by brooklinegirl (witchbaby)
1/2002
PG
Myron's caught up in his thoughts tonight
Too tired to sleep. That happens a lot here. Too tired to think, too, but my mind won’t stop whirring. Makes my head ache. My eyes won’t stay closed.McKay’s asleep in his bunk on the other side of the room and it’s dark in here. Dark, but my eyes have long since adjusted to the dimness and I’m watching the gray of the beams against the ceiling.
Can’t stop my mind from moving. Thinking things I shouldn’t ever think. Those looks and touches come back to me so clear and my heart starts beating way too fast. Middle of the night and I should be sleeping and instead I’m just thinking about him. About Zeke. Sometimes I think he knows. How can he not? It’s all so clear between us. He tells me everything with a look…and I think I can read his heart in his eyes. But he doesn’t say a word.
Leaves me to figure it out on my own.
Damn.
He’s waiting for me to do something, I think. To say something. I can’t. I build myself up to it and then…I can’t. What if I’m just imagining it all? I’d look like a fool. And I’d lose him as a friend. I’m not willing to do that.
But sometimes – like in the middle of the night when I’m too damn tired to sleep – it all seems really clear to me.
I shift in bed, trying to get comfortable, trying to will myself to sleep. I desperately want a cigarette, but I don’t want to wake McKay. My thoughts are complicated enough without having to deal with questions.
I turn the pillow over, trying to find a cool spot. Settle back, determined to sleep, but my mind just won’t stop moving.
Zeke and I fit together, two halves of a whole. There isn’t a damn person on this base who’ll argue that with you. Regardless of anything else, we make a damn fine team – different styles, different ways of seeing things sometimes, but we have the same agenda: getting these boys – and ourselves – back to the base alive, each and every time. We try. Out there, we’re smooth like clockwork. Back here at base, two halves of a whole still, but we’re not that smooth. We’re still stuttering along on this whole friendship thing, never mind…something more.
We’re friends, sure. Hell, if I were pushed, I’d call him my best friend, here or anywhere else. I talk to him about stuff I never thought I’d tell *anybody*, and he does the same with me, I think. What happens is, we’ll get that – that closeness – and something will happen. Like we’re on the edge of something and it’ll get to just that moment of finding out what – and either Zeke or I will back away.
Usually it’s me.
But still, it’s Zeke who keeps me awake at night, thinking. Zeke who gets me all hot and bothered, I guess. Zeke who has that smile, all rough and real, and it makes my knees tremble
It’s been building slowly, but tonight I feel overwhelmed with need. It hits me hard and all of a sudden I’m trembling. Need that closeness, that touching, feeling, being real. I feel like I can’t breathe, but I’m breathing fine. It’s *me* that’s hurting, inside, and I can’t deal.
Fuck waking McKay. I sit up and grope for the cigarettes on the bedside table. My hands are really shaking and it takes two tries to get the cigarette lit. The flash of the lighter is startling in the darkness. I hear McKay turn over in bed.
“What the hell are you doing, Goldman?”
I don’t even turn my head to look at him. “Go back to sleep, McKay.” I lie back down, one hand behind my head and take a long drag on the cigarette, trying hard not to think.
More rustling. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
I’m still staring off into the darkness, lost in not-thinking my thoughts.
“Goldman? Myron? Hey!”
I jump, wondering how many times he’s said my name. “What!” It probably comes out grouchier than I had intended.
“You okay?” The tone of his voice lets me know that, no matter what I answer, he’s going to think I’m crazy and he’ll refuse to let this go.
So I don’t answer.
Mistake.
I head his bed creak as he gets up. He pads across to my bed, sits down by my feet. I tear my gaze from the smoke rising ghost-like to the ceiling and look at him. I should be pissed at this intrusion, but I guess I’m too tired for anger. “Go back to bed, McKay. I’m fine. Just too wound up to sleep.”
This earns me an arched eyebrow and a wide grin. “Hell, Goldman, you’re the one who woke me up from a sound sleep. Now I’m awake, so why don’t you take advantage of my good nature and talk to me?”
That grin is irritating me no end. “You said you weren’t sleeping.”
He dismisses that with a wave. “C’mon, Goldman. Spill.”
I’m angry all of a sudden, angry and glad of it, because anger is better than that need – that loneliness – that was threatening to consume me. I glare at him. “What about you, McKay? What’s keeping *you* up so late at night?”
His grin gets wider still, mocking. “Aw, never mind that, Myron. I’m here for *you*.”
“Right,” I respond, still angry. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and sit up, crush out my cigarette in the ashtray.
Johnny quits leaning back then, sits forward and almost – almost – drops the grin. “Hey,” he says, laying a hand on my arm.
The fury hits me the same way the need did and I shove his hand away. His touch burns me, somehow, feeds that anger, and I can still feel where his hand was.
He’s still leaning forward, too startled by my outburst to move. His eyes are wide and alarmed. I just glare at him, breathing hard, my entire body like a lit fuse.
His expression changes, wary, maybe, or something else. My anger is like a dare to him and he grabs hold of my arm again, just to see if he can, I think. I don’t know quite what happens then. All I know is that the fury whips through me and I grab McKay, and pin him hard against the bed. Takes all of my weight to hold him down, but I do it. My face is right up next to his and I growl, “Keep your damn hands off of me, McKay. You hear me?”
His eyes are like steel in the dark and his breathing heavy, as he lies there under me. He doesn’t move for a long moment. Till –
Till somehow –
I don’t know. Somehow, it all shifts and all that need, all that want and desire and confusion are translated into something and I – and he – we were – he flips me over easily, pins me, and his lips are on mine and mine on his and it’s –
I don’t know how to describe it, let alone explain it, even to myself. One minute we were… I mean, I knew it was wrong, knew it was off, all off, even in the moment. What I’d been thinking about – what had been keeping me from sleeping – that was Zeke. Pure and simple. I can admit that now, now that I’ve gone and made everything a thousand times more complicated.
So how I ended up pinned beneath Johnny McKay, I’ll never know. All I do know is that one minute I’m all-out furious at him – ready to choke the life out of him for even laying one finger on me – and the next, all that energy has changed. First thing I know, I’m laying on my back and it’s *him* who’s holding*me* down. Guess it was a little cocky of me to think that, even in the heat of anger, I could pin Johnny McKay if he didn’t want to be pinned.
But now he’s got me held down tight and he’s so close to me all I can see are his eyes, still steel-blue in the moonlight. I can’t read them, not at all, and I’m none to sure that he’s not going to kill me for what just happened.
But the kiss that comes next is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. You ever had one of those kisses where it’s like oxygen? Where you *need* the kissing in order to breathe, in order to exist, and it’s not just one kiss, it’s a dozen, all flowing one into the other, like waves. Where you’re not in charge, neither of you, where it’s body, not soul, and all you know is that you want more or you’ll die. Where your body just wants to melt into him and you think it might actually happen, that melting?
Yeah. Like that.
He’s all over me, or I’m all over him, I just don’t know. Johnny’s a strong guy – not big like Zeke, but strong – and those muscles are being exerted to hold me down, and I know I’m strong and quick, but my god, this man could break me if he wanted to.
But he doesn’t. His touch is none too gentle – it’s fierce and grasping and needing and no *way* is this about love. But he’s not hurting me, he’s just *needing* me – and showing it.
I feel like the kissing should render breathing superfluous, and it’s almost painful to break away in order to take a breath.
It’s so late and so dark and I’m gasping up at him. This is out of control. I can feel him hard against me and I can feel him shaking with need. He’s moving, sliding his body against mine and I’m responding without volition and – this is out of control.
The fury is back, but I’m mad at myself this time. “Stop. Get off of me.” I struggle momentarily to push him off, then stop when I realize it’s a fruitless battle. Like I said, no one makes John McKay do something he doesn’t want to do.
He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move as he lays there on top of me, looking down at me in the darkness. His eyes are – unreadable. He’s reading *me* though – that I can tell – and then he whistles low under his breath. “You’re gonna be the death of me, Goldman,” he says, and his tone is light, even though his eyes are dark.
Again, I growl, “Get off of me,” just as he rolls off easily and strolls – strolls! – back to his bed like nothing happened. I sit up, still shaking, still wired, and run my hands through my hair.
I’m so fucked in the head it’s not even funny. What the hell was that? That was my doing – I think. What happened here? What was I thinking? I *wasn’t*, that much is obvious. And how the *hell* can McKay just *stroll* back to bed?
“Go to sleep, Goldman.” This from his still form, lying quiet in his bunk. His voice is tired, now. . .resigned, almost. “Just – go to sleep.”
He turns his back to me. I’m still shaken, still confused, still – still hard – I slowly lean back, lie with my hands behind my head, trying to remember how to breathe.
God, I need a cigarette.
~end~