Escape is Only Temporary [boyxboy]

Chapter XII

~Tuesday 7th June 2016~

Reece had a problem. He had tried to ignore it, hoping that it might solve itself, but it didn't look as though that was going to be the case. It was an awkward problem, one that he didn't want to admit, or even think about really. Yet, he knew he couldn't avoid it forever. He was going to have to address it sooner or later, and that meant speaking to Shepherd. It wasn't going to be a comfortable conversation, nor did Reece expect it to go any way other than badly, however, it was going to have to occur. He couldn't spend the rest of his life not knowing.

He couldn't remember. The night of Porter's funeral, when he had been drinking with Shepherd at some cheap bar in the middle of the city, he lost time. More than time, he lost the majority of the damn night. One moment, he had been there, sipping a whiskey whilst Shepherd disappeared to go to the bathroom, then it was morning. He was laying in a hotel bed, nude, with Shepherd asleep next to him. How he'd got there, he had no recollection.

Reece had panicked that morning, locking himself in the bathroom and trying all he could to recall the evening prior. He hadn't gotten blackout drunk in so long, he barely consumed alcohol to begin with. He wasn't a cruel drunk, nor was he particularly violent the majority of the time, however, it didn't do much for his temper. Reece didn't have a lot of patience when he was drunk. If he drank when he was happy, he would turn into a giddy, bubbling mess, constantly tripping over his own feet and finding the slightest thing hilarious. However, if he drank in a low state, he became a different person. Irritable, venomous, he had even thrown a few punches in the past when he was particularly wrathful.

That night, he hadn't been feeling much of anything. There was the natural low mood that came with attending a funeral, but nothing more than that. He didn't know Porter personally, so grief didn't come naturally to him. Seeing his family cry, however, that had bothered him. Snowden's tears weren't so effective, he had seen the boy cry before, he had even been the cause during more than one of his stupid mistakes as a new father. However, Kai's hurt. And Shepherd's almost drew a few out of his own eyes.

Yet, when Reece had been sitting at that bar with Shepherd, just talking, he hadn't felt sad. He was content there. Anywhere around Shepherd, he was happy. That was the natural state that the man brought out in him, and he wasn't planning to deny that either if Shepherd were to ask. So why had he lost so much time? He was only on his third whiskey, and it wasn't even affecting him that much. He had drunk much more in the past and had the shoddy memories to follow. Why was that night so different?

The loss of time wasn't what bothered Reece, it was what had happened during that time that clawed at the back of his mind. He had woken naked, in the same bed as Shepherd, in a hotel room that certainly wasn't the penthouse suite of the Warrickton. Did that mean they had done something? Something that Reece would regret? Or something that he would yearn to remember? He could have said anything that night, done anything. He could have hurt Shepherd, and that was what bothered him most. Shepherd was his world, he promised to protect him. He couldn't bear the thought that he had been the one to cause harm.

Shepherd's behaviour in the days that followed had been the only way for Reece to calm his nerves. The man was acting normally. He wasn't nervous around Reece, or awkward. It was as if nothing happened, so that had to be the case, right? If Reece had hurt Shepherd in some way, even if they had done something consensually, Shepherd would have acted differently. And, yet, that wasn't the case. He was acting the same as ever. Granted, he was a little down because Kai and Snowden had been taken to Reece's pack that last Sunday, however, that was all that had changed. Surely, that meant Reece was in the clear.

"Stay," Shepherd's voice roused Reece from his worries, drawing the man's gaze toward him. Shepherd was laid on his stomach in bed, one arm hidden under the pillow his head rested on and the other reaching out lazily to Reece. The sheets were tangled around his legs, revealing the silky obsidian flesh that wasn't covered by the boxers and oversized t-shirt of Reece's that he slept in. If Reece had allowed his eyes to linger, he could have spent hours just looking at Shepherd's flawless skin, and even longer savouring the texture of it against his own.