Chapter Eighteen Hays Code

Chapter eighteen

Hays Code

It took another load of driving across states, bouncing from motel to motel where their sexual antics turned softer. Sweeter. Gentle caresses, languid kisses, unhurried and drowsy endings. Blissful and content, Eddie didn't want it to end.

But it was destined to.

Something had shifted between them since the canyon. Before then, Eddie believed Lee was on an explorative journey of his newfound sexual desires and using him to get out of his own head. Doing stuff, miles from home, away from everything that might hold him back, Lee could try something different. Others might believe he was going through a midlife crisis. Maybe he was. His dad had bought a Porsche. Lee was fooling around with a much younger male. There wasn't much difference. And Eddie had been honest when he'd said he was used to men using him for sex. He was fine with that. Mutual benefits, wasn't it? As much as he harboured a longstanding crush on his dad's best friend, he was adult enough to know that whatever was going on here in America wouldn't last beyond the wrap party. And he'd been fine not talking about it.

He wasn't anymore.

The more he got to know the real Lee Everett, and not just the hot bloke his dad invited round to family barbecues who'd used to take his top off, the more Eddie was losing his sense of rationality. It was foolish. Hoping for anything more than a passing phase would crush him in the end.

Because it couldn't be anything more.

Or, well, hadn't been.

But the last two nights had given him a brush of what it could be. Holding each other like lovers, not fuck buddies, made Eddie believe there was something special between them. Lee had clung to him as though he needed him. As if he got something from Eddie no one else had ever given him before. And had made him wonder if this could be more if there wasn't anything in the way. Like ex-wives. Hollywood careers. Fathers.

Eddie blinked back the stark realisation he was madly, deeply, and soul crushingly in love with Lee when he pulled the Jeep alongside a house in a rundown neighbourhood within the city of San Bernardino in California before their last push to LA. At least he could blame any escaping tears on this unscheduled stop.

"This one?" Lee angled his head toward the driver's side window and grimaced at the cracked pavement leading to a small, weather-beaten house nestled among overgrown bushes and riddled with peeling paint.

Eddie leaned forward to check. "Yeah."

Lee gripped his hands on the wheel, twisting them in contemplation. Eddie got it. The house where the beautiful Lori Hart had grown up in didn't match up to the white picket fence he'd probably suspected her to come from. Lori had left to chase her dream of fame and fortune for a reason. And it was this house.

And those within it.

"Are you…" Lee chose his words carefully. "Going to knock?"

Eddie stared at his hands. "No."

"Oh."

"I just wanted to see it."

Lee peered back at the house. "Ru doesn't talk about them much. I knew Lori was estranged from her folks, but not why."

"They didn't want mum to be an actress. Considered it like prostitution." Eddie leaned forward to see past Lee's bulk to the house. "She did it anyway."

"Can see where you got your determination from then." Lee turned back to face him and smiled. "She'd be proud of you, y'know. You're following her dreams."

Eddie smiled. Gratefully. And pushed down the need to ask Lee to hold him.

"They weren't at the funeral?" Lee posed that as a question, but he would know. He'd been there. Eddie had cried on his shoulder. Left a patch of snot on his jacket. Had felt his hand glide up and down his back in soothing motions and wanted nothing more than to crawl inside his blazer and stay there. He'd been seventeen. Had lost his mum. And it was Lee's shoulder he cried on. Not his dad's.

"Dad invited them. So did I. We got no reply. We got no reply after telling them about the MND diagnosis. It's like they washed their hands of her as soon as she left the family home. How can parents do that?" Eddie clenched his jaw. "How can they abandon their kid when they need them the most? Four years she went through hell. Deteriorating to nothing but an immovable body. Not a single message!"

"Some people bury their heads in the sand when it's too difficult for them to handle."

"Like my dad."

Lee flinched. "That's not fair."

"No? Who kept it altogether? Who made sure Liv still got to school? Did her homework? Who sacrificed their own education so she could get hers? I can tell you something for nothing, Lee. It wasn't Dad."

"He tried, Ed. It was hard on him. Real hard. Lori was the love of his life. It hit him like nothing else I've ever seen. His way of keeping it together was to work, so you all had money coming in and could survive beyond. You wouldn't have afforded the extortionate drama school fees if he hadn't."

"Lee?" Eddie fluttered his eyes closed. "Can you not be his Lee right now?" He peered up through lowered lashes, heart pummelling at what he was going to ask of him and how that might make things more complicated than they already were. "And be mine?"

Lee held his gaze and Eddie could see the tension on his shoulders. As if contemplating it. As if mulling it over and realising that his loyalties were elsewhere. They weren't in this car with him, but miles away and on a friendship spanning decades.

Then, stable and sure, he said, "Okay," and rested his hand on Eddie's leg. "Consider me yours right now."

Eddie's hand trembled as he slipped it on top of Lee's, fingers dipping between his, and Lee intertwining them in a desperate grasp. Eddie could read the conflict flickering in his dusky eyes as if they were the pages of a script. Here it started. The inevitable drift to the end. Where his dad got in the middle of them. Whether it was through Lee's loyalty to him or because Eddie was always just his kid , it didn't matter. The thought that they only had now pinched him behind the eyes and caused a severe and harrowing lump to lodge in his throat. He needed to wash it down, or he'd tell Lee how he felt and beg him to run away, like Thelma and Louise, drive off into the sunset, over the canyon and into the unknown. It'd be okay. They'd be together.

But the fear of Lee saying no had him asking for something else. "You know which Lee I really wanna see?"

"Wasn't aware there were many versions of me, but go on."

"That clubber." Eddie grinned. "Let's get a drink and go dancing."

Lee picked up Eddie's hand, pressed a kiss to his wrist, then started the engine. "We better get checked into the hotel first."

* * * *

Within a couple of hours, they'd checked back into the West Hollywood hotel where it had all started and that was part of the destinations pre-paid and picked out for Eddie's scheduled locations. They freshened up with Eddie in his usual clubbing ensemble of tight, ripped jeans with racer back vest top and as Lee hadn't packed for an eventuality of clubbing, he settled for jeans and a polo. He didn't need clothes to make him sexy. He had the tattoos and the muscle.

They mooched along the Hollywood strip, checking out bar after bar where they started on beers, swiftly moving to chasers until they were lightly drunk and ready to hit the club by midnight. Kyle had told Eddie about the exclusive basement nightclub that wasn't as well known as the others, gay friendly but mostly a place to merge into the crowd and dance, and he led Lee there, house and trance music rattling the walls and vibrating his chest. Yeah . This was what he needed. What they both needed. No words to the songs. No lyrics to decipher. As a piano player and sometimes songwriter himself, he liked to sing but appreciated the ability to switch off from meaning and allow the music to take him out of his own head to dance. Erratically. Uncoordinated. Free .

And to forget.

Eddie wrangled them to the bar first, shouting over the electric high to the bartender and held up two fingers, "Two Baby Guinness."

The bartender went off to mix it and when he returned, Eddie held a shot glass out to Lee. "Let's see what you got, Old Man."

Lee examined the black liquid with frothy head made to look like a pint of Guinness yet tasting of anything but, and grimaced. "Less of the old, kid."

Eddie snorted, and they downed them both in one, Lee hissing through the caffeine and Irish liquor before calling back the bartender.

"My turn." He winked at Eddie, then spoke to the tender. "Slippery Nipple, please, mate." Lee chuckled with such delicious wickedness it had Eddie's cock stirring. "You want my youth, kid. You got it."

Eddie would take it and cherish it.

Then hand over his youth to Lee in a heartbeat.

The tender returned with the layered cocktail shooter and Eddie widened his eyes at the blood red liquid squelching at the bottom, clear stuff in the middle, sludge brown from the Bailey's loitering on the top. "Jesus." Eddie picked it up to inspect and sniffed. "What's in it?"

"My soul."

Eddie barked a laugh, then held it up and with a backward tilt of his head, downed the lot. Creamy, thick cocoa butter from the Bailey's, followed by anise and liquorice notes from the Sambuca, had Eddie gagging at the viscous texture. But Lee exposed his throat as he chugged back the gloop in one go, and Eddie gazed in wonder, in hope, and anticipation so raw that maybe one day, that throat would close in around his cock and drink him dry in the same way. At least he was back to a one-track mind. Which is what he'd wanted. The heavy weights to rise from his shoulders and allow the cloud of a drunken haze to envelop him, to make him warm and happy and unworried about what the future held.

Because what it held was heartache and pain.

He wasn't sure who made the first move to the dancefloor. Probably him. But Lee wasn't far behind and it was a joy to watch him transform from the sturdy copper to this carefree spirit who let the drum and bass and electric rhythm take over his body and mind. The music was up tempo. Fast. Hardcore. And Lee flailed his arms like a ninety's raver, feet pounding the floor tiles as if no one was watching. No one was. They were all lost in their own heads. Except Eddie. He watched him and he danced closer, swaying his hips, bopping his head, closing himself off to anything that wasn't him and Lee.

They edged closer, an invisible cloak forming around them, and Lee met his gaze. Eddie drew in a breath at the sultry look in his eyes. Yeah, he was drunk. That was obvious. But he looked at Eddie as though he was his possession. His meal . Prey. Eddie's pulse quickened at the unspoken promise and the alcohol had him smirking, creeping closer as Lee put his hands on Eddie's hips to sway them together. Eddie could have self-combusted right then. So he turned, back pressed against Lee's chest, spooning as they had done on the ranch, this time while dancing, with Lee's hands gripping his hips. And when Lee dropped his forehead, almost, but not quite kissing his neck, Eddie drifted his arms behind to grab Lee's arse and leaned back on his shoulder.

"Wanna take this up a notch?" he spoke into his ear.

Lee stepped back and Eddie whipped around to face him. He fished out a tablet from the hidden pocket in his jeans and rolled it around his thumb and forefinger.

"Where did you get that?" Lee asked, voice low enough not to travel to those around them yet forceful enough to have Eddie relenting.

"Kyle." Eddie opened his mouth, dropping the pill on his tongue, then stuck it out at Lee, the circular tablet ready and waiting to take Eddie out of his mind.

Lee stopped dancing. Eddie winked. But before he could swallow, Lee grabbed the back of his neck, hauled him forward and kissed him, slicing his tongue inside his mouth to scoop up the pill. And, fuck, if that wasn't the single hottest thing Eddie had ever experienced, he wouldn't know what was. Then Lee was bashed from behind and he swallowed. Eddie widened his eyes. He'd half expected Lee to let him do it. Maybe ask for half. But now Lee had taken the whole thing, Eddie tingled with excitement about how this night might play out. A copper. A man of the law. Taking drugs in a nightclub swiped from another man's tongue.

Fuck the law. They'd fucked him.

Lee resumed his dancing, giving Eddie a glare that said he was both mad at him for concealing it and waiting for the effects to run their course. It might have been authoritative. But it was too damn hot for Eddie to fear him. And Eddie danced with him. Electrifying and fast. Lee gyrated them together as he awaited his high. Within twenty minutes, the euphoric hit had him grasping Eddie's hips, and Eddie didn't take his hands or eyes off him. Even his heart raced. An MDMA hit could go either way and Lee was already suffering adverse effects from PTSD. But whatever happened, Eddie was there. Lee was safe. Eddie knew how to care for those in trouble. He'd seen bad trips. Had had bad trips. But he'd also had magnificent ones and why he wanted to give Lee the chance to have one too. To let his inhibitions fly.

To free him.

Lee drifted closer, hands roaming over Eddie's body, igniting every nerve ending and sending shivers down his spine. Rotating their hips together, Lee gazed at him as if he were the single most beautiful thing in the world and behind those eyes that were a slave to the hit was a wild desire that had Eddie on fire. Soon Lee's lips met his, music fading to a distant hum, and their dancing dropped out of any rhythm, losing themselves in a tangle of hot, fiery kisses. Eddie fell. Hard and violently. Having given up his high to Lee, he was on the floor, begging, pleading, and drowning in the depths of how far his feelings had plummeted. For years, Lee had been a crush. Then a lustful desire. Then an obsession he couldn't shake. But now he was something more, and the bruises of losing him were already forming on his heart. The left over void would be deeper, more cavernous and all-consuming than when he'd lost his mother.

Because Lee would choose to leave him.

He wanted to crawl inside his skin like he had wanted to be inside his jacket at the funeral. And he wanted Lee to zip it up and keep him there .

Stay.

Please stay.

With me.

The music throbbed in his temple as Lee's hands gripped his arse with such brutal possession, Eddie whimpered. He drew him closer and closer until no air remained between them and Eddie quaked as Lee kissed him, lips emblazoned with heat and need, mouth raw and abandoned. Eddie couldn't breathe. He didn't want to breathe. He wanted this and only this. Lee . Kissing him like he meant something.

"We need to leave," Lee rasped into his ear. "Right now."

Lee's demand was feral. Eddie could feel how hard he was in his jeans. And whilst he wanted what he'd been doing with Lee for the past few weeks, he couldn't shake off the yearning for more. To find out if they could go one level more. But Lee wouldn't give him that. This was exploration for him. Not love making. He'd be fooling himself to think what was between them could merge into something Lee treasured. He'd known this would happen. As soon as his dad had said Lee would accompany him to America, he'd known then his crush would fully form into a deep, longing love that would suffocate him.

But it didn't matter. He was all in now.

Headfirst. Drowning .

"You having a good hit?" Eddie whispered into his ear to make sure.

"The fucking best." Lee took his hand.

Vastly different from how Kyle had lured him away back in Las Vegas, Lee wasn't easy and carefree. Persuasive or expectant. His grip was tight and persistent, not allowing Eddie to slip away into the throng to be ensnared by someone else. Lee had him. As he had back then. And he led him from the dancefloor as if apprehending a prisoner. Eddie went willingly, though, stomach fluttering with the anticipation of what came next. Because Lee didn't let go of his hand when on the street either, walking back to the hotel, through the lobby and into the elevator, where he only let go to pin him to the wall, hands splayed either side of his head, boxing him in to kiss him. Not kiss him. Devour him.

Breathing hard, Lee pulled away to rasp a lust fuelled, "I want you."

"You have me." In every way it counts.

Lee waited a moment, as if fighting his instincts, then said, "I want to fuck you."

The elevator doors dinged open then. A retirement couple hobbled in and Lee pushed off from Eddie, swaying to keep upright and nodding to welcome them in. Eddie stifled a laugh. Lee was how he might have been at seventeen trying to pretend to his parents he hadn't got drunk at the school dance yet filled to the brim with alcopops. Lee, desperate to pretend he wasn't high, stood rigid while the elevator shunted upwards and the couple gave varying looks of shock and disapproval. Fuck them. Eddie didn't care. If he thought Lee was game, he'd have carried on snogging him in their presence, but he thought it best to wait, counting the floors upwards, until they reached theirs. The doors opened, and Lee shot out first, Eddie following behind, and they broke into cackles of juvenile laughter as the doors shut around the couple's disbelief. The fun and frolics soon dissipated when Lee grabbed him, kissed him, tumbling them along the corridor to their door. Lee was in the zone and Eddie was right there with him. Kisses frantic. Heat scorching. Desperate and unrestricted .

Lee fumbled for the keycard as he held Eddie against the door with his mouth. Then a buzz, a click, and Eddie toppled inside, Lee kicking the door shut behind them. He didn't let up when inside, slowly peeling off his clothes while grabbing and kissing Eddie, as if he couldn't bear for his mouth not to be on him.

" Fuck ," Lee threw out between heated kisses. Then, shirtless, he grasped Eddie's chin in one ferocious hand and kissed and kissed and kissed while Eddie scrabbled with his jeans fly. "I want to be in you."

How they got completely naked with Lee on him would forever remain a mystery, because Eddie was lost. Absorbed in Lee and the power he had over him and how he was here . In this moment. Unrestrained. Wild . Could he think this was for him? Or was Lee discovering yet another side to himself? One that enjoyed drunken sex. Their bedroom antics before then had been lustful, but more an exploration. Lee tiptoed through it all with calculated precision. Now, though, now was different. Lee was giving in to his innate desire, and Eddie would lie down willingly for him to test out whatever he wanted.

Take me.

Take all of me.

Please .

Lee crushed on top of him, his bulk squashing him into the mattress, tongue entwining with his own and dick hard, rutting against his thigh. Eddie wrapped his arms and legs around him, clinging on, scratching nails down his back, into his scalp, hoping to leave a mark for Lee to remember him and this moment forever. Why did this feel like the end and not the beginning? Why did it feel so overpowering? As if it didn't matter what either of them did, the end would happen anyway .

"How do you do this?" Lee gasped into his ear, then tilted away to gaze at him, expression filled with wonder and confusion.

"Any way you want to." Eddie nibbled Lee's ear lobe. "If you get me the lube, I can prep myself."

Lee knitted his eyebrows, then his face flushed. "No. No. I meant how do you do this to me?"

Eddie's heart thumped. "You want to bot—"

"Jesus, Eddie! How do you make me feel like this?"

Eddie dropped his legs from clamping around Lee as those words ricocheted through him, shaking him to his core. How should he respond? He knew what he wanted to say, "because I love you." But he couldn't. Lee would back off. Realise his mistake. Come to his senses and how this couldn't be anything other than what it was right then. Even if what it was to Eddie was everything .

"I think you're high," Eddie said.

Lee scraped his hands through Eddie's hair, gripping the strands to keep his head squashed into the pillow. "Yes. I am. On you ."

Eddie inhaled, slow and lingering. Lee needed to stop saying things like that. He was asking for trouble. Asking for Eddie to admit how in-fucking-love he was. But he couldn't. He didn't want to. It would ruin everything. They couldn't ever happen. Couldn't ever be more than a fleeting memory. Eddie had to take what he could now.

"You want inside me, old man." Eddie wriggled beneath him. "Get the lube."

Lee tilted his neck, then bit Eddie's bottom lip. "Less of the old."

"Fuck me, then. Get inside me and fuck me."

Lee waited a moment, as if in contemplation, and Eddie dreaded his high was wearing off and Lee would make his excuses. Instead, he kissed Eddie, languid and heartfelt for what felt like forever, until he drifted away, licking down Eddie's neck, pecking along his chest, sliding down to his navel where Eddie's bursting-at-the-seams cock prodded his chin. Eddie choked on the anticipation. Was Lee going to do it? Was he going to suck on him? That in itself would make Eddie delirious, having only come in Lee's hand or over him so far. Then, when Lee licked up his length, Eddie could have blown any chance of being in Lee's mouth by shooting his load at the mere thought.

Lee seemed to sense it and he backed up on his knees, thick, angry cock pointing at Eddie with the fierce purple head leaking at the tip. He was so turned on with this it had Eddie reeling in the what ifs.

"Lube?" Lee ground out.

"Wash bag."

Lee scrambled off, finding Eddie's bag from the suitcase and rummaging inside. "Condom?"

Eddie hitched up on his elbows. "I'm on PrEP. Tested before coming here. I'm negative. You?"

"Not been with anyone since Cora."

"Then let me have you. Just you."

Lee returned to the bed with the lube and Eddie watched as he popped open the tube. "Do you…?" How did he ask this? Everything they'd been doing before had been instinctive. This, well, this wasn't.

"Relax, Eddie. This old man knows what to do here. Lie down."

Eddie did as commanded, putting his trust in Lee, and Lee lifted Eddie's legs up and back, shimmying on his knees to slather wet fingers into his crack, gently teasing, circling his hole while his other slick hand fondled his balls and up his shaft. Eddie melted into the sheets, eyes rolling to the back of his head at how fucking good that felt.

"You okay there, baby?"

Baby? Lee was going to kill him. Did he know what that word did to him? Know Eddie would fall harder with that endearment? Eddie wouldn't ever recover from this. Did Lee want him to?

"Yeah," Eddie eased out in one long exhalation, begging his heart to strap itself in and allow him to feel this.

"Direct me," Lee said, almost vulnerable, almost unsure, and also a little teasing, but his finger plunging inside, breaching Eddie, and suggesting he wasn't a novice at this had Eddie suspecting he liked to hear what he was doing.

"Another one," Eddie burst out. "Stretch me."

Lee went in with another finger, eyes trained on him, smiling. Smirking. "Like that?"

"Oh, God, yeah." Eddie raised his hips from the bed to drive more of Lee's fingers inside him. " Deeper ." He gasped. "There. Fuck. Lee. There ."

Lee fondled inside him, stimulating his sweet spot, and Eddie ground and bucked, groaning at the thrumming sensation of Lee's rough pleasure. Each time Lee drew his fingers out, the anticipation of their return had Eddie's insides ablaze with desire, then when he crept them back in, unrelentingly rousing that same spot, Eddie writhed and moaned, pulse racing at how soon that would be Lee's cock inside him, claiming him in all the ways he needed.

"Ed, baby, those noises," Lee breathed out. "Keep ‘em coming. They drive me fucking wild."

Eddie groaned. Lee was tearing him apart with his gentle yet forceful caress. And how he spoke to him…calling him baby . Deep and penetrating. Like his fingers. And when Lee twisted those fingers inside him, stretching him and fucking him as if he couldn't quite believe the pleasure he was giving and getting from it, Eddie lost control.

This was happening.

This was going to happen.

Eddie would need to be peeled off the ceiling when it did.

Eddie fell apart. Once again, a puppet on a string. He was a slave to Lee and whatever he wanted him for. Even if it was just this. Then Lee dragged his fingers out, wriggling between Eddie's thighs and Eddie threw his legs over Lee's shoulders to position himself for Lee to lather himself up for the main event.

"Tell me how you like it," Lee said, gripping his cock in his slick hand and nudging the tip to Eddie's willing entrance. "I want to make it good for you."

Eddie wanted to ask him to make love to him. He wanted to say slow down. Do it like he loved him. He'd never had that before and there wasn't a single person on this planet he wanted to slow bone with more than Lee. But how could he say that? How could he lay himself out as that needy? That wanting ?

"Fuck me, Lee. Fuck me." As much as the knot twisted tighter in his chest, bringing Eddie closer to no return on how in love he was with this man, he burned to give Lee what he wanted.

And he wanted to fuck, right?

Lee held his nerve, stroking the tip of his cock between Eddie's cheeks. He blinked. Swallowed. And Eddie thought for the second time he'd change his mind, but then he met Eddie's gaze and, ignoring his words, taking them for the lies they were, he slowly, cautiously, deliberately and intently eased his length inside Eddie.

"Jesus, fuck." Lee trembled. "You're so tight. Hot. Shit. Shit ."

Eddie moaned as Lee breached him, thick head driving through the tight ring of muscle, full length following and stealing his ability to think. He sucked in a sharp breath when Lee eased out, robbing him of air, then when he plunged back in, Eddie exhaled around a writhing, "Fuck, Lee ."

Lee was big. Like the man himself, tough and sturdy and hitting all of Eddie's buttons. Lee's cock was an extension of all Lee offered him, and Eddie was delirious with it. Lee was inside him. He had Lee's cock inside him. And he was going slowly . Agonisingly. Leisurely. Thrusting with intent, Eddie could feel every inch to his suffering core as if Lee were trying to make him love him more.

It wasn't possible.

Eddie loved him beyond measure.

"So good." Lee strained as if he'd been holding his breath and gazed at Eddie with such raw intensity it had Eddie clinging to his restraint or he'd blurt it out. He'd tell him. And he'd throw it out amidst tears. "So fucking good."

Eddie gripped Lee's thighs, desperate fingers inching him closer, deeper. "Need more. Give me more." He needed to be fucked to stop himself repeating the words, I love you I love you I love you. Don't leave me.

"Needy little fuck, are you?" Lee's words were teasing, wicked, ruthless, and he kept his painstaking pace as if forcing Eddie on a knife edge. Then Lee rocked his hips, gradually penetrating Eddie's soul as he increased his thrusts and Eddie moaned, groaned, canting his back to push down on Lee's cock. "Fuck, baby, you're killing me."

Eddie flicked his eyes open to Lee, watching him with lustful wonder. It must be the euphoria. The drink. The high of the moment that had him uttering, "I didn't think you'd be like this."

"Like what?"

" Caring ."

"You don't think I care?"

Eddie's reply stuck in his throat as Lee leaned down as far as he could, crushing Eddie into the mattress, legs bent around him, and kissed him, easing himself out of Eddie then slicing back in.

"I care," Lee said with a deliberate thrust. "I care too fucking much. You can never know that."

Eddie wrapped his arms around him, forcing himself not to cry. He needed a distraction. This was too much. He was going to say it. Then beg Lee to say it back, even if he didn't mean it. He had to get back to the moment. So he growled a fierce, "Fuck me, Lee. Please ."

Fucking he could do. Fucking could make him forget. He'd used fucking before to switch off the leftover emotions running ragged within him. His depression. The unfairness. The loneliness and cavern left in his soul since his mum died. Which is what he'd wanted from this . But Lee wasn't letting him. He was making love to him and saying sweet things and telling him he cared .

Lee raised back up, gripped Eddie's hips, and it was as though he accepted Eddie's plight that time, doing what Eddie requested and fucking him. Fast. Furious. Slamming in and out, flesh slapping flesh, sweat pouring from every pore, and he panted. Grunted. Every noise of pleasure he made had Eddie's soul burning .

"Fuck, Eddie, fuck ." Lee gripped his hips hard, leaving bruises that Eddie would cherish forever. "This is…fuck. So good. I've never… Fuck ." Lee's garbles made way for him to quake through his climax and Eddie rutted into him, ensuring to keep Lee inside him as he rode his high, trying to stop it from ending. Lee was magnificent in the throes of ecstasy and Eddie had got him there. It would be his greatest achievement.

Lee collapsed on him. Kissed him. Then he rolled to his side, grabbing Eddie's leaking hard cock to give it three, maybe four tugs in his brutally rough hand, arm clenching as he growled, "Come for me, baby."

Eddie had no way of holding on. And he came. Hard. Fast. Erratic and fierce. And Lee watched him do it, tempering his strokes, bleeding him dry, a satisfied smirk on his face as he kissed his groans. When he let go, ghosting that hand that had tipped Eddie to his edge up his stomach, his chest, around his neck to urge his face toward him and kissed him, Eddie's heart was unsalvageable.

"That was good," Lee muttered against his lips. "Really fucking good ."

Eddie captured Lee's lips with his own, not allowing him to speak in favour of kissing him until, eventually, the high and the buzz wore off to make way for exhaustion and Lee rolled onto his back, dragging Eddie onto his chest, clamping his arms around him and nuzzling into his neck. After a moment of stillness, Lee spoke into his ear, low and rumbling, "You okay?"

"Mmm hmm." Eddie blinked, fighting the urge to cry. He couldn't cry. Not here. Now. Like this. Not for this. He'd encouraged it. It was his fault. It was a good thing he was facing away or Lee might see through his bullshit.

"Ed? "

Fuck.

Eddie couldn't hold it in anymore, not with Lee stroking him, holding him, with that soft voice urging him to spill what was on his mind. "What if we ran away?"

Lee stopped stroking his arm.

Eddie fluttered his eyes closed. But he'd started this and his mouth wanted to finish, with his heart begging to find out too. "What if we got in the car and drove?"

"Pretty sure I'm over the limit."

That was a rejection. Eddie knew it. He felt it. Because it hurt .

Lee stroked along his arm again and he dipped lower to rest his cheek on Eddie's, warm breath clouded with alcohol trickling onto his face. "Why do you want to run away?"

Eddie waited a beat. Then, "To be with you."

"You're with me."

"It won't last." Christ, he sounded so defeated. He'd spent too long being strong. For his mum. His sister. His dad . He never showed his true feelings. Yet here he was. With Lee. All but saying the words that he was in love with him. He'd somehow always known it would be Lee who'd break him. Who'd find the real him beneath the layers of protection. The one who needed to be held. Like he'd held him at his mother's funeral. Eddie hadn't ever forgotten how safe he'd felt in that moment. And he twisted in Lee's arms that held him then, gazing up at him to pour more of himself into him. "This is good, right? You feel it?"

Lee's inhalation was fierce. "Yes."

"Then let's go. Forget everyone and everything that'll bring this to an end and leave. Get in the car and drive away from it all. You and me. Give us a chance. "

"You'd give up your Hollywood dream, everything you've worked for, everything you've always wanted, to run away with me?"

"In a heartbeat."

Lee was shunted into stunned silence, but eventually he wriggled, bringing Eddie closer to him, face to face under the dirty sheets. "You're amazing, Eddie. You make me feel amazing. Something I've not felt in a long time. If ever." He kissed him, then rested his forehead on Eddie's. "But if I steal you from this film, from your family, I'm the bad guy. And I hate the bad guys. I hunt the bad guys. I shoot the bad guys. I don't become them."

"You don't want to be with me?"

Lee crushed him closer. "Right now, nothing could peel me away from you."

"Because you're high."

Lee laughed, then rubbed his nose along Eddie's. " You got me high. You wanted me to be your Lee. I am. Right now, I am. But when I'm sober, all those things that make this, us , a problem will come back. No matter how far we run from them."

Eddie buried his face under Lee's chin, and Lee held him.

Eddie pretended to sleep, listening to the thuds of Lee's racing heartbeat until eventually it calmed, followed by Lee's arms loosening around him. Breaths slack, he crashed. Eddie had promised to ensure Lee was safe from the hit, and only then, with Lee passed out, did he let his tears fall. He gripped Lee while he did it, allowing them to seep into the hairs on his chest.

Maybe they'd find their way to his heart.