“I hate him!” Epi confessed. “I hate him so much…I…” he panted out, gasping for breath but this time when Nick touched his shoulder and rubbed a strong hand over his back he didn’t try to throw the contact off. “I hate him…but…”

“But you love him.”

He nodded. “God…I…it’s…it’s been like he’s away at rehab and he’ll be home soon…I miss him…but I hate him…”

The back under his hand was shaking like a leaf in a hard wind and Nick could physically feel the effort that Epi was making to stay held together. He just didn’t have the words to fix something like this and he hated feeling like he couldn’t fix things. His eyes roamed around the room but the cats seemed as clueless as he was.

Then he saw the title on a cd case stacked under the dvd player. It was labeled in clear, neat black pen with the words Vacation and a date a few years ago. Carefully, Nick picked the case up and saw it was a dvd not a cd and the entire stack was home movies. He didn’t ask permission, he just opened the case and put it in the drawer. A little shove and the dvd was sucked inside the player.

“Don’t remember him this way.” The television flickered on and showed a stunning view of sand and water and bright sunshine.

“Here we are, finally, after a five hour delay…about five minutes from a fruity drink with little umbrella’s on it. Beautiful weather, clear water, white sand annnnnd my Epi is still working…” Timothy spoke from the video and the image panned from the beautiful view to where Epi sat in their hotel room. His legs in shorts, healthy and whole, folded in front of him on the bed. Glasses on, Epi was hunched down in front of his laptop. “He got an idea on the plane and refuses to relax until he gets it out. Hang on true believers…. The beach is calling our names but he may not hear for hours as I’m neglected and ignored for the voices in his head.”  

“Turn it off!” Epi, the real one, hissed out and sat up. Tears were on his face.

“I want to see it.” Nick answered as the video Timothy continued to babble on about being abandoned while Epi worked. “I want to remember him this way.”

The Epi on the screen didn’t glance up. “I can hear you, you know that right?”

“Oooo careful….the captive writer gets nasty when provoked. The wise wildlife photographer will approach with great care least he receive the wrath of the writer’s sharp wit and tongue.”

Epi on the video looked up as the Epi on the floor crumbled into sobbing grief. “Ten minutes, Timothy, ten minutes that’s all I need.” The video Epi asked but his face softened. “Five and you can show me how to golf.”

“Really?”

Epi nodded. “And I won’t complain once.”

“Deal!” The camera swung so that it found a mirror and Timothy, alive and grinning, came into view. “I’m counting and I am going to bring the camera. Epi on the golf course is like some dirty fantasy of mine.” He wiggled his eyebrows and the Epi on the bed groaned.

The Epi on the floor broke down into wrecking sobs. He was caught in anger, grief, love and hate none of which were easily expressed and chocked his throat and left him boneless and weak on the floor. Nick wrapped his arms around Epi and half gathered the protesting man against him. It took some work but he got Epi moving enough to get them both back to the sofa. Epi tried to curl up in the far corner but Nick caught him and didn’t let him.

“Here…”

“I’m fine.” He sobbed around short gasping breaths.

“No, you’re not, here.” Nick tugged again and pulled Epi closer. It took some more tugs and yanks and pulls but Epi soon gave in and let himself be gathered against Nick. Nick heard the man’s breathing change, instead of letting himself cry and grieve Epi was holding his breath. Each hitching sob he held as he tried to calm down. “Stubborn.” Nick muttered and petted a hand across the back of Epi’s head. “You’ve a right to be angry you know, and to hate him. What he did was horrible. You’ve a right to it, even if you still love him.”

The words tumbled across Epi and the last shard of his control shattered. Nick felt safe and steady. He felt like the kind of person a man could fall apart on and have it be okay. Epi stopped trying to pull away and let himself dissolve against Nick. He half buried his face against Nick’s chest and let himself cry. All Nick did was wiggle around a little to get his back against the sofa better and haul Epi into a more comfortable position. He snagged the box of tissue and continued to pet Epi’s head the way he would one of the cats. Nick didn’t speak again, didn’t ask questions or poke at raw wounds, he just sat there and let Epi grieve while they let the old video play.

Epi only wept against him for a short time. It was long enough to wet Nick’s shirt with tears but not long enough given all that the man had lost. He didn’t comment, just stayed still and relaxed and let the other man settle himself down as and when he could. Once the spat of tears ended Epi continued to curl against him and Nick let him. Together, in silence they watched the video as Epi and Timothy moved through their vacation, from golf to swimming and sight seeing. It was almost meditative to watch and he found the warm weight of Epi’s body comforting.

It must have been comforting to Epi too. The man’s breathing steadied and than leveled out. It wasn’t long until Nick was pretty sure Epi had drifted to sleep and he smiled softly at that. He couldn’t be sure because he couldn’t see Epi’s eyes but the hand that had clutched at his shirt had gone limp. It wasn’t until soft, muffled snores drifted from the warm body that Nick could swear Epi was asleep.

The video switched from a beach scene to a hotel hallway. The camera spun around and Timothy grinned. “Time to surprise Sleeping Beauty….”

The camera swung around again and the hotel door opened. The room had a far more lived in look than their first day but the light pouring in from the windows and spilling on the bed made it late afternoon. Epi was sprawled there, on top of the covers in shorts and a t-shirt. His glasses were on and his hands limply held a paperback book. It was pretty obvious the combination of reading and a warm sunbeam had done the slender man in.

Nick had been shocked to see the version of Epi on the screen. He smiled freely and it didn’t have nearly the same level of bitterness as the Epi in his arms. The man before the accident was a good bit bulkier but wasn’t heavy, he’d been decently muscled, toned and slender instead of bordering on scrawny like he was now. His hair had been well trimmed and made him look like some 19^th century poet instead of being overgrown and sloppy. Epi from before was quick witted, sarcastic, sharp edged and focused with no hint of the brittleness he now carried. Sleep had, in both versions of Epi, dissolved all of that and left him softened, vulnerable and beautiful.

“Epi…” Timothy whispered. He held the camera in one hand and placed a bowl on the table with the other. With a hand free now he stroked Epi’s sleeping face. “Epi…wake up…”

Epi muttered and leaned into the touch. Slowly he opened his eyes. “What? ‘m readin’…”

“Napping… wake up a little… I made you something…”

“Hmmm?”

Timothy retrieved a spoon from the bowl and a dark chocolate ice cream hovered on it. “Open your mouth.”

“Timothy.” Epi protested and set his book aside.

“Open.”

With a sigh he opened his mouth and Timothy guided the spoon in. The sleepy Epi’s face went from uncertain to a smile. “Oh…that’s good…”

“Dark chocolate coconut ice cream.”

“How’d you…”

“I got them to let me into the kitchen. There’s raspberries in it too… Open?”

Epi’s eyes cracked open. “I can feed myself.”

“I know, open up.”

“Silly.” He protested but he opened up. Spoonful after spoonful was fed to the sleepy Epi and as the bowl emptied Timothy slipped more and more onto the bed. Whenever a bit of the ice cream smeared on Epi’s lips, Timothy held the camera out and leaned in to lick and nibble it away.

It made Nick decidedly uncomfortable to watch. It was obviously a private moment, sweet and tender and not meant for strangers to watch. He knew he should turn it off but he didn’t. He justified watching by saying he didn’t want to wake Epi up but he knew it was a lie.

“Timothy?” Epi questioned softly, still a little groggy from his nap and bleary eyed.

“Shhhh, relax….” The camera rocked a little and it took Nick a moment to understand that it moved because Timothy had changed his position on the bed. The camera swung down as Timothy glanced down and Nick saw the man was untying Epi’s shorts with one hand. He had a quick glimpse of Timothy’s hand slipping under the fabric before the camera darted back up.

“Oh…oh…”

“Shhhh, I got you….”

Epi’s eyes cracked open and he licked his lips. “Turn the camera off.”

“No, I want to watch you.”

Epi arched a little and his eyes drifted shut. “Tim…Timothy…turn it off…”

“No…close your eyes…”

Nick knew he should look away. He understood Timothy’s desire to watch because Epi was sexy and erotic but the sight wasn’t meant for his eyes. On the video Epi moaned softly, writhed in small arching motions. He licked his lips and gasped, he sighed and whimpered. Occasionally Timothy whispered soft words, quiet endearments but mostly he just watched. Epi held his breath as he came and released it in a long slow moaning exhale as his body went limp below his boyfriends.

Epi’s eyes opened. “Turn the camera off.”

“Why?” Timothy asked breathlessly.

“Because you’re going to need both hands.”

The camera spun around and Timothy grinned into the video. With a wink, the video went black. The video sputtered back to life off and on to show the airport on the way home and than bits and pieces of other mundane things but Nick didn’t really see it. He was painfully hard and the object of that arousal was sleeping peacefully against him. It would be easy to wake Epi up, slip him down to lay sprawled on the sofa. It would be easy to try to steal another of those teasing kisses and maybe steal more. He’d just seen first hand how compliant Epi was when first waking up and Nick knew he could exploit that. Epi was lonely, he was horny too and more Nick knew the slender man found him attractive. He was vulnerable right now from the emotional turmoil of the day and it would be so easy to comfort him in a way that would make his own aching need go away.

It would be easy and wrong. Nick sighed and shifted his weight so he was in a more comfortable position and dropped his head back onto the sofa. He couldn’t very well wake Epi up and excuse himself to jerk off. Epi would remember how the video ended and never forgive him for watching. There was nothing to do but wait and be miserable, which seemed like just punishment for having watched what he knew he shouldn’t have. Only, as time passed and his body slowly settled down, Nick knew it wasn’t just punishment because the memory of Epi lost in pleasure was going to haunt him.

 

His arm was asleep and his neck hurt but as he tried to shift himself into a more comfortable position Nick found himself weighted down. Sleep fogged his mind but he knew the feeling of waking up with another body. He slipped along a lean back and nuzzled against soft loose hair. Only the body in his arms didn’t snuggle back. Instead it tensed up and that wasn’t a reaction Nick was used to getting from his lovers.

It wasn’t a lover in his arms. It was Epi. Memory as well as the smell of the man’s cologne reminded him of the night before and Nick woke up with a startled jerk. Rumba hissed at him for moving and moved away with a swish of her tail but Epi didn’t seem in any rush to escape his arms. The video from the night before was playing again on the television and Nick figured it was that more than anything that kept Epi still and in place.

“Awake, huh?” Epi finally whispered but he didn’t so much as twitch.

Nick became overly aware of the warmth from Epi’s body and more, how good it felt to be half curled around the other man. “Fell asleep…”

“You think?” Epi squirmed a little but only enough to slip a hand up to wipe at his face.

That was the only hint that Epi gave that he’d been crying again and Nick ignored it.

“How long…how much of this tape did you watch?”

“Huh?” Nick grunted and was glad that Epi couldn’t see the slight blush that crept across his face. “Not long, fell asleep too.”

“Stupid vacation. We should get up before the cats eat us. They’ve been circling and meowing so they must be out of food.”

Nick shifted his weight to free the crick from his neck and let blood flow back into his trapped arm but he didn’t let Epi go. “Are you okay?”

A strong hand slid over Epi’s stomach and his brain melted. Nick purred something behind him but he was too caught up on the feel of that hand over his shirt that he didn’t really listen. “Huh?”

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