Maybe if he did it so that Bay could no longer look at him with that dull expression he’d had on his face earlier. That lifeless, empty, expression…
The same one he’d been wearing when Sila had found him on the bridge.
The same one he’d worn before Sila had entered his life and chased him in the forest.
Damn it. When had Sila started caring about that look and what it meant?
When had he started to miss the charged version of Bay? The alive one. The breathing one.
Bay wasn’t breathing now. He was struggling to, tears flowing down his cheeks like tiny rivers. Snot and spit covered the rest of him and his pallor was starting to take on a definitive blue tint as Sila held himself still, his cock buried so he actually felt his member blocking off Bay’s airways.
At first, the struggles were minimal, instincts forcing Bay to resist despite his earlier agreement that they do this. But then they quickened, his look of panic growing until he was practically sobbing and quaking around Sila. He pushed at Sila’s stomach to try and dislodge him, but Sila kept firm. When he started to slap and hit at his thighs, the movements strong enough to rock them both, Sila wondered at the way his cock pulsed simultaneously with that sharp, foreign sensation at the center of his chest.
The one telling him to stop this.
The one promising that he’d regret it if he didn’t.
It made no sense, and yet…
Sila loosened his grip on Bay’s head, just enough the other man could get away if he really wanted to.
Bay pulled off of him so hard he fell backwards on the mattress, heaving and coughing and gasping for air. He cried through it all, ugly tears—nothing like the pretty ones Sila was fond of seeing—his sobs strong enough to wrack his entire body as he curled into himself at the center of the bed.
Sila watched him as he wrapped his arms around himself and tucked his knees up to his chest. That feeling grew and grew until it was no longer a small prick but a full-on stabbing sensation straight to the heart. Without thinking, he lifted a palm and pressed it against his breastbone.
“Please,” Bay’s gravelly voice pulled Sila’s attention off of himself and the weird feeling and back on him. “Please, Sila. Please.”
Sila was so confused, but he wasn’t angry anymore. Without the fury looming over his head like a threat, he was able to trust himself acting on instinct.
He planted a knee on the mattress and lifted himself up, then he stretched out an arm and brushed a few silky locks of hair off of Bay’s face. “What, Kitten? You can tell me.”
That stabbing eased a bit as he stroked Bay’s hair, so he settled closer to him and kept at it. When he’d been on the phone with his brother, he should have asked about this instead. He should have asked if he’d ever felt anything like it. His brother had helped him learn and sort through every other emotion, both the ones Sila was capable of experiencing himself and the ones he couldn’t. His brother would know what was happening. What he was going through.
His brother could help him.
But not right now. Right now he needed to get through this with Bay.
He shushed him when the professor continued to sob. “Tell me, Kitten. It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Bay disagreed. “It’s not.”
“How so?” He cocked his head. “Why’d you stop? Isn’t this what you wanted?”
Bay was up and throwing himself at him so fast Sila almost tumbled backward off the bed. He wrapped his arms around Sila’s neck in a vice-like grip, settling in his lap so he could do the same with his legs around Sila’s waist. His face disappeared in the crook of his neck and he felt the hot, wet press of tears.
“Please,” Bay begged. “I don’t want to die. I was wrong! I don’t want to die! Please, Sila!”
That stabbing in his chest turned to an ache, and it made him want to hug the professor back, but he resisted. “The bridge.”
“I thought you’d left!” Bay explained in a rush, digging his nails into the backs of Sila’s shoulders even though it wasn’t like he’d tried to shake him loose or remove him. “And then I lost a race. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to die. Don’t kill me. Keep me instead. Permanently.”
Sila’s brain fritzed out for a split second, that was the only explanation for why his entire body went still and the world seemed to freeze in place. “What?”
“Keep me,” Bay repeated. “Give me that choice. Death or you. Please.”
If he agreed to that, wouldn’t that mean Bay was calling the shots?
Hadn’t Sila sort of been letting him do that for a while now though?
