Gooood morning! Who wants porn?

*coughs*

I mean, thoughful character and plot development. Below. *g*

Rating: NC-17
Pairing: MR/TW
Summary: AU. Trapped somewhere between angst and humour.
A/N: Never happened. Except the tiny bits that did, and those have been completely turned to my own purposes. Feedback is like a grande blackberry green tea frappuccino with a bear claw on the side.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10



Michael wakes up slowly, almost immediately aware of his surroundings and yet not quite willing to deal with them all at once. He’s alone, yes, but in Tom Welling’s bed, and he kicked his boxers off in his sleep because he can feel them bunched up by his feet. He’s naked and alone and there’s sunlight on his face and birds singing and somewhere downstairs there’s music. A radio. A radio and a voice singing along.

Tom.

Michael rolls onto his stomach and grins into his pillow at the memory of the night before. The grin falters a little as he remembers the red wine, the fall onto the carpet, Tom’s determined grip on his arm. But then Tom sings, particularly off-key, and the grin is back.

There’s a little chink of tags and Cook is next to him, wiggling his tail and panting in Michael’s face.

“You have bad breath,” Michael tells Cook sleepily.

Cook winks one eye.

“Me too,” Michael confesses, and throws back the covers. Both feet on the carpet, flat, testing -- and yes, he slept long enough for once, because everything feels almost normal. There’s a bathroom just off of the bedroom. Michael pisses, rubs some toothpaste over his teeth with his finger, and swishes with mouthwash before going back to find his boxers and a t-shirt. It’s then that he notices the alarm clock on the night stand: it’s eleven o’clock. Michael slept for about twelve hours.

Down the stairs with Cook winding between his feet as though to prove how much more agile Michael is today, and they both find Tom in the kitchen. He’s not barefoot like Michael -- he’s wearing orange flip-flops, navy track pants, and a green t-shirt that says ‘berc om e itch’ in peeling yellow letters. He’s an eyesore, even by Michael’s standards.

He looks up from the stove and flashes Michael a smile. He’s gorgeous. “Eggs?”

“Coffee?” counters Michael hopefully, and moves in the direction of the carafe he spots.

“Don’t you get enough of that at work?” asks Tom, sucking on his thumb and then waving it in the air. “Ouch.”

“What, did you touch the frying pan?” asks Michael, hopping onto the counter and taking a slug of his coffee. “Fucking hell!” he exclaims a moment later, coughing around a mouthful of acid disguised as coffee.

“Well, there’s a reason I come to your store every day,” laughs Tom while Michael shoots him a dirty glance and goes about disposing of Tom’s evil version of coffee before setting up a fresh pot to brew. “Eggs?”

“Are you better at cooking than you are at brewing coffee?” Michael asks suspiciously.

“Yes. Mostly.” Tom slides some scrambled egg onto a waiting plate and pushes it towards Michael.

Michael picks up a piece of egg with his fingers and chews it. “Needs salt.”

“Salt’s bad for you,” Tom answers, but points out the saltshaker anyway.

So, okay. This is -- nice. Barring the huge weight of the undiscussed events of last night -- both sweaty and otherwise -- this could almost be a pleasant morning. Michael finds a stool and sits at the counter eating eggs with his fingers until Tom notices and pushes a fork his way with an impatient roll of his eyes. They eat in mutual silence, Tom absently mouthing his burned thumb between mouthfuls, Michael keeping a weather eye on the percolator, ready to leap into action as soon as it’s finished.

“Do you want to --” begins Tom, haltingly, just as Michael pours his second cup of coffee. “Go skating again?” It’s not what he meant to say, but Michael’s not about to complain.

“Nah,” says Michael. He may be in great shape this morning but he’s not prepared to spend another day pushing his limits. “What else can we do?”

“Well,” says Tom, and kicks Michael in the ankle with his flip-flop as Michael settles back onto the stool.

Michael cuts Tom a curious glance and can’t help laughing when he sees what Tom looks like when he’s actively trying to be suggestive. “I thought you wanted to talk,” he says, “not that I mind.”

Tom looks down and away as a rosy blush rises in his cheeks. “Talking’s overrated.” And then, with dizzying abruptness, his green eyes are fixed on Michael’s face. “I think that we both know what we would say anyway.”

We do? thinks Michael, crazily. It’s as though Tom’s realized something, as though he knows something he can’t possibly know, and yet -- what else could he mean? It can only be that Tom has realized who Michael really is, or who he was not so very long ago.

“It’s weird,” says Tom, putting his fork down and reaching out to hold Michael’s free hand. “Like we were meant to meet each other, but it somehow didn’t happen until now.”

God knows how, Michael thinks, but Tom’s figured it out. He knows that the two of them were supposed to be co-workers. Maybe he’d talked to a producer, dropped Michael’s name? It didn’t really matter how: the truth is out -- well, most of the truth -- and now Michael feels himself relax fully for the first time in Tom’s presence. He feels the smile break over his face, reaches up with his refreshed right hand, and pulls Tom in close for a kiss. It’s all so strange and real and Tom’s orange flip-flop is dragging its worn foam toe in a line down Michael’s anklebone.

This would be the perfect time to finish with disclosures, Michael knows. It would be so neat and simple to just pull away and tell Tom about that night five years back, the dark and the blank places in Michael’s memory, and all the ways his life has splintered around a single half-hour he doesn’t even remember, but Tom’s lips are wide and his hair is tangled and messy, and Michael decides that it’s all going to make more sense later.

***

It turns out that Tom has many frustrating personal rules about boundaries and their measured and timely removal. It’s not just the ‘no hands below the waist on the first date’ rule that Michael’s already encountered. Tom says, “Let’s shower separately,” and “Let’s not rush into that yet,” and he says, “I don’t want to take things too far.” Even for Michael’s newly emancipated bottom persona, Tom’s regulations seem unfair and dictatorial.

Lucky for Michael, it seems like every single one of them is made for the breaking.

Tom wants them to shower separately, so Michael makes a point of getting undressed in front of him, walking around the room as he does so, and then being unable to find the shampoo in the shower.

“It’s in the white bottle!” shouts Tom over the spray.

“What?” says Michael, feigning deafness.

“The. White. Bottle!” Tom shouts again.

“What?” repeats Michael.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” says Tom, and comes into the bathroom. Michael can see his bath-robed form through the wavy pebbled glass. “White. Bottle,” he says again.

“Where?” Michael gestures helplessly.

Tom pulls the door open and points at the huge white bottle directly in front of him.

“Oh,” says Michael, and runs a hand over his chest. “Thanks.” He smiles at Tom and Tom stares back. “Maybe you should stay,” Michael suggests. “In case I can’t find the soap.”

Tom watches Michael pinch his own nipple, then nods. “I’m here to help,” he says, shrugging out of his robe and stepping inside. “After all, you are my guest.”

“Exactly,” says Michael as he drops to his knees and opens his mouth.

“Let’s not rush into that yet,” says Tom, ten minutes and one orgasm later, when Michael’s lying on his back in the middle of the bed, both of them shower-wet and breathing hard from making out. Michael’s just asked Tom if he does rim-jobs and that’s when Tom got all skirty, and normally Michael would take that as a big ‘no’ except for the way that Tom’s cock is pushing a big ‘yes’ signal into Michael’s hip.

“The thing is,” Michael says, “normally I don’t like the idea of someone eating my ass, but with your mouth --” He lets his voice trail off and his hand do the talking, fingertips grazing Tom’s red open lips. “God, you’d open me right up. With your tongue in my --”

Tom actually puts his palm over Michael’s mouth, looking furious and about to laugh and horny as hell all at once. “You’re -- god,” he gasps, and Michael lets his legs fall open just a bit more in reply. Tom groans and thrusts, and then he’s going down. Michael bites his lips against the smile that wants to surface, and then he’s just *biting* because Tom’s using his teeth, gently but firmly.

Michael opens around Tom’s tongue like he’s made of butter.

“I don’t want to take things too far,” says Tom, minutes and ages later, Michael panting and desperate, Tom kneeling between Michael’s thighs and surging slowly forward, pressing his lubed sheathed cock against Michael’s entrance. “Maybe we should just --”

Just like he imagined last night, Michael’s knees are trembling with need, Tom’s everywhere, above and around. “God, fuck me,” he begs, far beyond the point of strategy or teasing.

Tom slides in with a single stroke and Michael’s throat feels raw, like Tom’s there too.

“I didn’t mean to,” says Tom, and now he’s the one who’s shaking while Michael gentles him with long strokes down his sweaty back, easing Tom down from the intensity of his orgasm. Tom puts his face in the safe place between Michael’s ear and his shoulder and shivers. “I wanted to hold off until -- until I was sure. That this was real, between us. I tend to get carried away, I get caught up and I --”

Michael turns his face to kiss Tom silent. “I love your orange flip-flops,” he tells Tom. “And you fuck like an angel.”

Tom cracks a grin and they both subside into the pillow, drifting in pleasant post-coital drowsiness.

***