Rhett imagined their reunion a thousand times. Now the moment was here, it wasn’t going anything like he’d envisioned.
In his daydreams, they’d locked eyes and were drawn to one another, like opposite magnets, into a slow-motion embrace. Smiles tearing their faces into blissful halves in their giddiness at being reunited.
But there was nothing giddy or blissful in Link’s demeanor, now Rhett had eyes on him. And it was hard to lock eyes with someone that wouldn’t lift their gaze after parking his car outside the creative house.
Rhett had had the silly notion that they should film their first meeting post-quarantine. It was the content the two-man vlogs were made for! Now, he was glad he’d kept that misguided idea to himself. Link looked like a wounded puppy as he approached Rhett.
“Hey,” Rhett offered tenuously. Rhett’s eyes worked him over. He looked… thinner, weaker? Tired. His man looked exhausted. He knew Link had been under a lot of stress, but the magnitude hadn’t sunk in until now. Link looked like he was about to detonate into an explosion, or implode and simply cave into himself.
“C’mere, bo.” Rhett extended his long arms, and Link folded into them numbly. It wasn’t the slow-motion, happy-teared embrace that Rhett had dreamed of, but it felt good to hold him again. “You okay?” It was a stupid question. But it was all he had.
Link nodded into Rhett’s chest, but his shoulders betrayed him as they began to shake.
“Let’s just… get you inside?” Rhett felt like an asshole for looking around as he guided Link inside. What was he checking for? To see if anyone was going to witness his best friend, a grown-ass man crying; or catch Rhett comforting Link like a child? Rhett scolded himself for focusing on the wrong things, re-centering his intentions on Link.
“What can I get you? What do you need?”
Link shook his head; his trembling intensified until his body was wracked with sobs. Rhett held him tightly and soothed, “Shhhh, shhhhh. Don’t cry.”
He wasn’t good at this. Never had been. But he remembered something Jessie had told him when their kids were younger and more prone to breaking down into tears.
You don’t urge them to stop crying for their sake.
You do it out of your own discomfort.
Let them cry when they need to.
Let them get it out.
“Actually, Link. Go ahead and break down. I got you.”
Link looked up at him, puzzled.
“It’s okay... I got you, go on and cry.”
Rhett took Link’s flushed and swollen face into his hands, and wiped the tears with his thumbs.
“You’ve been under so much stress. And holding it together for everyone you love. For everyone but yourself. You don’t have to be strong for me. Just… let it all fall apart.”
Suddenly Link was grabbing onto Rhett’s shirt, forcefully pulling him down onto the sofa, bringing Rhett’s face to his tear-tracked one.
Rhett’s heart hammered as he kissed Link back in earnest. He wasn’t trying to take advantage of the vulnerable state he was in - but god, if this hadn’t been the physical outcome he’d been secretly hoping for. The real reason he hadn’t mentioned filming. He’d wanted this moment for them. Alone.
“Link, I don’t know if you’re thinkin’ clearly right now…” If Link stopped now, Rhett would be simultaneously the most proud and regretful of this level of restraint.
“Rhett. I need this. I need you.”
“Need me to—?”
“Please, Rhett. Don’t. Don’t act like you don’t know.”
Rhett nodded. Of course, he knew.
Rhett could feel it as he held Link tightly, the tension easing from his body and he became softer, more pliant. He followed the lead of Link’s body. With lips, tongue, and hands. Trying to be everywhere Link needed him. Absorbing all of Link’s stress and anxiety into himself.
He was a big man.
He could take it.
Link undid Rhett’s belt and opened his jeans. He pulled out Rhett’s hardened cock, and gave it a couple slow strokes that made Rhett feel like he might leave his body and this whole earthly plane behind. Link then started to buck his hips to momentarily push Rhett off of him as he slid his own pants down and off.
Rhett looked at Link and began to speak, but Link cut him off.
“Don’t ask me again. Just fuck me.”
Rhett kissed him, and meant it with his entire being. He gripped Link’s straining hips, prepared their bodies best he could with tears and spit before roughly bringing them together.
He pressed until his hips were flush with Link’s. He could barely catch his breath with how cathartic this felt after being apart for so long. Seemingly taking his breath away as Link started to come alive.
He worked himself inside of Link he, worshipping the man beneath him with hands and eyes. He began to see what he’d been yearning for: Bliss. Elation. Absolute love.
Link was finally breathing easy. Deeply. Moaning sweetly for him.
It wasn’t long before he was emptying himself into Link, and refilling his soul with what had subconsciously become foreign. Hope. Safety. He was complete again.
Link was still trembling, but he wasn’t sobbing; his huge grin must’ve been agony for his face muscles.
“Holy shit….” Link sighed, catching his breath, and wiping sweat and tears from his face. “Crying like that… that… release. And the endorphins from that incredible orgasm piggybacking on the already wide open… feels?! Goodness, Rhett. I don’t reckon I’ll be able to come like that ever again without blubbering like a baby? I think you’ve both healed and ruint me!”
Rhett shook his head as they both laughed, lying together hand-in-hand, boneless and blissed out.
The psychological and physiological confirmation that they weren’t meant to be apart was nearly worth the experience of having been so for so long.
“The new normal…?” Link said.
Rhett smirked. “I’m looking forward to it already.”
“All I wanted was for you to be happy.” (Smutty version)
Link had been on edge and snippy all day. Rhett had been doing his best to stay out of his way, and not provoke him further, but Link felt powerless to stop himself from being unfair to Rhett. It was if he subconsciously wanted to piss Rhett off and feel the fire of him lashing out at him. It would serve him right. It was what he deserved.
It was only when Link rolled his eyes at him in the dressing room when they were changing outfits to shoot the next episode that Rhett seemed to have felt left with no choice but to call him out on being an asshole.
“Okay. So now you’re pissed off that we’re wearing the same underwear?”
Link didn’t respond, just shook his head in an unnecessarily exasperated way.
“It’s a shared sponsorship, man. And the pattern has bacon on them! It’s not so far-fetched that we’d wear them on the same day. It’s not like I planned it. Tell you what, tomorrow I’ll text you a picture of me in my undies, and then you can plan your day around that?”
“Can you just shut up, man? I’m not mad about the dang underwear, or at you at all. I’m just in a crappy mood, and you just gotta say stuff like THAT to provoke me.”
“What is it about me talking about photographing my underwear that provokes you, Link?”
Link’s skin began to turn a hue that would not exactly match his skin wall in their new home.
“If it makes you feel better, I can take ‘em off right now?”
Link’s jaw fell open. Was Rhett really going to make it this easy for him?
“Or would you rather I take yours off? I wanna help you, but you gotta tell me what you need.”
Link couldn’t believe what Rhett was saying. He hadn’t offered this kind of stress relief since college.
“That’s not what I—. You don’t have to…”
“I’ve seen you like this before, wound up so tight.”
“This ain’t like finals week, man. And we’re not horny kids.”
“Grown men are allowed to have needs, too.”
Link’s chest felt tight with how badly he’d ached to hear that kind of validation.
“Let me help you unwind, Link. We might be a little rusty, but I bet I remember how things work.”
Link didn’t answer, but he did back up to lean against the counter, hands resting precariously close to the button of his fly.
“Let me do this for you. You don’t have to move or think. Just let me…”
Link nodded.
And nodded again.
He beckoned Rhett closer with a crook of his finger and Rhett was drawn forward as if by an invisible thread. Rhett ducked his head down to kiss Link and Link kissed back. Roughly. Of course Rhett had been right, and Link did need this. He kissed Rhett until their lips were pink and swollen. Link nipped at the air between them and Rhett offered his bottom lip for him to gnaw on.
Instead, Link raised his hands to Rhett’s shoulders and guided him down to his knees. Rhett tucked his fingers into the elastic band of the breakfast-themed underwear and in a jerking motion, lowered Link’s jeans along with them.
Link’s cock hung heavy and full directly before Rhett.
Link didn’t waste any more time going back and forth over whether or not this was what Rhett wanted - after all, when had he done a dang thing he didn’t want to do?
“You tell me if you want me to stop.”
“And you don’t stop until you’re satisfied.”
Sliding his cock past Rhett’s soft lips was like slipping into a crisp pool on a hundred-degree day. Why had he waited for so freakin’ long, knowing good and well how refreshing the waters would be?
He thrust shallowly at first, getting reacquainted with the feel of him. Savoring the sensation over every inch as he moved in and out of the welcoming heat. The constant swirling mix of everyday decisions and existential uncertainties stilled in his mind as he bathed in the feeling of having Rhett’s lips wrapped securely around him. He threaded his fingers through wavy hair, the other hand gripping onto Rhett’s shoulder - desperate for as many contact points as he could cling to.
Rhett was good, taking him with only a few delicious sounds of struggle. But when Link would try to ease up, Rhett doubled down on pushing him until the head of his cock agitated the back of his throat. And Rhett held close to Link’s hips even as he choked and gagged.
It was rough, raw, and nasty sounding. It was every filthy thing Link had been yearning to feel. Had been ashamed to need.
His brain was disintegrating into static as he emptied his desire into Rhett’s mouth, watching his come spill over to drip down into his beard like sloshed paint over the edge of the can.
He didn’t love that beard, and didn’t feel bad for sullying it. But he had nothing except for love for the man that wore the beard. And he hoped he hadn’t damaged anything there.
“You really didn’t have to do this, Rhett.”
Rhett was still wiping his face as he told Link, “All I wanted was for you to be happy. You haven’t been happy lately.”
“I’m happy now. And I was happy when we rode bikes the other day for the vlog.”
“That was eight days ago, brother! I don’t want that for you: being happy only one out of every eight days. I want you to be happy eight out of eight days, if that’s a possibility. Now that we’ve… cleared your head a little. Maybe you can open up about what else is going on.”
“Yeah,” Link smiled. Sincerely, for the first time in eight days. “We can talk about that.”
