I want to do it now,Asher thought as he leaned in. His lips grazed the spot where the mark belonged before he stopped himself.
Levi was unconscious…Asher wouldn’t be able to hear him whimper or feel him do that cute thing he did where he would arch into Asher with one part of his body and lean away with another. Levi wouldn’t feel teeth go into his skin the way Asher needed him to…
He licked the spot instead. It was a small motion, the wet of his tongue on the dry skin. The taste was salt and the flavor underneath that was Levi. The game had gotten the salt right, but gotten the underneath wrong. The real underneath was different out here. Sweeter. Closer to sugar. He licked it again.
Asher’s hand moved to Levi’s thigh, palming it, his fingers spreading over the muscle that felt smaller. He slid his hand up, slowly, tracing the sharper line of the hip he had not known would be so sharp, and into the soft hollow at Levi’s groin.
Levi’s body responded.
It was faint— a stir under the fabric, the smallest possible answer — but it was an answer. Levi was unconscious and his body answered to Asher’s hand. Asher’s mouth opened wider on the unmarked skin and he made a low, pleased sound, because some part of Levi knew him.
He wanted to keep doing this. He could keep his hand where it was, he could put more weight on it, or slip his hand beneath Levi’s waistband and feel him harden in his hand. What would his face look like if Asher made him cum while he was unconscious? Beautiful, probably. Everything about Levi was beautiful, especially when he was crying and cumming for Asher.
He pulled his hand back.
Later. He needs to be able to look at me properly.
He just stared at Levi’s throat instead. Levi’s throat was bonier—the cartilage at the larynx pushed against the skin in a way it hadn’t in the game. The tendons stood out at the hollow above his collarbones. Asher hated the cause of it.
But he liked how it looked.
Getting Levi over to the chair was harder than he thought it would be, and he was getting frustrated. The lift was bad. His biceps shook through it, his leg spasming as he tried to use a muscle that wanted nothing to do with lifting. By the time he plopped Levi into the chair, he was sweating, but he did it. Levilisted sideways, so Asher nudged him back into place before heading back into the kitchen to pull the roast from the oven.
Thunk.
Asher turned around and sighed. Levi was still out cold, but he had fallen forward, his head on the plate in front of him.Okay. Breathe, Asher. Plans aren’t always perfect. You’re with Levi. That’s what matters. We can fix the rest. Find the good.
Find the goodwas a lesson a particularly chipper therapist drilled into him when he was a teenager. At the time, he took offense to the statement, because she had been treating him like an angsty, depressed teen. He told her dozens of times he wasn’t depressed, he just didn’t feel, and she wasn’t listening, so he made her listen. She was unable to find the good in having her car set on fire.
It turned out that there was some good to find in this situation, though. Levi had duct tape covered in dust on the top of his fridge.
When Asher was done, Levi’s chin was on his chest, his mouth slightly open, the tube running across his cheek and over his ear. The tape would keep Levi from hitting his head, and it would keep him upright for dinner. That was good. The fact that it would also hold Levi if Levi tried to run was a secondary good. The thought made him feel warm.
Asher concluded that Levi needed glasses. He went through the unpacked boxes of clothes, searching for something he could change into that wasn’t a hospital gown, and frowned at every shirt, sweatshirt, and pair of pants. All of them were large, or extra large. Levi, at his best, was a medium, but barely. He must not have been able to read the size on the tag.
We’ll go to the eye doctor once he is better, Asher thought as he dressed.And a regular doctor. Maybe a neurologist to make sure his mind is okay. Definitely a dentist. This apartment doesn’t scream “I have dental insurance”.
I’m going to take care of you forever.
He knew, with the certainty he knew most things about Levi, that Levi would let him.
35
Haptic Feedback
Player One
Levicamebackslowlywithout gasping, and that made Asher uncomfortable for reasons he couldn’t name.
Asher watched from across the table, the dinner he plated before them still steaming, as Levi’s head lifted and dropped, his brow furrowed, his fingers twitching on his thighs. He had watched Levi come back dozens of times, but never like this.
He hadn’t thought about this part. He thought about the reunion as a continuation — Levi looking at him the way Levi looked at him when the world was vanishing around them, sending them back to the exit that terrified him because he forgot that it was the exit. He did not think about hownewLevi was going to be. Every sound, every motion, every shift of muscle was a thing Asher hadn’t yet experienced in real-world physics, and he was already tracking everything —that’s how his finger moves when he’s coming back, that’s his breath returning to awaking rhythm, that’s the sound he makes before language— and his hands wanted to be on Levi for every one of them.
He set his fork down. He cut the meat to keep his hands busy and put the napkin in his lap to look like a man having dinner, but he did not eat, because Levi hadn’t been awake to eat with him, and the rules were the rules. He folded his hands on the table and waited.
Levi’s eyes opened in increments, a frown on his face as his eyes drifted around the space, only half aware. They went to the ceiling. They went to the candles. They went to the tape across his chest and the tops of his arms holding him upright in the chair. His hands flew to it, fingers scrabbling at the edge, and his eyes kept moving — the table, the plates, the wine glasses, the napkins.
Then Asher.
