In The Punch Line

Episode 10: Mature Content

When they got back up to the room, Charles collapsed back onto the bed,  shutting his eyes. "I never thought I'd say this," he murmured, "never  in my wildest dreams, but poor Jeff Reynolds." He managed a weak grin.

"Wait 'til I tell Raven." Eugene sat down on the other side of the bed and began removing his shoes. "It couldn't have happened to a nicer person."

"I  thought I'd feel happier about it, though," Charles said. "I thought he  deserved to have his life ruined for what he put me through, but -- it  really is ruined, and I just feel as though I made the wrong wish,  somehow." He buried his face in the pillow.

His next words were muffled in the cloth. Eugene thought one of them might be 'real IQ' but that seemed to make limited sense in context.

"Here," he said, getting up and sitting next to Charles at the head of the bed. He reached over and stroked Charles' hair. It was as soft as it looked.

Charles shivered entrancingly at the touch. Then he lifted his head from the pillow and turned to look up at Eugene.

"I think you should be flattered," Eugene said. "Here you were worrying about the reunion, and it turns out  nearly everyone in your class secretly wanted to sleep with you."

Charles chuckled faintly. He shifted nearer on the bed and allowed Eugene to pull his head into his lap. Eugene carded his fingers through Charles' hair and Charles shut his eyes again and melted a little into the touch. Eugene tucked a lock of dark hair out of Charles' face behind his ear, letting his finger trace lightly over the ridge of Charles' ear, and Charles made an extremely gratifying low noise in his throat.

Eugene did it again, finger continuing down the line of Charles' throat, and Charles inhaled noisily and then exhaled with painstaking slowness, like dropping pennies into a glass of water.

Then Charles opened his eyes again. "They're all idiots," he said. "They always were. Mark Ornstein  is the only one that wasn't, and I don't think he's even at this reunion."

"If they had the sense to want you they can't be complete idiots," Eugene said, deciding not to mention Mark Ornstein. He traced a thumb over  Charles' forehead, along the curve of his cheek, carefully as though he were memorizing it.

Charles looked up at him. His eyes were even more alarmingly blue than Eugene had remembered, but there was a startling heat in the look that was new. It was like gazing at the fire through stained glass. No. It was -- there weren't words for the look.

It flooded his mind with uncomfortably vivid images -- he wanted to see that look again with Charles naked and pinioned between his thighs, with Charles kneeling over him in mussed sheets-- That was the proper place for eyes like that.

The heat that began to sear into his groin made him realize that having Charles' head in his lap was about to be a liability. He slid a hand under Charles' neck and cupped the back of his head. That would have to do as a buffer.

"I'm sorry," Charles said. "Eugene you don't need to do this." His voice sounded a little rough. "It's marvelous, but you don't--"

"Shhh," Eugene grinned, and pressed a finger to his lips. Touching Charles' lips made him remember what kissing him was like, the way that soft mouth both yielded and demanded his, the warmth of Charles in his arms, the little gasp that had escaped his lips when their mouths came together.

It was possibly the hottest sound he'd ever heard, hotter because he felt certain Charles hadn't meant for him to hear it.

He wanted to kiss Charles again more than anything. No. Not only that. If he had to hear one more time from a random classmate around the bar the things that Charles' mouth was capable of, he thought he was going to strangle something. It was torture.