I managed to get us most of the way home before what’s his dick started getting antsy. His hand made it to my leg, skimming up and down the outside of my thigh, and I gritted my teeth and kept driving. Then it was on top of my leg, moving further and further up my thigh, in between my legs. It was fucking distracting.

At the next red light I put the car in park and turned to him, angry, and found his other hand skittering over his own skin, his eyes hooded with pleasure. I wanted to hate him in that moment, wanted to be mad at his actions, but he was on X and who knew what else and he didn’t know what he was doing. Also, a bit of my brain mentioned, watching his fingers trace over his collarbone, he looked fucking hot.

Shut up, brain, I told myself, and pushed his hand away. “Stop it.”

He just moaned and reached out again, his own hand dropping towards his lap.

Shit, I thought. I don’t have time for this. Horny jittery drug user was no good to me. I need him to go back to melty drug user, now. Instantaneously I understood how to make that happen, could feel the plan sitting in my chest but god was it a bad one, but his hand was back on my leg and I needed this not to happen here, not to happen at all, so I reached over, grabbed his chin, and kissed him.

I didn’t kiss him like I wanted to, with all the things he was making me feel and all the things I wanted to do to him dripping from my lips into his. I thought - no, I knew - that if I had done that, he would have right about died. Way too much for him to handle, and then there was me, because if I expressed any of that out loud even in actions I did not know, did not think I could be responsible for what would happen next. So instead I kissed him soft, and gentle. Not chaste, or innocent; I hate those words, and they don’t apply to me anyway, so instead I kissed him with the knowledge and trust that I wasn’t going to go farther than a kiss, that all I wanted from him was this, that this was the end of it and that was enough for me.

It was the truth, at least for that night, and I wanted him to know it.

I think my action surprised him. He was frozen for a moment, and then I felt it. Felt him melt against me. It took a second, and then he kissed me back, his lips opening before mine and his breath shuddering as I scraped my teeth against them, gently traced his mouth with my tongue. I pressed all the truths and trust and knowledge I wanted into his mouth and then I let it sit, tried to let it dissolve, before I pulled back and rested my forehead against his.

The light was turning yellow - we must have kissed through it being green. That was fine. He needed time to process this. I needed time to process this. “Okay?” I asked quietly.

He nodded. When I let his head go he all but sunk into the seat, a dazed expression on his face. His dark hair clung to his face and slipped down his shoulders; his tight clothes were in disarray. He looked a mess.

Fuck, I thought. Shit. Too much for him. But at least he wasn’t distracting me anymore.

The light turned green and I jumped, then put the car back in drive and started towards home.

***

Melted.

And the kiss. It wasn’t a kiss, it had been a promise, or a conversation. Or maybe an entire world inside his mouth, a universe and I’d just gotten the smallest glimpse. Warm and soft and everything, when had a kiss become everything? Kisses were boring, kisses were nothing, kisses were something people did to pass the time but that, him, time had ended, when had time started again? I didn’t think it had. I didn’t think time would ever start back up, not after that. I thought I might be dead. Who knew that a kiss could be like that? I had always thought, had always felt. No one had ever told me, and his lips, and the way he had tasted.

Shit, I thought as I closed my eyes, leaning against the cool seat. I must be really fucking high.

***

He’d passed out sometime on the way back. I’d carried him the the stairs, a little surprised at how light he was, a little worried at how unresponsive, a lot worried about what the neighbors would think about me carrying a scantily clad man into my apartment. But I shouldn’t have been - Mrs. Kovacs from down the hall took one look at my face and sighed, helping me to open the door.

As she turned away, she patted my arm. “You make a good friend, Mr. Cooper,” she told me in her lilting accent.

I smiled at her, feeling uncomfortable at all the thoughts that had swirled in my head about this man I had over my shoulder. “Thanks, Mrs. Kovacs.”

“Have a good sleep, now.”

“You as well.”

As soon as the door was closed I slung my burden down on the couch. He mumbled and turned over, seeming cross or at least semi-aware of what was going on. I checked his pulse, but it didn’t seem too slow, and his breathing was at a normal rate for what he was probably on. So. Not dying then. I sighed and leaned back and tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do with him.

The first thing I did was text Bren. “man sleeping on couch. high as shit.”

Then I realized what I sent and sent another text - “him, not me”

That would have to do until Bren got home and I could explain the whole situation. Then I filled a glass of water and put it on the table next to him. There was an extra blanket in the closet, and I grabbed it out. While I was grabbing it my eye caught on our mop bucket and I grabbed that too, putting it beside his head.

I stood there for a moment, watching him sleep. He looked so peaceful. Nothing like the guy I’d seen voluntarily run into another man’s fist. Or stare at me with a hunger that wasn’t for me, but the kind of damage I could bring to his soul. Or dance with a kind of violence I didn’t want in my life anymore.

“Jesus fucking christ,” I finally said out loud, and turned and headed to bed.