Author’s Notes – I’m still not entirely sure where I’m going with this, but I hope someone out there loves it as much as I dearly love these characters.  Who, again, belong to me and darthelwig.  And I should warn you – she’s a hair-puller.  *lol*

Anyway, enjoy.  Peace, all.

 

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And So It Goes

by Ghost Helwig

 

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     Huck had a nightmare, and that was how it began.

     It wasn’t new to him, to suffer bad dreams.  With a life as full of torment and chaos as his had been, nightmares were just par for the course, just another way his life completely sucked.  But things were better now, had been better ever since the day he married his Ali and had started being best ever since the day exactly two years later that they’d married Pol.  And the better days left him complacent, thinking his life was back on track, was successful in a way it never had been before.  And while that was true, it was not the true truth.

     The true truth was that the love he surrounded himself with, while beautiful and protecting and strong, was not enough to erase his private hell.  So he dreamed his dark dreams, while Pol and Ali dreamt quietly beside him.

     The first dream was of fire.  Fire was a deeply rooted fear, though he couldn’t remember why.  But in his dreams, all was shown to him.  In his dream, he felt the man attacking him, felt his sweat and his sickness and his heat, felt it and felt fire.

     He woke Pol & Ali with his struggles to rip the blankets and his clothes off his body.

     But when they woke him, he could not remember what he’d dreamed.

     Or so he told them.

 

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     Pol was buried deeply inside him when he felt it again.

     The heat.  The fire.  The fear.

     And it wasn’t that Pol scared him, because Pol never had, never would, never could, and would never want to.  But Pol was inside him, and that was where the fire had attacked him.

     He cried out, a sound not pleasure but some kind of withheld pain.  Immediately the throbbing warmth within him was gone, and the two warm, gentle hands that had been holding his hips were caressing his hair, his cheeks.  Eyes a strange, almost delicate blue were searching his out, too worried to be mortified, too mystified to be guilt-ridden, too scared and concerned and in love to be anything but tender.

     Huck could feel his own eyes filling at the simple beauty of this young man.

     None of the previous men he’d taken to his bed, no matter how kind, no matter how much they loved him (or simply said they did), had ever treated him with such loving care.  It terrified and confused him nearly as much as it comforted him.

     “I’m fine, baby,” he whispered, but even the use of the nickname Huck used for him and him alone could not keep Pol from seeing the blatant lie.  His lips pulled into a frown, a rosy bow of unhappiness.

     “You’re not fine, Huck, I can see that.”

     Consternation creased Pol’s pale brow, and Huck pulled his head down for a long, deep, reassuring kiss.  He reveled in the feel of Pol’s mouth, the hot-sweet taste of him like a shot of lightning directly into his veins.  For someone so seemingly calm and centered, everything about Pol was lightning, from his intense but still pale looks to his passionate, white-hot, electric lovemaking...

     When he finally let Pol go his lover murmured, “I won’t forget-“

     “So don’t,” Huck said in a soft, hoarse voice.  “But please, baby – make me forget.”  Sounding as small and defenseless as a child: “Please, Pol?”

     Pol melted.

     He captured Huck’s mouth in a scorching kiss, stoking the fire between them slowly, letting it build at a pace that hopefully would not frighten.  With gentle hands he reached to touch and stroke where Huck needed it most.  When this elicited a moan of pleasure devoid of any lingering pain or fear, Pol smiled, bottom lip caught between his teeth.  It was the most beautiful thing in the world, that breath-caught sound, and being able to wrest it out of his so-controlled husband was something to be proud of.

     A hand neither his nor Huck’s ghosted between them, touching one boy then the other as if unable to decide between the two.  Pol’s desire-hazed gaze moved to the side, to see their wife looking at him with sparkling emerald eyes.  He couldn’t help but smile at her.  Though it sounded slightly chauvinistic to say so, there was no other way to put it – Ali was a prize.  Beautiful in every conceivable way and even some that weren’t.  The kind of girl men couldn’t even let themselves dream about or they’d end up sour and bitter with disappointment every time they tried to date.

     And God, he loved her.

     She leaned in for a kiss, Huck watching them both with loving, lustful eyes.  This was the part no one understood, not his mother, not his brothers and sisters, not his friends.  In their eyes three could only equal a triangle of envy-

     They didn’t realize that three could also be a triangle that balanced, that fit...

     That healed.

     And as he and Pol gently pulled Ali down onto the bed with them, wrapping her in their embrace of bodies, Huck knew that that was what their particular triangle had been designed for – to heal not only him, but through him and those who depended on him, to heal everyone.

     But in the back of his mind, that fire...

     It lingered.