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The moment he steps into the hotel elevator, trailing his family, a text buzzes its way onto Tyler’s lockscreen:
504
And he thinks, thank God. Thank God.
He switches off the part of his mind that can instantly interpret the text, pushing the button for their floor, and pushing down the flutter of excitement, just for a little while longer.
“So glad you came,” Tyler had told him earlier that night, in the moments before they walked onstage.
Paul’s flight had been delayed that morning, twice, so that by the time Tyler finally came face to face with him, he was already in his show clothes, mask dangling from one blackened hand. They were past the point of any chance at alone time, surrounded by crew, but a hug was relatively inconspicuous - one for Josh, and then one for him, lingering a little longer.
Paul’s chest against his was immediate relief. It was all he could think to say, and yet not even close to enough - so glad you came, yes - in ways that he couldn’t even put words to. He had to trust that Paul would understand, in the way they always understood each other, subliminal and automatic and easy.
Everyone was there for Tyler. He knew this. The fans who filled the stadium for their opening show, and the crew, and the little family he’d made; but Paul -
Paul was there for Tyler. And he was; all night, he was.
Suspended in that first hug, Paul had spoken against the hollow of his ear, just one word.
“Proud.”
It was all he said, and all he needed to.
“Thank you.”
He’d walked onstage with Paul’s scent still clinging to him through the first couple songs, until it was replaced by sweat, and the chemical smell of fog.
*
Now here Tyler is in the elevator again, with nothing but his keycard and phone. He uses the corner of the plastic card to press the 5 button, has to jab it for a second time before the plastic illuminates yellow, and the elevator starts to sink.
He isn’t worried about his absence. If his wife wakes to find him gone, she’ll know that he’s in one of two places, with one of two people, and that he’ll be back in bed with her by morning. It’s the first priority of everything he does, to make sure she never doubts that.
The elevator door opens on the fifth floor, and Tyler pads into the hallway, socks and slides quiet on the hotel carpet.
They haven’t been doing this long enough for it to be a routine, nor is it a given. Paul doesn’t travel to shows expecting anything from him - even when his presence pulls him away from his work, from the career that exists outside of and beyond Tyler, a fact all too easy for both of them to forget.
There’s this perception that Paul has some kind of huge ego, Tyler knows - one that is probably worsened by the raw talent he oozes, and the natural confidence of his demeanor. What he wishes people could see, though, is this: how Paul is so many things for so many people, never asking for the spotlight or the credit, endlessly generous with his time. Tyler doesn’t take a moment of it for granted.
He knocks softly on the door of 504.
Paul wears his usual sweats and loose white tee, sock-footed and smiling. Even from the threshold, Tyler can tell that the room is warm, and that it smells of Paul - something addicting that Tyler can never quite place, so specific to him, filling the studio and lingering after he leaves. Sense memory overtakes him, and even before Paul reaches to wrap him in a hug, steering him backwards into the room, Tyler already feels held.
“Missed you,” Tyler mumbles into Paul’s collarbone, but it’s lost in the sound of the door swinging shut. Just as well - he doesn’t even know what he means; since the last time Paul was in Ohio? Since their brief moment of tenderness before the show? Always, a little bit, for every minute they aren’t in the same place?
Paul gets the point though, dipping his head down to kiss Tyler’s cheekbone and pull him closer, unhurried.
He feels it resurfacing - the part of his body that he’d had to turn off, the show’s energy still vibrating quietly in his cells. The hum of the stage lights, and the heat of constant attention, a high that Tyler will never get used to, an ache that he has yet to soothe. Paul’s touch activates it all over again, and suddenly, it’s as if he just walked off stage.
They don’t speak much, because they don’t have to, and Tyler doesn’t bother to hide that he’s already starting to get hard, just from this, just from kissing, and from breathing Paul in. He’s winded anew by their height difference - something that he never had until Paul, and that he didn’t expect to like so much - the way Tyler has to tilt his head up to look him in the eye; how Paul’s lips are just the right height to brush against his temple as he holds him, tightening his arms.
It’s a proper, enduring hug, not like their earlier embrace, cut short by other people’s gazes. This hug says, it’s just us. This one says, take what you need from me. This one says, I won’t pull away until you do, and Paul doesn’t, he doesn’t.
Two in the morning, almost, but they take their time with each other, lazy, even as arousal rises in Tyler. He turns his cheek against Paul’s shoulder, and Paul places a hand over the side of his head, fingers splayed, keeping him there. His whole body is pressed against Paul’s now, but he makes no effort to create friction. This isn’t about getting off, but about bigger, more important things - warmth, and proximity, the latter a limited resource with Paul, always.
But so are his waking hours.
“Tired?” Paul asks, when Tyler stifles a yawn against his shirt. He shakes his head, not leaving the crook of Paul’s neck.
“No.”
He’s lying, but neither of them mind.
“Okay,” Paul allows, kissing his hairline with lips that Tyler can tell are pulled into a smile. “Alright.”
On another night, Paul might fondly tease him for the hard-on he’s sporting, so easily elicited, even this far into his thirties. The fans have noticed it happening onstage - Tyler knows this; he’s seen the still shots online, when they slip past the walls of private accounts, key smashes in the replies, the attention a feedback loop that makes the problem worse.
He has long since learned to ignore the discomfort. But Paul treats it like a serious, precious thing, coaxing Tyler to lean against him, relieving him of the weight of the day, and of the performance, both offstage and on. “Meet Paul,” someone had said, gathered in his dressing room after the show, and Tyler had jumped right in, making sure they knew. Not the details - nothing more conspicuous than “he’s a producer on our albums” - but a drawing of lines, and arrows. Paul was there for him.
And he is.
Incredibly present; his hand draws a path from Tyler’s back to the crease of his ass, pressing him closer, making him shiver. He loves this, and Paul knows it. His. Tyler takes the long route to Paul’s mouth, letting stubble prickle his lips, cheek to cheek until finally, they find their way to kissing.
Even before he found out for sure, Tyler always suspected from looking at him that Paul would be a good kisser, mind and eyes wandering to his lips in those early studio days, and then flickering away. He barely has to do anything - Paul sets the pace and the rhythm, varying gentle pecks and long swipes of his tongue into Tyler’s mouth. It’s tender, but relentless, and Tyler only remembers to breathe when his lungs begin to ache, has to inhale all at once in a stuttering gasp, before he’s being kissed again.
Still, they are quiet. This - the raw physicality, and of course, the music - this is how they communicate. The surrendering sigh into Paul’s mouth, the arms wrapping his frame, long enough to surround him completely; and Tyler doesn’t mean to rut his crotch against Paul’s thigh, he really doesn’t - but the unexpected contact startles Tyler away from the kiss and into a broken groan, any last vestiges of pretense melting away with the wrecked sound of his voice. He needs this.
Warm all over, he presses his closed eyes into Paul’s sharp jawbone, pops of light emerging behind his eyelids. He licks once at Paul’s neck, quick, just to say please, and Paul doesn’t hesitate for a moment, bracing both arms around Tyler’s middle, elbows digging into his ribs. It doesn’t take much to lift him a few easy inches off the ground, to walk him, straight-kneed, to the foot of the bed. And then, muscles taut, as if he’s worth the effort - to lower him down, inch by inch, rib cage braced with the strain of his held breath. For a suspended moment, everything is Paul’s eyes, and his lips, dark pink in the room’s dim light.
A bower of blankets catches him, smelling of freshly laundered cotton, and Tyler settles into the feeling, letting some of the ache and fatigue in his muscles seep into the mattress; lets it hold him, and lets Paul press his forearms above his head, making his t-shirt ride up, fabric scrunching around his shoulders. Arms extended, Paul bends down, elegant and long, to press a kiss to the center of his chest.
Tyler could easily escape if he wanted to. They both know this. They also both know that he doesn’t; that he won’t. He lies still, pinned down, and lets Paul take his head into his wide hands, stroking soothingly over his forehead, omnipresent silver chain swinging down and brushing under Tyler’s chin.
It’s the eye contact that sinks him - always is, no matter who he’s with, and Paul knows just how to gaze at him, into him, until he’s falling, falling.
Desperation creeps in at the corners of Tyler’s consciousness, and he becomes aware of the searing heat where his dick is pressed into Paul’s hip. He needs to move, to be touched, but even more so, he needs to be good. Everything in the universe has narrowed down into that singular, nuclear objective. Just like Paul intended. Just like he craves.
But as it so often does onstage, Tyler’s body betrays him now, racking him with an involuntary squirm, his hips grinding upward against Paul and tearing a gasp from his throat.
He squeezes his eyes closed and bites his lip, penitent, even though he knows that Paul will only see his lapse for what it is - the next thing he needs. He’s always attuned this way, the picture of a perfect dom, effortlessly interpreting the slightest movement and turning it, instant and precise, into a gently placed hand, or the soft acknowledging nudge of his nose into Tyler’s cheek. Under Paul, control feels light years away; something he has handed over for safe keeping, that he will get back later, intact, and a little better off for it.
“You’re hard for me,” Paul comments quietly - such a simple, throwaway thought - but more than enough to grip Tyler with a full-body shiver, stomach rising and falling sharply with his quickening breath. And it’s true, God, he couldn’t be harder, now that he’s pinned under Paul. For him - yes, all of it.
He’s powerless without leverage, but Paul is merciful, dragging both of them farther up the bed until they’re lying side by side, letting Tyler curl into him, touching as much as is physically possible.
Tyler can move now, and his body seizes on the freedom before his mind does, hips rolling to grind his erection against Paul’s upper thigh. The repetitive movement strains his already spent muscles, but even so, he knows he could do this for hours. It’s the first way he ever learned to get off, and the one he still gravitates towards; each of his partners know this, indulge it, love how it looks on him. And Tyler, he loves it too - an act of such abandon, so true to his sexuality, especially after shows, body thrumming with pent up energy, so badly needing a release. It’s animalistic and carnal, the way it wrenches him away from himself, forcing him to trust his instincts as they take over. Pitiful.
Already, desperation has made him useless for rational thought or speech. The best he can do is cling to Paul, dry humping without restraint, dirty and frantic.
“Here,” Paul says, dipping fingers into Tyler’s shorts and rolling them down. Tyler separates from his thigh long enough to kick the shorts off, and then he’s on him again, one less layer between them.
But Paul has a hand on his waist, thumb digging lightly into the skin there, pressing him back.
“Wait,” he murmurs, and again when Tyler whines, “wait.”
His hand moves to the front of Tyler’s briefs, finding the tip of his cock, and the smeared circle of pre-come that long since seeped through the fabric.
Half of Paul’s mouth quirks up, and he brings his bright eyes up to meet Tyler’s.
“Hmm,” is all he says.
Tyler lets out a guttural huff, blush deepening, but Paul keeps him at arm’s length for a moment longer. Tyler hooks his ankle around the back of Paul’s calf, frowning, and Paul shakes his head in amusement - but he doesn’t deny him.
His face turns serious again. “C’mere. Slow, this time.”
Heartbeat like cotton in his ears, Tyler obeys. He hitches up his leg, thrown over the outside of Paul’s leg now, until his straining cock once again meets the warm muscle of Paul’s upper thigh.
“Slow,” Paul reminds him, and Tyler listens, pushing his hips forward just enough to drag his bulge a few inches along the fabric of Paul’s sweatpants.
One veined hand is replaced on his waist, and the other becomes a cradle for his cheek, guiding it back into the safety of Paul’s chest.
“Please,” Tyler croaks, even as he’s getting what he wants, even as he humps against Paul, and then again, and then again.
A kiss to the top of his head, and then a soft reminder - “I’m here,” Paul says. “Baby boy. Got you, right here.”
Heat washes through Tyler, and he clenches his muscles again, driving forward, friction-seeking. Shirt riding up now, and Paul’s hand is quick to follow it, brushing up and down the exposed skin of his ribcage. It’s all part and parcel of their dynamic - Tyler, half-naked and writhing, and Paul, still fully clothed and somehow composed.
But Paul is present; Paul, too, is hard for him. Tyler can feel the shape of him through his loose sweats as he pistons himself against him, and the sharp heat of it does something to Tyler, filling his mouth with saliva. Muscle memory.
It’s this, Paul’s hardness, that looses the reservoir of sounds he’s been holding back, flooding through all at once now. With an arm looped under Paul’s shoulder, Tyler clutches at his shirt with curled fingers, grasping for dear life. He’s going to ruin the neckline of Paul’s tee even more than it’s already ruined, and another time he might feel bad for it, but he’s too blissed out to care.
And though his mind is gone, Tyler has never been more inside of his body; aware of every nerve ending, every muscle on a collision course with Paul, just how the two of them have always been. Waiting until the circumstances lined up for them to work together, and then grow close, and then grow into this; a story they both know well.
He’s not letting go.
It should be more embarrassing than it is, to come like this; the writhing, and the whimpering, and the taking, taking, taking. Like masturbating, really, but with the instrument of another person’s body.
Not just anyone, though. His Paul. And isn’t that the heart of the thing - this trust? He’s addicted, and Paul holds the drug in his hands, in his body, a chemical that Tyler is utterly, willingly, dependent upon.
“M’gonna,” he tells Paul, through gritted teeth.
He’s been going too long, the rough slide of the fabric starting to burn, but he’s close, he’s so close -
Paul presses a sympathetic sound into his hair. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, I -” his voice is cracking, shallow. “Can I have your hand? I…”
Paul’s nails drag along his hip, finding the damp outline of his dick again, giving him something solid to rut against. Sandwiched between their bodies, Paul’s long fingers squeeze his shaft, and Tyler’s bucking, shaking, gripping Paul with everything he has, as he comes in his underwear with a high groan.
Paul’s hand holds him through it, with tiny movements that Tyler reciprocates, breath hitching with each subsequent shockwave.
“Ah,” Paul says sweetly, gently milking out the last of his release, knowing just when to stop. He strokes Tyler through the ruined briefs once, twice more, slowly. “That’s right, Tyler. Good.”
Tyler tastes metal, and doesn’t understand, until he realizes he’s somehow managed to bite down on Paul’s chain, caught in his bottom teeth in the frenzy of their tangling. He spits it back out, and hides in Paul’s chest instead, breathing hard.
“Good,” Paul tells him again, in a whisper. “That was good, Ty.”
Patient, always, he takes his time rubbing broad circles into Tyler’s back, coaxing him back to earth. He could fall asleep here easily, if he closed his eyes - but time with Paul is a finite thing, and he needs more, needs to be as close as he possibly can to Paul, before tour and life and work wrench them apart again. Tired as he is, he needs this.
“Fuck me,” he pleads weakly. “Will you, please - just a little?”
Paul groans, and knocks his forehead against Tyler’s.
“You’re tired.”
Tyler shakes his head, making Paul’s head move with it. “I’m not.”
“You’re half asleep, Ty.”
He’s not - but he’s headed there. It doesn’t matter, though. He needs this.
“You need this,” Paul sighs, kissing under his eye, almost relenting.
Yes, yes.
Tyler unravels himself from Paul’s grasp, rolling onto his back and spreading his legs, body forming the closest approximation of the word please as he can manage.
He doesn’t know if he can come again, but he doesn’t care. Paul will come - and he’d do anything for Paul. But this is far from an act of generosity; Tyler is greedy, when Paul is around. He needs this. He needs this.
And Paul does too.
“You need this,” Paul says again. It isn’t a question anymore.
Paul arches off the bed, pulling his sweats and boxers down in one motion, and untangling them from his ankles. He takes off first his own shirt, and then Tyler’s, and then, gently, his stained underwear.
“Ow,” Tyler complains halfheartedly, and Paul frowns, grimacing at the slight chafing in the crease of his thigh, and the skin at the base of his soft cock.
Paul makes another sympathetic noise, accompanying it with a brush of his fingers over the angry red area.
“Ow,” he agrees sympathetically. And then, although he’d done nothing to cause it - “Sorry, angel.”
He dabs at Tyler with the unsoiled part of his briefs, cleaning him up a little, making more noises of mild concern each time Tyler winces.
“That’s alright,” Paul says, leaning down to kiss the inside of his knee, just once, before tossing his underwear aside. “It’s not so bad.”
And just like that, it isn’t.
Paul is only away from the bed for a few moments, just long enough to procure lube and a condom - but when he returns, Tyler can sense the laser focus in his eyes; his trademark ability to lock in completely to his object of interest, and clock exactly what it needs, and make it better.
In the studio, or here in his bed, with Tyler - his talent is wide-reaching.
“Hi,” Tyler whispers. Above him, Paul’s brown eyes sparkle with quiet intensity.
Stretching his legs out, Tyler wraps them around Paul’s hips, trying to pull him closer; but Paul is sturdy, and takes his time, giving his cock a few languid pumps.
Silhouetted, towering over him on his knees, Paul shakes his head.
“What?” Tyler manages, in the same whisper as before.
Paul’s eyes trace an appraising path from his face, to his soft stomach, and then his reddened groin.
“Just looking at you,” he hums. “Just taking you in.”
Tyler throws a hand over his eyes, and he feels his dick twitch, exhaustion be damned. So much held in those few words, and the glint in his eye, and the tilt of his head as he crawls his way up Tyler’s body.
With both of his other partners, it took years - years - to outgrow his instinct to dismiss any and all praise of his body. Paul came around later, to a Tyler who had learned to trust the praise when it comes.
Still, he hides his face; still, he squirms at being called beautiful; but he is trying. He believes it more than he used to, this wild idea that he could be so intensely desired.
He lets Paul coax his arm away from his eyes, and then kiss him once, lightly.
“Ready?” he breathes, warm against Tyler’s mouth.
No, Tyler wants to say. No, because once we start it will nearly be over, and once it’s over, you’ll nearly be gone.
Paul’s eyes are a reflection: brown, like his own; and like Josh’s, kind.
“Yes,” he says, and then, “Please, Paul.”
They work together. Paul delicately folds him in half, and Tyler tucks his hands under his knees, pulling them towards his chest. It’s a position they know well; as vulnerable as it gets, and just as intimate.
The true epitome of submission, trapped like this - held, and held down.
You need this.
Paul understands. The crux of their dynamic, here, in action. The safety to fall, and be caught.
Pain seizes Tyler’s show-tired muscles, gripping his right calf, and he cries out, jerking and tensing.
“Oh,” Paul says sympathetically, clicking his tongue. He takes Tyler’s ankle in his hand, pointing and flexing his foot for him as Tyler whimpers through the charlie horse. He’s allowed to be a little pathetic, right now, with Paul here.
Cautiously, Paul extends his leg upward, turning to kiss his calf.
“You’re alright. It’s over.”
He takes his time with the lube, despite the late hour and Tyler’s drooping eyelids, slick fingertips tracing a path from his perineum, and then downward, grazing the skin around his hole.
Tyler’s dick is lazy; interested, but not hard, lilting to the side. It doesn’t matter, though - the pleasure is everywhere. In the nerves around his entrance as Paul pushes the pad of his finger inside, his other hand gripping the fullness of his ass, spreading him open; and in the backs of his thighs, warm against Paul’s chest, propped up and exposed.
All the while, Paul is attentive; pressing open mouthed kisses to the insides of his knees, and soothing spasms of exhaustion as they arise.
Tyler catches Paul’s eye, face framed by his thighs. “I’m ready for you.”
But it’s a feeble plea, and Paul isn’t so easily convinced.
“No,” Paul says, “not yet.”
He adds a second finger and tilts his head meaningfully at Tyler’s hiss, as if to prove his point.
“Let me do this right, Ty,” he says. “Let me take my time with you.”
And somehow, it’s this that makes his cock jump; this that has him half-hard all over again.
“Okay,” Tyler agrees, hiding his face anew.
He lets himself sink into the feeling of fullness - connection at its barest form. It doesn’t escape him, even now, that Paul cares how he feels, cares that it’s good for him, keeps him safe.
Generous - so far from anything that could be labeled ego. Paul would give Tyler anything, and Tyler would take it, does take it, all the time. What ego? What don’t people see?
This.
Paul, propping himself on his forearms, both hands coming to cradle the top of Tyler’s head protectively, holding him steady to receive the press of his lips. The long, unbroken kiss as Paul lines himself up, and then enters him, everything slow, a stark and welcome contrast to Tyler’s earlier display.
So lovingly held, it takes no time at all for Tyler’s eyes to flutter closed and his jaw to drop open. Peaceful. Paul snakes one arm under his shoulders, the other still covering the crown of his head, nearly big enough to enfold it. And Tyler loves this; how small he is, in this position. How easy it is to hand Paul the reins, enfolding him as he snaps his hips.
For a time, they stay like this, rocking together, breathing in the warmth of each other's air. Tyler’s hair is too short to run fingers through, but Paul tries anyway, dragging his nails over his scalp in absent-minded patterns.
Inevitably though, exhaustion gets the better of Tyler.
He drops his legs, stiff and half asleep and aching from so long spent wrapped around Paul’s waist. The shift in angle has Paul’s dick slipping out of him, leaving Tyler empty and unmoored.
But Paul doesn’t miss a beat.
“Here,” he says, and he’s already moving, stretching out Tyler’s left leg and resting it on his shoulder, and following it with the right. His hamstrings burn, but his hips and knees exhale in relief. He needs this. He needs this.
Paul hovers back over him, and the stretch deepens, his knees landing somewhere by his armpits now.
“Okay?”
The answer barely makes it out of Tyler’s mouth, trailing a hoarse sigh.
“Yeah.”
Farther apart now, but the connection is no less intimate, their gaze still an unbroken channel of heat from Paul’s eyes to his. And when Tyler’s eyelids do start to slide shut, from pleasure, from comfort, Paul is right there with a soft but stern imperative:
“Look at me.”
Tyler looks. A bead of sweat on his upper lip, the asymmetrical tip of his nose, dark eyes that stare into him, and see straight to his center, and still keep looking. He’s beautiful. Paul’s beautiful.
It’s simple, now. He’s lost track of the rest of the day, and the tour. The way Paul is taking him - it removes the question of purpose that occupies so many of his waking hours.
Right now, this is all he exists for. To be fucked by Paul, and to feel it.
The new angle is punishing and breathless, and Paul moves a little faster now, building their pace into something desperate. Tyler feels the heat start as a tickle deep inside, an itch not quite being scratched, as the head of Paul’s cock brushes and then misses its source.
The gasps and mewls filling the space between them are his - Tyler knows this - but through the ringing in his ears, they sound far away, as if from someone else’s throat. He’s divorced from the part of himself that makes decisions about how to appear and how to act, divorced from everything except the heat snaking its way lower into his abdomen, pooling there in shuddering waves.
All night, without Paul’s hand directly on his cock even once, and here Tyler is, threatening to spill again. He can feel the tide of an orgasm churning and rising in him, nearing the break.
Paul, though - he’s already breaking, composure slipping into a low growl of pleasure, hips snapping more erratically now. Tyler feels the moment he starts to pull away; usually he welcomes their regular routine at times like these - the way Paul will pull out and tear off the condom; the euphoric feeling of ownership when he streaks Tyler’s lips or his chest or his ass with his come.
But Tyler is too close, and too unwilling to let this end. He has no physical power here, folded up like this - so he uses what he does have.
It takes all his remaining faculties to get out a “please.”
“Ty,” Paul cautions, and again, Tyler begs -
“Please.”
Paul starts to maneuver himself out of Tyler’s grasp.
“Let me -” an admonishment and a warning.
But Tyler is frenzied, Tyler is clenching around him, nearly sobbing - “please, please, Daddy -”
And, oh - that’s enough.
Paul roars into his chest, fucking into him a few more times and then stilling, pulsing inside him, and Tyler feels every tiny burst of heat as he fills the condom.
It’s all too much, too much; and still not quite enough. Tyler wonders if he really is too exhausted to come again, overwhelmed with pent up pressure.
“Here,” says Paul, too quickly recovered, abandoning the relief of his own climax in order to bring about Tyler’s.
He leans back on his haunches, pulling Tyler with him, letting his legs drop back to Paul’s hips - splayed out and boneless, cock still angry red and heavy against his abdomen.
He wants to come. It hurts. He wants to cry.
“It’s alright,” Paul murmurs, still rocking into Tyler as he softens, slow and easy.
Even this is too much, though - too much heat, and too little control. He thinks he can hear Paul saying something to him, but his words don’t break through the haze in his head - so Paul repeats the message with his hands, running them tenderly over the inside of his thighs, easing the overstimulation.
When he does begin to handle Tyler’s cock, he’s merciful - just his fingertips and the pads of his thumbs, rubbing delicately along the underside of his shaft.
Pressure grips Tyler in waves. Earlier, he’d been chasing his climax down, trying to catch it; now, he’s completely helpless, floating and delirious as Paul draws another orgasm from him. His fingers keep up their pace until the ache becomes a flood, and he’s coming feebly over Paul’s hands.
And he doesn’t stop.
Tyler’s legs shake, and somehow he’s still going, everything wet and warm, and he doesn’t notice, doesn’t understand, until he does.
“Oh,” Paul says softly.
Tyler gasps sharply at the feeling of pee flooding from his spent penis, covering him, washing down his hip and onto the sheets.
This is new.
“I’m sorry,” he tries to say, when he catches his breath, but Paul dismisses it instantly.
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, none of that. Shhh,” he insists. “Shhh.”
Somehow, his fingers are still on Tyler’s leaking cock, helping him, even through this.
There’s no point trying to stop it until it’s over, and by the time it is, Tyler is crying. From shame, mostly - but also, maybe, from the revelation of how much he liked it - and then shame about that, too. Their fans are always eating it up when he cries; if only they could see him now - utterly wrecked and blissed out and ashamed, lying in his own piss and cum.
To his credit, to his absolute credit, Paul does not move away from him, except to gently pull out and peel off the condom. Immediately, he’s settling back down on Tyler, leaning in close to stroke his hair, and wipe away his tears with his wrists, which he has managed to keep dry.
Tyler is crying in earnest, heaving with stifled sobs. He’s grateful at least that they’ve talked about this before, the crying; that Paul will see it for what it is - a symptom of his subspace, and one that doesn’t always mean distress. It isn’t a bad thing - it’s like this, sometimes. Paul’s weight on him is helpful. It helps.
It takes some time for him to come back to himself, but Paul is patient with him, even as the duvet under them grows clammy and cold. Paul kisses his lips slowly, damp with Tyler’s tears, until his brain begins working again, and he chokes on his own thoughts.
Somehow, the kindness in Paul’s eyes makes the panic sharper - too patient and generous, like always; not a shred of disappointment - just care, all the way down.
It’s too much to bear, and for a moment Tyler can’t stand himself. This is what he does: comes in and loses control, and leaves other people to clean up the mess. There’s only the one bed, and Paul will have to call down for new sheets, and he doesn’t deserve it, not any of it.
He cries harder - because regardless of the sheets, he can’t stay here tonight - and because in the morning, Paul will be gone, and he won’t see him again until midway through tour, and he’ll miss him, he’ll miss this.
It’s okay, though.
Paul makes it okay.
Attuned to his sub drop immediately, without a word of explanation. A new universe of vulnerability, what they’ve done - but he knows how to make it better.
It’s all so purposeful, the way he carries Tyler to the shower, weak arms wrapped around Paul’s neck, and the way he cleans him carefully, fingers light over his sensitive spots, and lighter on his chafing. Tyler leans against the tiled wall and tries not to feel guilty, and when he’s himself again, he kisses Paul lazily while the hot water runs.
Tyler has to pull his shorts back on commando-style, once he's dry. Last time he ruined a pair of briefs with Paul, they had appeared in his backpack the next time Tyler saw him, freshly laundered and folded, having made the round trip to Louisiana and back. So gratuitous, so unnecessary, and yet so heavy with meaning, that small act of care.
“I miss you,” Tyler tells him.
“Already?”
“Yes.”
He wonders if hugging Paul will ever stop feeling like this. He doubts it.
“Be good,” Paul says.
The words could mean anything, or nothing - but Tyler understands. Take care of yourself. Don’t miss me so hard that it hurts. The important things.
And then, “I love you.”
Tyler closes his eyes and lets it fill him, tries to make it last. It has to hold him over until the next time.
“I love you,” he tells Paul.
And he thinks, thank God. Thank God.