He yanked his hands off the sheets and pressed them against his own chest, trying to hold himself together as best he could.
“Greg?” Dustin's weight shifted. “What's wrong?”
“I'm dissolving.” His voice came out small, and when he held up his hands, the bedside lamp shone clean through his fingertips. “My clipboard is on the highway and I don't have an anchor and I'm…”
Not solid enough for you.
He was going to scatter. Right here in this bed. With Dustin on top of him and his body stillyearning. He was going to dissolve because he'd felt too much, because he'd wanted too much, because he was a teaspoon trying to hold an ocean and the containerwas cracking and he should have known better than to engage in any of this.
Dustin cupped his face—with both hands. One steady, one trembling from a shoulder that had been wrenched back into its socket two hours ago. He held Greg's jaw and made Greg look at him.
“No,” Dustin said. “You're not going anywhere.”
“You don't understand, I can't control it.”
“Do you want to be here?”
Greg's throat closed. “Yes.”
“Do you want to stay with me?”
“Yes.”
“Then stay with me.”
He kissed him.
Not hard. Not desperate. This was not the frantic collision that had started this. Dustin kissed him like he was something that could shatter, slow and careful, his thumbs stroking Greg's cheekbones, and the gentleness of it cracked Greg open worse than anything else could have.
He braced for the unraveling. For the scattering. For the terrible lightness of coming undone.
Nothing.
Nothing but the warmth of Dustin's lips against his and the feel of Dustin's hands on his face. Dustin's heartbeat was hammering against his chest—or was that his own? He couldn't tell. Couldn't tell where his pulse ended and Dustin's began, and he didn't care, because both of them werereal.
He looked down at his hands where they hovered between their chests. They were solid. The light from the lamp hit them and bounced off the way it was supposed to.
He didn't understand why, but he didn't need to understand.
There was no room for thought as he grabbed Dustin by the back of the neck and kissed him back.
He didn't possess Dustin's finesse. His kiss was hard and graceless. His teeth scraped against Dustin's lip ring, and Dustin made a rough sound against his mouth, relief and want clearly tangling together as he pulled Greg closer. Greg's hands landed on Dustin's bare sides, more solid than anything. He was touching warm skin and hard muscle and he washere.
Still here. Still here. Still?—
Dustin's hips rolled against his and Greg whimpered and the sound should have been humiliating but he couldn't bring himself to care because Dustin responded by doing itagain, slower this time, a deliberate grind that sent Greg's vision white at the edges.
But he didn't dissolve.
He wasn't going to leave while Dustin was warm and heavy and wanting him.
While Dustin's towel slowly slipped from his waist.
Greg had been trying not to think about it. He'd been valiantly, heroically keeping his gaze away from Dustin's groin.
But now Dustin flung the towel aside, revealing warm skin and colorful ink that Greg suddenly wanted to trace with his tongue.
Greg's hand was on Dustin's hip. His fingers were on bare skin that hadn't been bare a second ago. He looked down between them before his brain could advise against it.
