise to never say… that.” 

 

Rhett’s looking over at the moon in the water, not the sky, even though it’s a fuzzier shape without the edge or contrast of the one above.

 

From beneath the blur of his watery vision, he can’t tell the difference.

 

“So help me, Link, I’d rather be dead already than to ever have to hear ‘em for real,” Rhett admits, feeling a coward, but refusing dishonesty. Not now, amidst this. 

 

Link bursts out a messy sob that sounds like he might break down completely, again, but it turns into a sick laugh, edged with pain and disbelief. He counters, “But that’s exactly what happened, Rhett! You think I don’t know that, on some level, haven’t heard you make, heard — I watched you die.”

 

“That’s horrible,” Rhett commiserates.

 

He lets a long pause further emphasize his point. 

 

Link is silent for a moment before turning up to look at Rhett. He leans back, finally slipping nearly from his grasp completely. All that’s left is where their knees overlap, Link’s still on top, and their left and right shoulders touch. 

 

“You don’t seem — I guess I thought that might spook you more,” Link says gently, smiling nearly in relief. He still looks miserable, but finally some life appears to burn back behind his eyes.

 

“Plenty spooked, Link. Immeasurably spooked,” Rhett says back, enunciating his discomfort. 

 

Link stares at him.

 

“Link, I’m not sure you wanna pull that, I don’t think, let’s just — I-I’ve had similar nightmares. I understand where you’re comin’ from. It’s horrible,” Rhett explains.

 

Link nods, not disagreeing, but he knows Rhett too well and he’s already started puzzling it out. His brow remains lightly creased even at Rhett’s answer.

 

“So, you’re familiar with the idea of dying in my arms? ‘Cause if it wasn’t that, it wasn’t this, Rhett. This was a very specific kind of horror show, ‘s all I’m saying. Okay?”

 

Rhett pauses. He should let it go. Past versions of him might have.

 

He fully separates himself from Link and stands. 

 

Link looks thrown as he stares up at Rhett. Considering how upset he’s been, Rhett thinks it nice to see a new emotion overtake his features, no matter the reason.

 

Rhett is dreading having to add another burden to his friend’s load, but it feels unkind to withhold the similarity of his own experience at this point and he can no longer do so in good faith.

 

“Link, I, uh, I ever tell you when I was having that real bad tear of insomnia — something like, when was it, around 2015 or ‘17, a few years back, somewhere in there?”

 

Link nods his head.

 

They both know Rhett has never said this at all, but this is the answer Link needs to give before he can continue confessing. Link does remember him mentioning sleeping poorly and having bad nightmares, but there’s no way he’s ever made it seem like the kind of thing he had reason enough to not bring up until now, in such a way. 

 

Link’s eyes are as wide as they can get.

 

“I’d had ‘em before, but they were a little simpler — rarer, then. It was always different, anyhow, so there’s no sense in, well, anyway — I had that bit of insomnia ‘cause of the dreams I was having, tryin’ to keep from — i-it was horrific. I never wanted to go back to sleep, after some of ‘em. Hell, most of ‘em.”

 

Link’s eyes are guarded but implore him to continue. He is rapt and upset, but not at Rhett.

 

For Rhett.

 

“So, I was having these dreams, recurring dreams, and I say dreams because they were so real — so vivid — I could practically write them down line for line like it was a living memory even once I woke up. Like it was a premonition, or something,” Rhett explains.

 

Link stills further. He stares in a way that Rhett would best equate to as through him.

 

“Rhett, that’s exactly how I’d describe mine. The one I just had.”

 

A chill runs up Rhett’s spine. Link has nothing more to add, so he goes on.

 

“First time I had one, one I really definitely remember, was in college. When I when I went away. I had these recurring dreams that you — I had this dream you were dying, you got hurt or fell ill or something, and I didn’t know and I just kept going about my day when you were — I coulda, I coulda flown back in time to say goodbye and I didn’t. Then when I found out later I would, I would just — well — so, I would wake up screaming, then, or damn near it, so much so my roommates used to make me say grace right there, in bed. Then again before breakfast. ‘Cause I think they thought I was disturbed.”

 

They are quiet for a few seconds and Rhett puts his hands in his sweatpants pockets.

 

“Maybe I was." He strains his arms and neck, for emphasis, and continues, "Maybe I am — all I know is I had a dream, then, and it was the first one like ‘em that I can really vividly remember. I talked a lot to a therapist, when they started back up, about it. You might remember Jessie and I going,” Rhett says.

 

Link’s eyes light up with recognition. “Is that the time where you told me it was couples therapy but not for anything about your relationship? I think I gave you a hard time about it,” Link says, cringing.

 

“Yeah, but that’s — honestly that was kinda nice. It was way off-base, so it felt nice. When you took that trip East, that's around when it came back with a vengeance. She finally heard what the dreams were all about and how I reacted and she wanted to make sure I wasn’t — make sure I could talk to someone if it meant I was having hurtful thoughts or dangerous thoughts, anything like it, but it wasn’t the case. The therapist thought it was me manifesting my fear of losing you and what we’ve built in the same second. The weight of it felt like it would crush me, but we both are old enough now, we know that’s not really gonna happen — same as how your nightmare ain’t gonna happen either.”

 

“Rhett, it was just like yours. Just like it. I had the same dream practically, but without the part where you weren’t there, since I knew you’d be there,” Link says. 

 

“Yeah, but that’s what the therapist said, that’s why it was a little unhealthy. I stopped going because I get it. I mean, it still probably is not super healthy — our attachment to each other. Eventually, I made it so that if we go away and I have ‘em, Jessie is there. It helps. I had to really build up to travelin’ solo, bud. Why’d you think?”

 

They listen to the silence as he pauses, taking a break, waiting for it to sink in. 

 

“Never went back to that therapist, some sleep specialist, but they’re got through to me on how to cope with it. Those sessions were too tough for me to keep up with, revisiting all that. Felt a li’l too raw every time, come leaving, just talking about it, felt like I was always tempting something. Obviously stopped putting a name on who or what that was, exactly, but it still feels unlucky to think about.”

 

“So, you said you had your first one, when you — we were in college,” Link states, finally returning to normalcy enough that he’s recognizing Rhett’s earlier admission more clearly.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“So, you’ve had more since? How many? Every so often — or more like me, just the one real bad one, out the blue?”

 

“No, Link, you don’t — so, we went to those sessions and the therapist had me track down when they started, even that felt like it was a stretch, but they never — it’s always been the same. If I have a nightmare that ends in you dying, I die.”

 

“You die?” Link repeats. Rhett realizes he breezed over that part earlier.

 

Since the topic is changed, Link appears uneasy about dwelling on that information, but he’s concerned, still, clearly.

 

Rhett nods.

 

“How many, then? Ballpark? We talkin’ five, ten? A dozen?” Link asks, trying to estimate at a one per year rate. 

 

“Link, that was the first one. Pretty much any bad nightmare I’ve had since then, heck, since — well, we also figured it stemmed from us in the river, surviving that, feeling some kind of tie to you. Feeling like — Link, I can’t even count — hundreds, maybe? Like I said, there was a point at which I was scared to sleep at all.”

 

Link stares up at him.

 

“Rhett, how could you not tell me — how could you — are you still going through it? Is it that frequent, nowadays?” Link rambles out, aghast.

 

Rhett shakes his head no. Link lets out the faintest of sighs as though that was enough to be acceptable. Rhett can tell it wasn’t, really.

 

“Rhett — why?”

 

His body curls up for a moment before a burst of energy rips through him, his hands flying about, emphasizing his frustration.

 

“It’s embarrassing, okay!” Rhett whisper-yells.

 

He’s not crying, but it’s the tone he gets when people have broken through the first layer of his protective “I’m fine” exterior and he hates it. He hates it more than when people actually make him cry, sometimes. Probably because it’s the sound he hears most often when he’s about to and he knows he’s already failed in preventing it from happening.

 

“It’s a really intense and scary thing and it’s — it was suffocating me, and what, it’s about me being afraid of losing my best friend? What kind of childish nonsense is that? Me being afraid of what my life is without you? Like I couldn’t handle it — I couldn’t, I-I barely got up the courage to be honest with Jessie about it. I was so ash-ah-ah, I was so overwhelmed. I kept it to myself for years. ‘Til one morning I found her crying after I’d avoided bed all night. She never went to sleep the whole night either and so after we cried, I told her, and we went to therapy. It’s been okay, it’s been better. Then I guess we both kept it to ourselves, because of course she didn’t take anything too bad by it, she’s amazing, I just. I didn’t want to bring you into the darkness surroundin’ it, or have to admit it all over again, pro’ly. I don’t know.”

 

There’s a pause while he recollects himself and tries to swallow his own instinct to tear up. Link gapes up at him, waiting for more.

 

“It’s not childish,” Link says, firmly. 

 

He quiets, again, and Rhett can tell he’s said all he wants to.

 

“Don’t know why I didn’t tell you, other than the embarrassment part. Especially now, since it does seem relevant, but I thought I was protecting you from having to look too much inward and have it — make it be something else we had to do, work on, when work was already so busy, and there was so much pressure to perform and create — you didn’t need this.”

 

“Well, how’d that work out for ‘ya?” Link says, a sad guffaw following up the point.

 

“Yeah,” Rhett says, sadly, too. “Guess I shoulda figured it could happen in turn.”

 

“Us having mirrored dreams does feel like a bad 1980’s movie plot. Like we’re gonna wake up in the same dream once and —" Link says, trying to make light but trails off before the sad part.

 

“But you said it’s better?” Link tries to bring up the positive.

 

“Much better. Meditation apps and journaling them — therapy in general. It helps. Really, it was so much better after —” Rhett starts, but slams his eyes shut, realizing something too late.

 

Link nods as he waits for Rhett to continue on. 

 

“After we went back home.”

 

Link nods, indicating he definitely understands.

 

“After we went home, I made my peace with it somehow. When I was there, I visited all our old haunts, obviously, but it also, when we went to the cemetery to pay respects, I decided — I know you’ll be there. Partly, I mean.”

 

Link nods, slowly, following along with Rhett’s meaning.

 

“You won’t even have to be in the ground, or in someone’s house, you’ll be everywhere,” Rhett says in a whisper, explaining his full meaning.

 

Link starts to cry, again, but doesn’t speak. His eyes beg Rhett to continue.

 

“You’ll be here, too, that’s what I mean. Anywhere we went together, you’re there. In the memories and the salt and the water.” Rhett falls back to sit down next to him, again, exhausted.

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Link says, voice wet because pulling his mouth open is torture and he can’t find it in him to swallow it drier before he manages to speak. He clenches his jaw right after to avoid weeping. 

 

“Exactly,” Rhett says, to the air, to Link’s body, to his soul. He bursts into tears of joy looking up at the night sky.

 

“Oh, Rhett,” Link sobs out, hiccuping a deep, hard sob before evening out his breathing as quick as he can manage. His head tucks back into Rhett’s neck. “I love you.”

 

“Love you, too,” Rhett says, back, holding him tightly.

 

After they hug hard for nearly a full minute, Link recedes back to just laying on Rhett and only lightly crying. 

 

Rhett softly laughs out the remainder of his tears at what they must look like. 

 

Two old guys sitting under a dim moon, arm in arm, crying and yelping matched ‘love you’s to each other. If Link knows why he’s laughing, he doesn’t join in or comment. Or he presumes it’s due to the overall morbidity of the topic. It might be some of that, too, Rhett considers.

 

“You better be prepared to go over your every waking thought. I think I'm gonna be needin' it.”

 

“What’s that — what’s that even mean?” Rhett asks, laughing as he wipes the remainder of the wet from his eyes.

 

“Like you were saying. I’m gonna be in the sunbeams and the dirt and the raindrops. Every molecule. Better keep me included even if there's nothin' there. You know how I hate to be left out.”

 

“Me too,” Rhett says back, gently knocking his head into Link’s.

 

“Good. I’ll hold you to it,” Link says, pointing. 

 

“Jessie thinks the intimacy stuff is behind it and I get that, but it also helps to have a plan for after, for me, and that kinda does it for me. Even if it’s a fantasy or whatever. Seems logical to me. We’re all space stuff, you know?”

 

Link chuckles. “The intimacy of us knowing we’ll haunt each other?”

 

“A little of that, little of us renewing a vow to be together for longer, or you know, forever. Doing it publicly. Swearing our friendship would go on,” Rhett says.

 

“We couldn’t even break a rock,” Link chides.

 

“It was never about the blood, Link. Or the rocks, or the tree, or the oath even. You know that.”

 

Link stares at him.

 

“It’s about knowing that you’re in this with me — until the literal end,” Rhett says, waving his hand between them. “More than lyrics or any words on paper, it’s about the fact that we did what we said we would, back then, so when you say another lifetime of this, however long that shakes out to be, I believe you.”

 

Link’s eyes are very bright as they look over and up at him. “Good. You should.”

 

“I do.”

 

“All right,” Link says, simply. “Glad to hear it.”

 

“I think knowing that we could go like that together — it’s less scary if I can visualize us old and frail and sick when it’s happening, y’know?”

 

Link stares at him more, having a harder time continuing his logic.

 

“I’m with Jessie, it’s probably the intimacy.”

 

Rhett laughs down at and moves his legs closer to Link, as if challenging the notion directly.

 

“How so? She says we need to do that soul gazing stuff that her friend swears by. It works for sex and intimacy and all, for her and I, but I’m not trying to jump y’r bones, man. No matter how much some people might swear it.”

 

“And soul gazing is what exactly?”

 

“Staring at each other for a while. Good long while. Dual meditation, kind of,” Rhett says. “It’s an off-shoot of tantric, so. Which — well, you know. It really works to reestablish emotional connection when we’re having a bad time and want to restore that bond.”

 

“Why is that bad for us, then? Or to do with sex?”

 

“Well, usually, you bone afterwards,” Rhett says, like it’s obvious.

 

“We don’t have to bone afterwards. We’re completely in control of our own actions,” Link says, a little put off that Rhett thinks staring at him is the only thing keeping that from happening. 

 

If anything, it should do the opposite. 

 

Kill the mood. 

 

They stare at each other all the time at work and Link only takes that to mean Jessie’s overall point is completely valid based on the fact that those times do tend to result in higher intimacy, even though they definitively have not boned afterwards.

 

“If it means that much to ‘ya, I’ll risk it,” Rhett jokes. “Jessie’d love that. She’s been saying I should be bringing you to therapy with me or both of us for years, at this point,” Rhett goes on.

 

“Christy has been saying we should do couples therapy for years, yeah. Which I know is half a joke, but they’re probably not far off.”

 

There’s a lull for the first time since it was serious and Link circles back to the dreams themselves. Now that they’re calmer, he’s ready to compare. 

 

“Does it always happen in a hospital?”

 

Rhett turns his head down. This will be painful, he knows, but Link deserves the truth since he gave Rhett his version so immediately and fully.

 

“No, not always.” Rhett says. He puts his elbows on his kneecaps and leans forward, hunching over, recalling some of the worst nights of his life with precision and distaste.

 

“What else has happened? Rhett, I’m in this now, you have to tell me,” Link asks him and searches Rhett’s hard expression, hoping he’ll provide more detail.

 

“Anywhere, Link. I mean it’s usually after a sudden illness, or — or after, some kind of debilitating injury or something that’s got you real messed up. We’re at the last leg and I’m there to have to — I have to say goodbye to you and I never can, I — my, uh, well, said as much before. My heart gives out, watching you, it breaks me — when you go, I go.”

 

“It breaks you — it breaks your heart,” Link summarizes. Rhett nods.

 

“I tend to feel a great weight or pressure on my chest, sometimes enough to jolt me, sometimes I stay lucid and sit there, holding you, or your hand, until, well, you know the rest. I follow you. Well, I guess, I wake up before it actually happens.”

 

Link’s eyes fill with tears, but they feel warmer than before because it’s not his own grief he’s visualizing now, it’s Rhett’s, and the emotions aren’t quite as biting.

 

“You don’t wanna say goodbye,” Link states.

 

Rhett nods.

 

“Remember, I’m always gonna be here, though,” Link says, leaning against him.

 

Rhett sits back, but keeps his arms folding on his lap.

 

“I still don’t want to,” Rhett explains. 

 

Link’s pained expression waivers but he stays staring up at where Rhett sits next to him.

 

“One of us is gonna go at some point and I really, really don’t want it to be you, because —” Rhett begins.

 

Link hears air catch in Rhett’s throat and knows it’s getting to him, having to revisit this, finally. It’s bringing him to the dark place that Link’s just swam up from. Link instinctively throws an arm under Rhett’s left arm and up along his large back. Link rubs a shoulder blade at random, not sure at first which one he’s reached.

 

He’s so happy that Rhett doesn’t flinch that he lays a hand flat before continuing his ministrations to soothe him.

 

“I think what you said, calling it a premonition. I might’a agreed with the sentiment, but really, it i’n’t fair,” Link says. “It doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to go with.”

 

“I get that, I really do,” Rhett says, sniffling and trying to keep the sadness out of his voice, should it push him into the edge of crying. “Put a lot of good work and energy into accepting that. But, then, sometimes I do think about what I’d do, that’s the worst part. When I get done, get out of it — all the time — I got real good at rememberin’ it’s ‘just a dream, just a dream, just a dream’ all the time. But then the next part, sometimes the next minute, sometimes next mornin’ or, hell, sometimes all week — I’d think about what if it wasn’t. What if that one had been real? Would I really have survived it? I started trying to eat cleaner, run more, wear the bio tracker. I still don’t know if it’s enough though. If you rip out part of my soul, if that’s ever gonna be survivable. Maybe someday we’ll find out it’s not, but I’m trying to be ready every other way I can.”

 

“Rhett,” Link admonishes, though he knows he has no control over what Rhett feels. 

 

“It’s okay that you don’t, maybe, feel it as intense — it’s okay that you only got the one side of it, the receiving end. It’s probably better. I’m glad,” Rhett says, wiping at his eyes.

 

“I don’t know, Rhett. From the way things went in my nightmare, you were already gone. I think I get it more than you might expect,” Link says, tears wetting his face again, too. Rhett must have missed that part of his recounting.

 

Rhett looks up and over at Link in surprise. “Really?”

 

It’s a sick question for him feel glad about, that Link understood his experience completely, but, he’s been in the darkness on his own for so long. It feels surreal for someone else to have touched it, too.

 

“I never really considered that part but, yeah, definitely. I heard Christy calling for help, for you, for us —" Link sighs.

 

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I thought maybe you never would,” Rhett says, quiet.

 

“D’you think it means something? Them being so linked, so close?”

 

“Nah, not really. People have similar dreams all the time. I told you about the shared nightmares with Jessie, too. Those were just creepy, though, not like this. Not like I was losing half of myself.”

 

Link presses his other arm across Rhett’s front, at an awkward angle, not far enough for his hands to reach. It feels almost more intimate, this way, with how haphazard and desperate Link’s need to throw his arms around Rhett is, his other hand still at his back near his shoulders.

 

“I mean, that’s what it,” Rhett gets out, choking on the words and the emotion finally, darkly barking a laugh through his tears, at the image and the recollection. “It felt like part of me was just gone,” Rhett breathes out the word into the nothingness it implies. Rhett continues, “Like losing a major organ, like, whoop, there goes the heart —” he says, making a snatching motion that gives a soft snapping noise. “Maybe they could save me. Put me on ice, or whatever — some kind of support, for a while, but start a stopwatch, folks: you ain’t got long.”

 

Rhett laughs out another sob, then keeps crying, as Link holds him tightly. 

 

Link’s grip around him is so secure that eventually he latches his hands together under Rhett’s armpit, keeping him upright and afloat. Rhett breaks down further, breathing only through his mouth, he pants for air.

 

“Oh, Link, it was so scary,” Rhett’s voice ends up small and tight and sounds terrified at both revisiting the memory and sharing it so vulnerably now. “Having to face that every night,” Rhett ekes out. “It was killing me. I wasn’t seein’ straight, almost started wearing Jessie’s under eye make-up for the dark circles. I was so convinced it was real. Every time, I would second guess, just a little, ‘cause what if it was the one time I didn’t take it serious and it was the one.”

 

“Rhett, it’s okay, they’re just nightmares, just dreams,” Link says, letting Rhett grip him tight enough that it hurts a little.

 

“Believe me, I know, I told myself the same thing on those nights, but it doesn’t change — it don’t change the fact that coming to terms with — I tried to joke about it, like how it’s destiny, how it’s a fairytale kind of — with the stuff where we almost drowned, first day of first grade, bet it all on each other, it’s all that — any time I just have a really vivid one, I tried to make it like a poetic ending, like,” he rants, pausing to smile through tears and a raspy breath in with no humor on his face, before continuing, “It’s a myth, for real. Plain and simple: we go together. Make it seem normal.”

 

“It’s not normal, Rhett,” Link breathes out. He warns Rhett, to remember, “But, we never been normal.”

 

“That’s all I mean, though, Link. Making that okay, in my head, making us into some kind of fated set, it makes my brain accept it. Worst case scenario: I don’t have to live without you. It’s more a fact, now, and I sleep… better. Much better than I did. It’s just the same as any two people who are inseparable in life, I guess. My brain just applies the same for death.”

 

“Rhett,” Link says, scolding him off being morose. “You’ll survive, I promise.”

 

“That’s the thing, Link, that’s what you don’t…” Rhett cries into his shoulder, begging his friend to finally get what he’s saying.

 

“What?”

 

“The feeling, when my h-hh, it’s not ‘cause I want — it’s not that I want to go, but I can’t stay here. You break my heart — my soul goes with yours. It’s a matching set. I wouldn’t want to stay apart from you, given the choice.”

 

Link shudders a sob, himself. Though still not reaching the severity of his earlier tears, they’ve picked up again, as well. 

 

He cradles Rhett tighter, believing more than ever that the shared intimacy is all that’s helping him weather this storm, for them both.

 

“You’re breaking my heart, right now, okay! Enough of this,” Link pleads.

 

“I’m so sorry, Link. I’m sorry at how sad all this is. I’m sorry that I had to come here and make it worse, but I wanna make sure you know that I understand what you’re going through and despite appearances, it’ll be all right. You’ll make it through this.”

 

“We will,” Link corrects him.

 

“Right, we will,” Rhett breathes.

 

“We should do the soul gazing, I think it’ll help,” Link adds, voice still wet with emotion while trying to be funny.

 

Rhett almost laughs and Link clutches at his sides again, firmly, in response.

 

“I-I — that was just a thing they brought up, we really don’t have to. Oh, gosh, it’s so intimate.” Rhett chuckles enough that he has to sniff at the congestion clogging his nose. “Jessie and I had a hard time even doing it. We kept laughing,” Rhett admits.

 

“The intimacy helps me,” Link says. He pats Rhett’s shoulder again. “Knowing we’re going to be around each other for another forty more years, yeah, that’s hopefully a given. The touching and the closeness… that’s new. Even for us. This much of it, sure is.”

 

Rhett beams across from where he sits alongside Link, before, during, and after the next moment when Link jokingly rubs his hands all over Rhett’s face and neck and body, goofily, like his fingertips are trying to graze every bit of surface area of him that's within reach.

 

“Least with the cameras off and all.”

 

Rhett awkwardly laughs, especially after Link's hand returns to clutch his shoulder and emphasize his point further. The closeness is nice and it’s reassuring to them both that there’s nothing that could get between them. Even if, in Rhett’s opinion, that still includes death.

 

They’ve both stilled in one another’s arms while Link goes on. “I’m not tryin’ to force you to, but I think it’ll help. This is helping me,” Link says.

 

Rhett nods. That’s the only reason he needs to hear to try. Link turns to look at him to push them onward. 

 

“So, how’s this work, then? Soulful gazing. I know you said the stuff about sex, but it’s a little chilly out here and I don’t think this wood will hold us for long.”

 

Rhett expels a soft chuckle, trying to break through the sorrow still swimming in the forefront of his mind. “It’s, ah, it’s just supposed to be head to head, not — n-not anything more than that without your wife’s approval.”

 

Link smirks at him, amused.

 

“For the record, Christy gave you that back when we were still touring, all the time. It was what she called her Plan D in case couples therapy, Plan A, didn’t work out. If we never did other stuff to resolve the tension,” Link jokes. But the way he looks off into space for a beat, after, indicates to Rhett there’s more than a bit of truth to it. “You know we’re much better with each other, now. Don’t bicker nearly as much.”

 

Rhett gives him a lingering, sidelong glance. "You and me, or you and Christy?"

 

Link offers only a short laugh in reply.

 

“Well, I know I already said that thing about Jessie, kiddin’ about how she used to joke about us, or whatever, but if we do this: I’m not tryin’ to kiss you, all right? Get that out of your head. It’s about helping us realize we’re on the same path together. Center us in it, you get it?” Rhett breathes out a heavy exhale, like that settles it. Link squints, unsure of Rhett’s casual take, especially considering they’re still clutching each other with tears staining their cheeks.

 

“Whatever you say, man. I’d just as soon kiss you right now.”

 

“Link,” Rhett says, taken aback. “What?”

 

“I think you’re right — or Jessie’s right. I guess Christy for the tension bit, too, but definitely about the intimacy thing. I thought it helped hearing your voice, but having you here, seeing you’re alive and I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re okay. Reminds me how much I care about you. I feel like I can do anything... I feel like I should do anything I can to make sure you know that.”

 

“I do know that, Link.”

 

“Okay, good.”

 

“So, I mean, you’re okay to — if we only do the other thing, though?”

 

“Soul gaze?”

 

“Yeah,” Rhett says, looking every which way but at Link.

 

Link shakes his head, laughing a bit at Rhett’s bluster. “I was only explaining that if you wanted to kiss me, I’m not gonna bite or scream or whatever. Not that I’m trying to kiss you either, Rhett. There’s just not much I wouldn’t do to make you feel better, right now. That’s all I’m tryin’ to say.”

 

“I’m supposed to be here to do that for you. Some help I am,” Rhett says, turning shy. 

 

“Yeah, well. Then let’s try it. Help each other. Soul gazing, gazing souls, eye to eye. Give it a shot. It’ll do us both good, I think.”

 

Rhett nods, glumly.

 

They stay sitting arm and arm, but Link startles some as Rhett leans down, slowly placing their foreheads flush.

 

“Is it — is it supposed to be this close?” Link asks, unsure. He’s been picturing some space between their faces.

 

“Oh, I don’t know, guess I thought — guess,” Rhett stammers and pulls back slightly so they’re close but not touching. “This is how we—”

 

Link smiles up at him still and interrupts, “Not that I was complaining. Felt nice.”

 

Rhett smirks. He looks off, trying to settle into back into it and struggles. 

 

“Okay, so just stare, right? Until we feel so moved to pull back or… I don’t know. After three minutes pass?” Link suggests.

 

“Three minutes?” Rhett questions the specificity.

 

“I don’t know. Aren’t you the one that should know? It’s tantric, right, you said, isn’t that — what’s the count? It’s been a while, I can’t remember the rules,” Link starts.

 

“Oh, come — don’t even pretend like you know ‘cause of that,'' Rhett admonishes.

 

“Hey, I could know,” Link says back, playful. 

 

Rhett shakes his head, tense, until he turns away refusing to engage with that idea for even another second. 

 

“Okay. Look at me ‘til I say when, how’s that?” Rhett says, finally turning back and leaning so he’s nearly flush against but not touching Link’s face with his own.

 

Link is rapt, again, as is Rhett. Both are taken with how even in the dark backyard, their eyes are bright in the light of the moon and not-so-distant outdoor lamps that illuminated Rhett’s walk in.

 

They stare, eye to eye, for a while until Rhett feels their foreheads once again pull closer, as though they’re magnetized. 

 

He flinches to avoid connecting them, drawing back a few inches further than before as if it’ll stop it. 

 

Rhett, attempting to apologize for the sudden movement with his eyes, causes something in the tone to shift, after almost two minutes have passed, and they’re finally feeling fully committed to the experience.

 

Everything begins to unravel. 

 

Quickly. 

 

Words aren’t necessary for full conversations to take place in an instant and Link’s eyes immediately begin to water. Only this time he’s hysterical with joy.

 

Something in him reads the vulnerability in Rhett and can only rejoice in seeing it. 

 

The fact that Rhett is willing to open up, even for this brief flurry of seconds, makes Link’s heart leap with positivity for the future. They could do this again, make it more intimate, Link is sure, now. They’ll heal from this. 

 

Heal from whatever is causing this darkness. Whatever has been causing Rhett such immense, prolonged pain, too. It can be fixed, here, just like this. 

 

Link has learned one sure thing about most pain, something he knows too much about, if you ask him. The main thing, he’s found, is that it’s temporary. No matter how impossible that may seem, it does go away when you wait it out, when you focus on the good, and he declares that loudly with his mind. 

 

This is surmountable. Together.

 

With his eyes, he sends that message strongly over at Rhett. As if it’s a missing edge that he’s got a spare of from an identical puzzle he’s also working on. He knows a corner piece when he sees one. They’ll figure his own out when he’s closer to being finished and made the progress Rhett has with his. They can check the metaphorical cushions and the box it came in, if it comes to that. He trusts that it’ll be around, somewhere.

 

The connection, fueled by their locked gaze, grows so strong that it feels like Rhett might pull away at the intensity.

 

Link breathes a deep breath of air and pulls Rhett by the neck back so his forehead is flush against Link’s, once more. Whether this is how soul gazing works or not, it’s now how they do it, now, too.

 

Their eyes are still focused on each other and Rhett realizes for the first time that night that Link isn’t wearing his glasses and hasn’t been this whole time. 

 

No wonder he looks so young to Rhett’s old eyes.

 

Link reads his bashfulness at this realization and giggles, nodding vigorously. He can’t articulate how he knows what Rhett’s thinking, but to him, it feels obvious.

 

With their heads steepled together, there’s enough space to breathe, but the air is warm. 

 

Although Link’s been instigating most all of the intimate movements and gestures, Rhett has been there, unwavering and without protest. Link is ecstatic over it. His gaze is steady, warm, and loving. For the first time in a very long time, or perhaps ever, Link reads Rhett like an open book — with an author’s note and annotations.

 

It’s been well over three minutes.

 

When Link finally pulls back even a little to wipe his eyes over it all, it’s enough to break the connection. Link rejoins their heads only briefly, but then they blink and slowly pull back apart. Rhett looks down and they both sigh loudly and forcefully.

 

“Wow,” Link exclaims.

 

“Yeah,” Rhett agrees. 

 

“When,” Link says.

 

“When?” Rhett repeats, in question.

 

“You were supposed to say ‘when,’” Link explains.

 

“Oh, right. Forgot,” Rhett answers, demure.

 

“That really works. ‘Ya believe that?”

 

“I guess I can. I guess that’s why Jessie kept bringing it up for us t’ try.”

 

“I’ll say!”

 

“You really got hung up on that kissing thing, huh?” Rhett asks.

 

“Whadd’ya mean?” Link says, not sure what his earlier comment has to do with what went on.

 

“Y-You kissed me. At the end, there,” Rhett says, throwing a hand out and pointing backwards, like that had, in fact, happened, seconds ago. 

 

Link smiles with his mouth hanging open.

 

“Rhett, what? No, I didn’t.”

 

Rhett puffs out a breath, embarrassed. He looks away, then back at Link. His eyes convey true shock, once he’s thought it over and sees Link’s posture doesn’t betray dishonesty. “Really?”

 

“Yeah, really, I didn’t. I said I wouldn’t mind it, but didn’t. You said to only gaze. Look don’t touch, remember?”

 

“You really didn’t? So, we didn’t —” Rhett says, looking mortified. “I coulda sworn when you bumped our heads back, just a — like a smooch, not that it was nothin’ serious. You pressin’ your face up against mine. I really thought you did. Seriously? You didn’t?”

 

“Rhett, I hope I can say with certainty: you’d know if I were kissin’ you for real. For Christy and anyone else I’ve kissed sake, at least. But, no I didn’t. It went like this,” Link says, in a rush.

 

Rhett is caught in the energy and lets Link renew their staring and stance from earlier.

 

After Rhett lets himself fall back into the pattern and comfort of their eyes meeting, he feels moved to cup Link’s face, so he does. He rubs a hand to Link’s jaw as Link does the same with Rhett’s chin. Rhett intends it to serve as his acknowledgement that he’s gonna pay better attention this time and understand that while their mouths linger so close they could touch: they haven’t yet.

 

They’re back to foreheads touching, slowly, but inevitably. Link waits for Rhett’s eyes to fully soften, as they did before, and only then does he speak in a whisper to point out the obvious.

 

“See? We’re not kissing.”

 

“Yeah,” Rhett breathes out. 

 

The act of talking while connected moves their jaws enough that there’s some involuntary head bumping that’s enough to unsettle their position. They pull apart again.

 

“That is so strange. I know we didn’t kiss,” Rhett says, scratching behind his ear. “I guess. But it feels like, I feel so close to you, when we’re like that. It’s like we already have. That’s crazy, right?”

 

“That’s not, it’s definitely not. That’s how I felt earlier. When I said I could kiss you. It all felt the same. I think we’re already leveling out. Bonding and repairing whatever is so scared of being left behind or apart. It really works, Rhett, we’ve gotta do that more often!”

 

“Well,” Rhett says, waving Link forward then halting. “Well, we could,” Rhett suggests, non-committally, like he wasn’t a second before, directing him on, “We could do it again. I wouldn’t mind. If it helps.”

 

“Yeah, it definitely — it,” Link begins, agreeing. No longer feigning the separated staring lead-in, they join foreheads to start, with their palms flat against the napes of one another’s necks. “It feels so good, doesn’t it?”

 

“Yeah,” Rhett says, softer.

 

“Okay. Wanted to make sure it wasn’t only me,” Link explains.

 

It’s hard to hold their heads together and talk. 

 

Moving their neck to form words keeps adjusting where their foreheads meet with every syllable spoken. But they remain flush, despite their bodies' best efforts to separate them, gazing eye to eye.

 

“Would it,” Rhett starts, quietly, before changing to the most delicate whisper he can manage, realizing he barely has to utter a sound for Link to hear it, being this close. When Rhett talks, it reverberates through every millimeter of Link’s face. When he does continue, for this same reason first among many, it’s in equally enunciated whispers. “Do you think it would help you to do the other thing, too?”

“What?” Link asks, looking uncaring that his words are so much louder than Rhett’s. He’s sure he must misunderstand and doesn’t put much consideration into his response. His earlier suggestions were all jokes, but now that they’re this close, it’s unclear if that’s how they were received. “Kiss?”

 

Instead of pulling away and shyly looking down, like Link expects, Rhett keeps his eyes dead-on.

 

“Yeah, that.”

 

It’s Link’s turn to breathe out, sounding as though he’s nervous to put it to a fully worded response. There’s a positive sound that implies that he’s okay with the idea, however.

 

Link manages to follow it up with his one lingering requirement. “Only if you want.”

 

His gaze flits around some, where it can manage along the planes of Rhett’s warm, darkly lit face. He tries to make out all of Rhett that he can see, to discern if he’s somehow misunderstanding his intentions as he’s sure he must be. 

 

Surprise is written into Link’s features when he comes up empty of any ulterior motives.

 

It’s nothing compared to the look on his face when Rhett leans forward and joins their mouths. 

 

Only because he wants to.

 

They stay pressed together for a long moment, their eyes still open in the beginning, then closing on impact and instinct, and remain that way for the duration. Until Link pulls back with his hands still around Rhett’s neck. 

 

He puts up a finger to pause them before he once again presses their mouths back together. 

 

When Link pulls back again, not enough to fully part their mouths, he mumbles, against Rhett’s lips, “Hang on, I wanna see if — if it’s as,” Link gives a half-explanation. He’s holding Rhett’s jaw with both hands, now.

 

Rhett’s right hand holds Link’s wrist where it’s stilled along his jaw. His other hand moves around before settling on Link’s shoulder, waiting for him to get on with what he’s saying or doing. Or to kiss him more. 

 

Rhett hopes he can manage anything, so he doesn’t have to be the one to fill the silence as he normally would. He’s completely speechless.

 

He’s about to say as much, or make a groaning noise that indicates the same, when Link joins their mouths again. Link’s mouth is wide with a smile as his tongue rolls up like a tidal wave right through the shocked part between Rhett’s lips. 

 

Rhett opens his mouth as though they planned to synchronize it that way, perfectly fluid, and swallows Link’s tongue entirely. It tastes metallic, like pennies, with a hint of wintergreen from the edges of Link’s canines. Rhett places the flavor right as he feels those same teeth scrape across his tongue, he immediately returns the action. 

 

His mind feels like it’s shutting down and entering stand-by mode.

 

Link uses both hands to pull his face even closer and the rest of Rhett’s body goes along with it. 

 

Rhett realizes that Link has moved to almost kneel so that they’re on the same level exactly and it makes him absolutely jittery to feel someone this big kissing him, even as he’s still sitting. He feels like he’s being thrown around with the tiniest of differences in how things go compared to when he kisses his wife. It’s enough to make him feel like a leaf blown around in the wind.

 

Soon enough, he finds his arms tangled up along Link’s sides, gripping at his nightshirt with tight fists. The nails on his fingers dig half-moon marks into his palms where the shirt doesn’t bunch in their grasp.

 

He feels like Link could fly away at any second. That they’re already floating in the air together, above everything, and if he doesn’t hold on they’ll drift off or crash land.

 

Overwhelmed by the feeling, Rhett’s body flinches only for a second to gasp, then rejoins their mouths fiercely. He’s gripping his hands on Link’s face, now, himself, and has an even tighter hold than Link had on him earlier.

 

The kissing increases to a frenzied pace and they’re both almost toppling over while fighting for control of who's holding onto who’s face more securely and who is kissing who harder. Rhett’s still edging out on both fronts.

 

“Jesus, Rhett,” Link finally barks out, after nearly having to rip Rhett’s face from his with force. Rhett immediately goes for Link’s throat with a series of bruising nips, as they lean to the side, so they're still attached.

 

Link gasps, hot. He’s shocked again.

 

Rhett immediately recoils, seeming nervous that he’s broken an unspoken rule by changing where he’s kissing from Link’s affected reaction.

 

Instantly, to indicate the polar opposite, Link pulls Rhett’s face back towards him then pushes it onto where it was, shoving his mouth back against his pulse point. Rhett immediately starts licking, then resumes sucking his mouth along the area, latched onto Link’s throat again.

 

Link’s hands remain on Rhett’s head and neck as they continue. His words are mumbled in concert with the shock of feeling Rhett’s mouth hitting his throat again and again with fresh kisses and bites. “Oh, my word. What are we doing?”

 

“Making out,” Rhett mumbles against Link’s larynx.

 

“Yeah, but, where did this — I know I’m the one that suggested the kissing, but this feels like something different. Rhett, I-I’m my whole being is vibratin’ with this kind of —”

 

“Argh, come on. Vibrating?” Rhett teases, cringing, as he lathes his tongue along the junction of Link’s collarbone and neck, dragging his teeth back along the wet surface after.

 

“You’re gonna give me a hickey doing that and you’re worried about my word choice!”

 

“Yeah,” Rhett says, spaced out, as though it should be obvious.

 

“Rhett, would you look at your — you’re actin’ like a, oh-hh, oh, my god, do that again, do it — do it again. Exactly the same, yeah,” Link is interrupted by Rhett beginning to suck an actual hickey into his neck.

 

Some time passes while they continue to explore one another with their respective mouths, moaning and groaning, rocking against each other, held tight in one another’s clutches. Link feels giddy with amazement and arousal.

 

Rhett seems determined to leave as many marks on his body as space and time allow.

 

“I think I figured it out. What’s goin’ on… with this. Do you feel that?” Link goes on, his words pitched as Rhett moves back to make a meal out of his jawline next. 

 

Link drags a hand across Rhett’s chest for emphasis.

 

Link tries to tell him about how connected he feels, wordlessly, and how much he’s struggling not to start suggesting they continue this even further, despite how wild that may be to even consider. It is now the logical next step and perhaps the solution to why they’ve been having nightmares, not having taken it yet, already.

 

Rhett smirks up at him and it’s the first time that either allows themselves to acknowledge there’s some active flirting going on. Rhett shimmies his lower half forward a little to emphasize that he’s given into it, now, for better or worse.

 

“Feeling something, down below. Not sure how intimate you’re really tryin’ t’ get. But I take it, you agree? From that?”

 

“Rhett, what are you —” Link begins before he follows down to look at what Rhett means and sees Rhett shift a free hand against a distinct erection, sticking up in his sweats. 

 

“Oh,” Link states, realizing what he meant.

 

Link looks to the side, at his own pajama pants, and sees he’s also turned on. Very turned on. To the point where his erection is already laying half-against Rhett’s upper thigh. 

 

Rhett must feel it, too. The erection, the mood shift, everything. He kisses Link’s throat again in earnest.

 

It isn’t what he meant, however, originally. Not exactly. But it’ll do.

 

“You want to — this is gonna sound corny as all get out, but I want to keep making you feel good, like I said.”

 

Rhett nods, not taking his mouth off of Link while he does so.

 

Link sighs. “Y'know I was joking, before, but I still don’t wanna make out with you sideways on a pool bench. It'll give first.”

 

Rhett kisses him more, hard. It knocks the wind out of Link and when they pull away, he’s gasping. 

 

“Sorry, that was,” Rhett says. He pants for another few breaths, overwhelmed by the truth of it. “That was hot, for me, you sayin’ that… like that. Picturing what you meant. I had to — had to.”

 

“I need to process this for a second, but yeah. It was. It is,” Link says, agreeing, but still without words as to how or why exactly.

 

“I think we need to — is there somewhere we could go?” Rhett asks.

 

Link looks over at him, looking appalled, but then he considers the question and their circumstances.

 

“We’re not quiet enough to go inside, even though I know Christy would be okay with this.”

 

“Yeah, like I said — Jessie, well, I didn’t mention this part, but we’ve talked about this a lot in the past, but never thought — well, I joked about it a lot, but didn’t think it’d ever actually happen.”

 

Link thinks about having to go inside potentially waking Christy to get his keys. “Can you drive?”

 

“Yeah,” Rhett says, blankly, not sure why he’s being asked yet, but agreeing to anything without hesitation so they can further advance this. 

 

Without noticing when or how, Rhett has his hands back on Link’s face, rubbing the edges of his jaw and hairlines, like they’re angles on a clay bust he’s putting the finishing touches on. 

 

“What is this?” Rhett says, whispering again.

 

“It feels like a dream, I know, but it’s somehow real.”

 

“Must feel real strange to go from that nightmare to this.”

 

“You have no idea.”

 

“Well…”

 

“Some,” Link concedes. “You have some idea.”

 

“Let’s get out of here.”

 

Rhett leans forward to place one final, chaste kiss on Link’s lips.

 

Then, they leap up, as quickly as they’re able, bones cracking with movement and hands adjusting sensitive areas as they glide across the patio, hand in hand, feeling inseparable in a whole new way.

 

Link is careful to walk slow so his “bedtime flip-flops” don’t clap the cement loudly enough to echo. He places one foot out at a time, deliberate and focused, as they practically skip to the car. 

 

Rhett takes three sharp turns out of their neighborhood, in the dead of night, and they’re quickly off to their other home. The one they created and share together.

 

“I was gonna suggest a hotel for a second, but that seems almost sordid.”

 

“It ain’t,” Rhett says, as they pull in the driveway. It’s a short ride from their place to here, though they’d made it that way for different albeit similar purposes, originally. “It wouldn’t be.”

 

“Well, you know. That would be a bit extreme.”

 

“Nothing's too extreme. Not for you,” Rhett clarifies, dismissively.

 

Link tilts a shoulder up and presses his hand to his chest. 

 

He’s been flirted with by Rhett before, but this feels different. This feels like Rhett is making promises, distinct and informed, that he’ll be whatever Link needs him to be. Rhett’s long teased his ability to woo a person. Now that Link is up for kissing and more, he supposes that he might fall into that special club. He feels smitten in a completely new and unique way with the practice.

 

Link bats his eyelashes at Rhett for show, but he’s sure to follow up the preening with a very heated look at Rhett’s midsection as they get up. He’s still hard, from the look of it, and Link lets a curvy smile inch up his face, like he’s a grinch about to steal Christmas six months early.

 

“You know, I almost thought you were gonna ask me to go down to the river.”

 

“You think I wanna have sex with you for the first time at the LA river basin? Like one of them dry parts with the runoff and all that? We been there, it’s not romantic in the least.”

 

Link feels the heat flush his cheeks at the mention that this may indeed end as carnally as he himself desires it to. He gropes his own throbbing erection and licks his lips, smiling at the thought.

 

“You tryin’ to make this romantic?”

 

“Just a li’l bit,” Rhett says, opening the front door for Link and closing it behind them, the next second.

 

Link leans back forward, when he turns around, and pins Rhett to the door. He resumes their kissing, sloppy and immediate, desperate to feel Rhett’s beard scrape his jaw again, and for Rhett’s large hands to grope everywhere else they can reach. The taller man follows through on the unspoken request, gladly.

 

After a few moments of necking, Link pulls back to pant for air. 

 

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Link says, still flummoxed. They both finally cross beyond the threshold and he is now comfortable enough to speak at full volume for the first time that night.

 

“What?”

 

“We’re about to have sex. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

 

“Oh, you’re gonna. I’m real good in the hay.”

 

Link rubs his face with both hands. “Once again, I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe… that… how hot that is making me. Gosh, Rhett. Your stupid come-ons aren’t supposed t’— never in my life did I think I’d want you to literally jump my freakin’ bones for real. Not just kid about it.”

 

“I should’a warned you not to kiss me. It’s pretty inevitable once you done that.”

 

Link sighs, angrily. “I hate that this is working on me, still. It’s one hundred percent working. I hate it. If you’ve done this, this way with me, before, I must’a blocked it out. You’re — you… I know you flirt with me for kicks, but this is a whole ‘nother. It feels like you’re just — you’re flat-out hitting on me, or somethin’.”

 

“Well, yeah, ‘cause I am,” Rhett says, wagging his eyebrows.

 

Link shakes his head. “This is the strangest night of my life.”

 

“Strangest morning for me. Extremely weird that it’s still nighttime for you. It’s after 2AM,” Rhett says back, holding his watch up and tapping it so the time shows. 

 

“Rhett, I swear to god, you better knock it off or —”

 

“Or what?” Rhett rebuts.

 

“I’ll do somethin’ bad — real bad, don’t test me,” Link says back, eyes shifting only slightly from teasing to serious.

 

“What if I promise to give you a study guide?” Rhett says sardonically.

 

“Oh, my god, you can blow me. How ‘s that? I don’t care what time it is and I don’t like your smart attitude. Actin’ like some kind of horny troll with y'r — the riddles a-and all the lip.” 

 

There’s silence in response. 

 

A heat rises to the back of Link’s neck when he sees Rhett’s eyes drop below his waist. Like he took the initial retort as a direct instruction.

 

They’ve slowed their walk down the hallway beside the living room. 

 

Link’s eyes flick to an Eames-style chair in the corner. They were looking for somewhere they could lay together, before, but this feels like an opportunity to keep the start slow and build up to that. 

 

They’re like two skydivers attempting their first solo jumps and he thinks he could use the added time to ready himself. 

 

This is both completely familiar and totally foreign. 

 

He looks over at Rhett, curling into himself while still standing taller than Link, eyes still roving down below and across Link’s taut body. 

 

Link walks over to the chair and deliberately sits down.

 

Rhett hates heights. So, Link does the only non-metaphorical thing he can think of to fix the trepidation they’ve both stumbled upon and gives him the rhetorical equivalent to a shove out of the jump plane door. 

 

“You heard me,” Link says. His hands make a show of loosening the elastic band on his pajama pants enough that a light snap rings out when he lets go of it.

 

It’s all the encouragement Rhett needs to begin to go through with doing exactly as asked.

 

Link sits fully back into the chair he’s on and Rhett moves forward.

 

Where he’s standing in front of Link, there’s a foot stool that goes with the seat. It allows him to sit without going to his knees on the area rug beneath the chair.

 

Since he’s only in thin cotton pants, it takes only one swift pull to let out Link’s enormous, leaking erection, and the tone of the night shifts from amazing to revelatory.

 

Rhett licks his lips.

 

He leans upwards over the side of Link’s reclined body, given the height of the chair, it's easy. He stays seated and pulls the stool as close as possible between Link’s long legs. 

 

Link wraps them around Rhett’s sides, for leverage, and they slow down as Rhett runs his hands along his hips. They take in the posture for how suggestive it is. Despite Link’s leaking appendage throbbing between them, his legs gripping around Rhett’s sides somehow feels even more intimate, and they both settle into the heat that it draws out in their bodies.

 

Jutting up high and pronounced, Rhett considers Link's dick where it seems to be served on a pedestal of sorts, in his mind. He's never felt hungrier as he drops forward and covers it with his watering mouth.

 

Rhett moans around Link’s dick, taken with the sensation, instantly. There’s no subtlety left, this is sex. They’re having sex. His mouth connects to one of Link’s most intimate areas and that fact alone is enough to send waves of pleasure throughout his whole body.

 

They both take it in and elicit mirrored grunts and breathy noises from the deep in their respective throats at the mere concept that this isn’t a dream or a nightmare or anything of the kind. 

 

This is reality.

 

“Oh, yeah, yeah, like that,” Link groans out, eventually. When Rhett begins to use his tongue as much as he’s able to. “I can’t —”

 

Rhett sucks harder and pulls off a bit so he can rub his tongue around the edges of the head of Link’s dick. Rhett loves nothing more than the feeling of a tongue in these nooks and crannies, on his own cock, and from the sound of it, Link enjoys it equally.

 

“Oh, Rhett, oh, oh oh oh. H-Hhh — I-I can’t believe Rhett McLaughlin is giving me a blowjob.”

 

Rhett chokes a laugh around where his mouth is now edging on gagging, trying to swallow as much of Link’s length as he comfortably can.

 

“Rhett is giving me a blowjob,” Link says again, reverently, to himself and the ceiling.

 

“Rhett’s giving me,” his voice hums into more groaning and he can’t articulate for a moment. His hands come to grip Rhett’s hair and Rhett feels the knuckles lace around a few choice curls for a firm hold. “Rhett’s b — Rhett’s blowing me. Rhett has his mouth around my — Rhett’s beard is…” Link trails off. 

 

Since Rhett isn’t far from Link’s face, in this position, he can hear every intonation and while the first sentences strike him as absurd, as well, to consider fully and realistically, the more Link talks, the hotter it all seems. It becomes part of it, the lewd narration, and Rhett starts getting as nasty as he can with his tongue to elicit more and more of it.

 

Dipping it into the slit along Link’s helmet, the other thing Rhett loves to feel when getting head, he waits for a reaction to see if Link likes it, too. 

 

Link arches up into Rhett’s mouth so quickly that it’s nearly enough to choke him.

 

He does it again. And again, and again, then one more time.

 

“Oh, god, Rhett, this is amazing. Your fucking mouth — how is it, the way your tongue, get it again, do that, more yeah, yeah, oh, wow, wow, oh wow — it’s so good,” Link rambles at his friend as they stay connected and panting over the interaction.

 

“Rhett McLaughlin has a dick in his mouth,” Link croons to the ceiling, celebratory.

 

Rhett bursts out laughing again, but keeps his mouth around Link, still. He lazes a tongue again in a circle like Link responded to before, but now he dips back down further to test how far he can get Link in and how much more attention he can pay to the ridges and skin along the body of his best friend’s cock. 

 

“Rhett McLaughlin has my dick in his mouth,” Link whispers to himself. Finally appearing to internalize their new reality, at long last. Link humps up very slightly with pride and settles a hand over the back of Rhett’s head more gently, patting his head. “Yeah, suck it. Good, just like that. Oh, Rhett, who’d have known you — you’re a fucking natural.”

 

Rhett loves the praise. He uses his free hands to grip the base of Link a few times to add to his mouth’s still feverish sucking, the other goes for his balls.

 

Link is almost rocking back and forth at the forcefulness of the blowjob, now. With Rhett still sitting so high off the floor, he’s careful to watch every reaction to adjust his movements. The simulated sex of Rhett’s tight mouth is making Link want to buck hard like he’s fucking him, already. 

 

Link grabs and tweaks his own nipple, under his nightshirt, and Rhett splays a hand to settle his torso back down as he twitches in response to the added pleasure.

 

Rhett’s hand on him makes him gasp and need to thrust even more. It’s rough and big and it keeps him pinned so easily. The feeling makes Link squirm with want. He realizes he’s letting out a continuous, soft moaning sound, as a result.

 

“Whoa, buddy,” Rhett mumbles, muffled around his dick.

 

“Ahh, hhh, well, you don’t make it easy,” Link moans. He rolls his hips slow enough that when he fucks into Rhett’s mouth as he finishes saying it, Rhett understands exactly why Link means it as a compliment.

 

Rhett’s head moves up and down in time with Link’s thrusts like he’s paddled out past the waves and is drifting atop the water. He’s slowly rocking up and down with the movement, in no hurry, eager to find the right one to ride ‘til it crests.

 

“Oohh — ooo — hhh,” Link croons against Rhett’s mouth as it circles him. Rhett continues to suck and swirl and drag along Link’s dick with his tongue. “It feels so good. Does it not — n-not that you have to think — does it feel as good to give? How does it feel?”

 

Rhett catalogs his reactions and the overall sensation. It’s not an answer he’s ever expected to have so soon at the ready, but it’s the truth, so he volunteers it. “Real good,” Rhett says, pulling back to speak sternly. His voice is hoarse with desire.

 

Rhett can feel Link react even to that. His cock throbs in Rhett’s grip, squirts of extra moisture leaking from the tip onto Rhett’s right knuckles.

 

“Wanna try?” Rhett asks. He looks down like he’s making a sacrifice to offer it, but that only makes Link sure it must be worth it. “We can… we can sixty-nine, sometime, but that’ll take some maneuverin’ and we’ll have to figure out how ’s best not hurt ourselves. Probably on a bed. So, for now, we could just switch off for a second.”

 

“Fuck, Rhett,” Link says, he has no other words, but he wants to. “Yes,” is all he manages.

 

Link gets up, not caring that his dick is bobbing up and down as he shifts up and off the chair so Rhett can take a turn at sitting down. It’s harder for Link to sit and lean over the way Rhett could, without his same height. Rhett’s legs are so long, he needs to flatten his feet on the foot stool so he doesn’t strain his back keeping his knees bent down so far, at that angle, without proper support.

 

So, Link crouches, his long legs pushing out into a half split ‘til he’s the right position to lean over Rhett directly where he stands, still between his huge, gangly legs. 

 

He doesn’t plan to take long before either switching back or moving this to a more horizontal location. He’s not sure which he prefers, as both options seem delightful.

 

Rhett finally acclimates himself to the position and Link helps him unfurl and unsheath his own leaking hard-on. 

 

“Oh, Rhett, yeah, I can see why you liked this,” Link concludes, flopping the stiff erection around in his grip as Rhett writhes below, reacting feverishly to the touch.

 

“Y’— you haven’t even started yet,” Rhett says, straining, both at the engorged size of his dick as it begs for more contact and the heat of his reddening face while remaining in such a vulnerable position, reclined. 

 

“Yeah, but,” Link stares down at Rhett and pulls his hand along the already sopping wet surface of Rhett’s dick. He relishes the small ooh that Rhett lets out as he rolls the long, thick length left to right against his palm. “I always, I guess, mistook the way blowjobs must feel from… since I never gave one, as something the giver was kind of powerless to and lettin’ happen — considerin’ how I kinda felt so special, gettin’ them. But no — n-not… it ain’t like that at all,” Link breathes.

 

Link leans down and licks out just his long, skinny tongue, pressing it against the tip of Rhett’s dick and waits patiently for it to still from the shudder that movement elicited. Once his tongue is stable, he starts spinning it in circles over the end, sometimes doubling back, taking extra time over the slit just as Rhett had with his.

 

Rhett whines and groans in higher and higher a pitch the more Link redoubles his efforts. 

 

Link takes a breath, leaning back and puffing out. “I feel like I’m in complete control of you, right now.”

 

Rhett looks up at Link, panting. “You are,” he admits, seriously.

 

Link’s eyes rove back down to Rhett’s naked midsection, hungry.

 

“Let’s go, I wanna do more,” Link says in a rush.

 

“Oh, oh-kay,” Rhett mumbles, unmoored. He’s eager to stay in the moment, however, and allows his right hand to be lifted up like he’s being pulled onto the dance floor.

 

Rhett mentioned sex earlier and although this qualifies, there’s more they can do, and it feels right to keep things progressing even as their hearts race. 

 

Grinning like idiots, they make their way to the big couches, stopping briefly to kiss more before they sit back down and get comfortable.

 

It feels like a first time should feel — unsupervised, late at night, eyes sparkling like the stars their hard-earned sky’s let go missing.

 

Link takes his shirt off, eager to make another move towards progressing things further, and stares back over at Rhett, fully naked.

 

“Do you want me to play music?” Link asks, appearing bashful, which makes Rhett’s head hurt.

 

Rhett looks down at Link’s broad shoulders and bare chest, he rubs his palms across them both, then holds his tight waist in his hands. “No,” he whispers.

 

Link smiles, eyes a little furrowed, in surprise. 

 

“I wanna hear you,” Rhett explains. “I wanna hear us.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah. Next time, we can. Curate a whole playlist, beforehand, if you want.”

 

Link’s eyes are bright as he nods twice.

 

“It’s like making music in it’s own way, kinda. Like we’re writing a whole new kind of song? Not too far off, is it?” Link considers.

 

Rhett nods because it is true. It’s more than lyrics or a melody, though, the way they’re learning to harmonize their pleasure. The way Rhett messes with Link’s octaves until it’s the exact right pitch he wants to hear based solely on where he licks his throat. Or how he can get Link’s left hand to tap and fuss with the edge of the coffee table in a tight percussive loop ‘cause he needs to do something with his hands. It all comes to a crescendo as Rhett gropes at his exposed, hard dick again.

 

“Do you wanna — do you want to go first?” Rhett asks.

 

“You’d wanna — you wanna go second?” Link asks back, mind and eyes racing to read Rhett’s face for a response.

 

Rhett’s eyebrows shoot up and he nearly shrugs to avoid looking too eager. Still, he nods.

 

Link’s eyes widen and stay bulging in a way that shows he’s making the connections in his mind to process what that all means. He looks overwhelmed.

 

Rhett smiles and leans forward. 

 

“First, second…” Rhett says, kissing him once with each word on a different part of Link’s exposed neck. Link lays his head flush against the back of the sofa as Rhett crowds his nude form. “Third, fourth, you name it.”

 

Link hums loudly and plays with the hem of Rhett’s pajama top. He eventually gets the nerve to start yanking it upwards, running his hands over Rhett’s upper body while he does. 

 

“Mmm,” Link says, returning his face to Rhett’s instantly with the shirt out of the way. 

 

“You like that?” Rhett says, leaning into Link heavily, close enough their erections brush and they both gasp in response.

 

“So much. Never… guess I never appreciated how your arms look when you do that,” Link says. “I mean… it’s always annoyed me enough to want to bite them, but I thought… now I… now I thought…” Link trails off as he pushes Rhett’s arms back up so his biceps tighten on instinct.

 

“Oh, like this?” Rhett asks, flexing his arms.

 

Link looks sick with want, suddenly, and as if compelled by other forces, immediately latches on to start open-mouth kissing Rhett’s muscles. Sometimes his teeth run over a tendon and Rhett sighs out an “oh” at the sensation, but after that, Rhett goes silent. He grinds against Link in a way he knows the other man can feel how turned on they both are in action.

 

“Okay, come on. I need to get my hands on every inch of you,” Link says.

 

“Yeah, touch me, poke me, rough me up, anything,” Rhett pants out as Link kneels down first and crawls back after peeling Rhett’s pajama bottoms all the way down to his ankles.

 

“I can’t believe we’ve never done this,” Link says, watching Rhett lean over so he can sit next to him, butt naked on a spare blanket he pulled from a basket.

 

“I don’t think my brain could’ve handled this two hours ago, much less any time before that,” Rhett says, dismissively, but then he’s also back to pushing Link down so he can take his hard cock back into his mouth, so it’s difficult to say if he’s serious.

 

“How’s it handling it now?” Link says, moaning at the feeling of Rhett’s mouth back on him.

 

“Oh, it’s handling it just fine,” Rhett says, muffled, around Link’s dick.

 

“Good.”

 

“Real good,” Rhett mumbles.

 

They’ve neglected to turn the lamp on after using the hallway lights to guide them in, but neither wants to get up. Instead, as Link lays with the top of his forearm covering his vision, writhing around under Rhett’s tongue, Rhett drinks in the view of his pale body from the dim reflection of the moon through several windows paired with the hallway incandescents.

 

As if sensing the gaze, Link finally pulls down his arm, and stares at Rhett who feels to be both above and below him, from the position he’s at between his legs, crouched on his stomach and knees to comfortably fellate him. 

 

“Jesus, Rhett, you look…” Link says, before he resumes their earlier thrusting, speechless at any other description. It’s enough to get Rhett to speed back up to a pace that clearly is edging Link towards an orgasm.

 

“Y-hh,” Rhett moans around Link.

 

“You look beautiful. So beautiful!” Link yells out as he comes. He pants as he continues to spurt into Rhett, then breathes out as he lays back, “And — ah — ah-hh-alive.”

 

Rhett’s first instinct is to shoot down the compliment, tell him to shut up and that him not having his glasses on is really startin’ to show, now. Then Link adds the second part, circling back to the harrowing night terrors that brought them here and Rhett bites his tongue.

 

Link rolls them over so he’s on top. They try to avoid the sweat and moisture that’s collecting on the blanket in the process. Rhett wipes his mouth with the back of his dampened hand.

 

He looks up at Link and still fights the urge to say something, anything, to break the seriousness of the moment. It feels intimate in a new way, still, being this earnest about anything for more than a ceremony or a speech.

 

It stings every inch of his body so that he feels he’s made up of nothing but rough edges, glued together. 

 

But with the image of Link above him, halo of hallway light around his crown in Rhett’s own blurred-from-adrenaline vision, he can only agree. 

 

“So do you.”

 

“Oh, Rhett, Rhett —” Link nearly spits with the amount of heat in his words and moisture pooling in his mouth. 

 

“What?” Rhett asks, his large hands settle at Link’s hips.

 

“I think — I think I can go first, if you want that,” Link suggests.

 

“I want that, I definitely want that,” Rhett says. “Whatever I can do to make you feel good.”

 

Link smiles at him. 

 

“So, what do we have, here?” Rhett asks, he leans over, naked, and pulls at the sidetable drawers. There’s not a lot besides remotes, extra batteries, and half-read books. “To help move things along? We’re gonna need a little more help than a condom, I take it?”

 

“There’s some coconut oil in the bathroom. The stuff you use for your hair, remember?”

 

“You think that’ll work?”

 

“Something’s gotta.”

 

Link nods.

 

Rhett hops up and the ground quakes. He hobbles over to grab the items from the cabinets under the sink.

 

With some minor shuffling, he returns back to the couch where Link is still lying, waiting.

 

“You’re naked,” Rhett says, staring down at his friend.

 

“So are you,” Link points out.

 

“We really doin’ this?” Rhett asks, still in shock.

 

“Trying to,” Link says, beckoning Rhett back on top of him. Link leans back so that he’s posed like a centerfold. Rhett’s knees feel weak and he hastily rejoins Link while he distributes some oil onto his hands.

 

“You — you look like a porn star,” Rhett whispers in what would be a scold if he weren’t so painfully erect and star-crossed.

 

Link laughs out loud, losing his focus and collapsing his posture so that Rhett can start groping around between his legs for his center.

 

“I’m gonna fuck a porn star,” Rhett whispers again, in disbelief. 

 

“When exactly?” Link teases, lifting his butt up when Rhett pushes a hand right down the middle of his ass crack. He guffaws for a second before regaining his composure. “He hasn’t got all night.”

 

Rhett’s hand finds purchase and pushes into Link in the next instant and any semblance of propriety that was left goes down for the count.

 

Link keens and throws a leg as far over the left side of the couch as he can so that Rhett can all but bury his right arm under Link’s lower half. “Fuck!” he exclaims with delight.

 

“Okay, hang tight. This is probably going to take a little more adjusting, it’s no toy.”

 

“Toy?” Link wonders, breathlessly.

 

“Toy,” Rhett supplies, eyeing where his dick is now condom-covered and coated in coconut oil and approaching where his two fingers are shoving in and out of Link from a left angle.

 

“Oh, my god,” Link crows, eyes shooting as wide open as can be as he feels Rhett align himself fully with Link’s hole. “Your dick is on me.”

 

“That it is,” Rhett agrees, pushing forward every-so-slightly until it nearly penetrates him. “Gonna be in you, in a second. That still all right?”

 

Link’s face reads a cavalcade of emotions, truly thinking over the idea, and Rhett delights in watching him process the sensation as he rolls his hips and lets the leaking head rub against Link’s eager orifice. Rhett can feel him clench and unclench several times in preparation.

 

“You want that?” Rhett asks, voice low and heady.

 

“Yeah,” Link reiterates. As Rhett nods and begins pressing more firmly, he lowers his top half until he’s nearly covering Link’s body with his own, leaning further against his chest. Link has at some point grabbed a cloth-covered throw pillow to prop under his lower back and offer up his rear, generously, at the same angle. Holding both of Link’s hips for traction, Rhett arches his back and thrusts forward again, but this time stops hesitating and breaches Link’s body. 

 

Link cries out. 

 

“You want me?” Rhett asks, as though he's been waiting for Link to be at his most resistant to idea to risk broaching the most loaded question he's ever asked someone. Some part of him wonders if Link is in enough pain to say no. So he has to ask now or else he’d always wonder if he's pretending.

 

“Yeah,” Link cries out again.

 

Hearing the opposite is more than Rhett can handle. He’s so ready for Link to tell him to pause or pull back, he has not at all anticipated how it would feel when Link’s body seems to beg on it's own for him to continue and his mouth cries out the same to confirm it.

 

“You want this?” Rhett says, not straying from more dangerous questions his mind also has preloaded.

 

“Yeah, Rhett,” Link spits out, hotly, not catching on to his anxiousness. “Fuck, your dick is so huge. You feel like you’re gonna tear me in half.”

 

Rhett shakes his head. He pulls back to look at their slick, joined bodies, and confirms that Link’s stretching extremely wide, but it’s just like a soda can going in the other end. Link simply needs patience and tenacity, from him, which he’s always got in spades.

 

“No, no,” Rhett assures, looking up from where their bodies are split like legs of an unused can opener. Joined mid-way, his upper half is nearly upright while he observes Link, below. “You’re taking me perfect, Link. It looks like the head’s almost through. So when I get in a little further, it’ll feel less intense.”

 

“Okay, okay,” Link repeats, calming himself and relaxing under Rhett’s intension. “Oh, fuck,” he adds, eyes rolling back.

 

“There we go,” Rhett coos, watching the top half of his sanguine dick slip another inch or so inside of Link. He’s not sure he’s ever going to find anything quite as beautiful to witness as sex acts and it strikes him that sharing that virtue with Link is an entirely different aspect of their connection beyond the pleasure and pain rolled into it. “You fit me like a glove,” he whispers.

 

Link grits his teeth and pants. His head flicks back and forth at the intensity of the feeling from his waist down. He’s both elated and disconsolate. He needs more and he needs less. “Well, slip it all the way in, then,” he demands. “You know how I hate when the fingers give me trouble.”

 

Rhett chuckles, recalling more than one tantrum where he’s had to intervene and help Link finish getting the rubber fingers on, one at a time, before he nearly tore it off completely in frustration. He shrugs as delicately as he can manage, nearly panting with exhaustion, himself, from the vice-like grip of Link’s ass. Pushing forward, he feels the head of his dick finally push past the muscle and after another few long seconds of pressure, he slides further and further into Link until it feels like he might genuinely be as far in as can be.

 

Link’s face goes blank, but for his wide eyes and open mouth, totally enraptured by the sensation, and for a second Rhett thinks he might have rushed and hurt him.

 

But then he instinctively pulls back just a touch and Link immediately screams out in ecstasy.

 

“Better?” Rhett asks, trying to sum up the change in response succinctly.

 

Link has nothing but cries out more, loud moans of desperation, and wiggles his butt so that Rhett feels obligated to repeat his same motions. It draws another burst of glory from Link’s mouth. Link writhes around in bliss as he does it a third time and finds a rhythm.

 

“Fuck,” Rhett mutters, watching the show. 

 

Eventually, Link almost touches back on to solid ground as he grasps Rhett’s shoulders where they’ve lowered back closer to his torso, so he can match the thrusts and further escalate the speed of their lovemaking. 

 

They meet eyes and Rhett feels like he’s either joining Link on that new plane of existence or Link is drifting down within shouting distance to hear him.

 

“We were made to do this,” rolls off of Link’s tongue like lyrics to Rhett’s ears. “Our souls were meant to touch,” Link adds, as if an afterthought.

 

Rhett’s eyes slam shut and he feels tears prick the corners. “We go together,” he reminds Link of his earlier declaration. He thinks on it when his hips start rutting faster than he’s planning because the feeling is becoming too much to contain. Link abandons his gaze to dovetail closer and join in. “Fuck, I’m almost there, already.”

 

“Wait for me,” Link begs, shimmying up and down, eagerly trying to catch up.

 

Rhett feels his balls clench and worries he might not be able. He looks down and reaches a hand to grasp Link’s dripping cock in his large hand, thumb rubbing the slit surreptitiously.

 

“Ready?” Rhett asks after he’s held on for dear life for another few desperate seconds longer. “Or not?”

 

Link starts to laugh, but the combination of trying to fuck back hard into Rhett while doing so is too antithetical and his body gives up. Come spurts immediately into Rhett’s palm and then over both their chests when Rhett accidentally pulls his hand back in surprise. 

 

At the same time, Link’s ass muscles clench expectantly around Rhett, and the rest feels like an equally forgone conclusion. Rhett comes in waves, first with shock that it happened so suddenly, then he continues rocking into Link and watching his body contort as he must feel Rhett’s dick pulsing inside him with the sensation, then at last as he’s milked empty before collapsing as much on his side as the couch allows, too tired to even pull out, yet.

 

For a few moments, neither say anything, but both listen to the melodic sounds of their fevered gasps for air and contented sighs when they manage a few.

 

Rhett sits up, pulling out, and using the blanket to smear away some of the mess between them. He tosses it and the tied rubber over onto the floor nearby.

 

The pleather of the couch is cool on their sticky skin as he settles back down.

 

“Holy fuck,” Rhett murmurs against the skin of Link’s shoulder he lays flush against. He rubs his brow there and feels some of the sweat collected wipe away. His pores breath for the first time in a while.

 

“La petite mort,” Link describes, sounding scandalized and exhausted, his hair a mess of slick and his face still blotchy with color. 

 

Rhett laughs. He recognizes that it’s French, but Link has always been better than him with the vocab. He barely remembers more than how to ask for potatoes and cheese. He opts for some levity to break the debaucherous mood. 

 

“Just so you know,” he starts, having to pause for air. “Fucking you so good that you start speaking French is definitely gonna be one of those things I never let you live down.”

 

Link chuckles, breathily, and looks like he tries to roll his eyes, but he’s too full of love and life.

 

Rhett leans over and kisses his hot, wet neck only long enough to ensure the good-naturedness of his ribbing is taken with kindness. 

 

“What’s that mean again?” Rhett asks, absently. “In French? Somethin’ small, but I take it you didn’t mean me.”

 

Link rubs a hand over Rhett’s side where it is tilted up, perpendicular to where he lays flat, looking up at the unlit, textured ceiling. “La petite mort,” Link repeats. “It means orgasm, Rhett. Can’t believe of all the phrases we learned that ain’t one that stuck.”

 

Link blows out air as if for emphasis of the irony.

 

“La petite more? So, it’s like ‘a little more’ but in French?” Rhett questions, recognizing from what French he does remember, there was another adjective or additional word left unexplained. “You want a little more?” Rhett says, waggling his brows, and rolling his softened dick against the side of Link’s thigh it’s near.

 

Link smiles and almost laughs, but he puts a freehand on Rhett’s cheek. Link’s palm is large enough that his fingertips graze Rhett’s ear.

 

“The little death,” Link clarifies. “It’s how they say orgasm.”

 

Rhett’s eyes soften and his head crooks to the side. He leans back down to kiss Link, lazily, his tongue drawing out several moans and an equal pushback from Link in response.

 

“I like the way you do it, more,” Rhett tells him, still licking into his mouth. “But that does feel pretty appropriate.”

 

“I thought so,” Link agrees. “At the same time and everything.”

 

Rhett drops the humorousness for a moment and glances over at Link, once again sat back on his right arm. “Doesn’t seem so scary a prospect, after that.”

 

“Nothing does.”

 

They drift off before the sun rises, taking turns listening to each other’s heartbeats, steady and loud.

 

‡

 

The next time they return to where they’re from, together, they reinforce the tire swing in hopes that it outlives them both.