Elias hadn’t given Henry much detail. He’s never been one for talking on the phone anyway, especially if it’s something important. This...this is fucking huge. Not unexpected. No.
They’d talked about it a little after Elias’ last scene with the guy. That Elias is really getting off on taking him down and wants to see him again. It can’t be a 24/7 thing. Elias has pointed that out more than once. Whether to reassure Henry or himself, Henry isn’t certain.
And really, Henry isn’t that worried. Maybe he should be, but the fact that Elias is working so hard at making sure they are okay first, that he wants to negotiate this out with Henry instead of around him; it all leaves Henry feeling like it’s a workable deal. Of course, Henry doesn’t admit, not even to himself, how much Elias having a boy on the side assuages his guilty conscience when it comes to Robert. That’s a conversation for later.
So now, Henry’s here to meet with Elias’ potential boy for the first time. See if they can get along well enough for this to become a permanent situation. It occurs to Henry as he walks up to the hostess, that he doesn’t even have the boy’s name. Before, when Elias was Henry’s boy, he preferred to vet Elias’ play partners. These days he doesn’t get much detail at all; Henry figures it’s subconscious on Elias’ part. Deliberate on his. Don’t push your luck when things are finally going good again.
Henry gives his information and follows as the hostess leads the way back through the restaurant. He sees Rupert first. Is midway into nodding a greeting to the man when he notices Elias is seated beside him.
Henry freezes. “Sonofa...”
Rupert starts. This cannot be happening. That is not Henry standing just over there, he cannot be the Hank of Elias'. No, no it can't be. He has told Henry stuff. Big stuff. Stuff he shouldn't have. Every bit of colour drains from his face.
“Sir?” The hostess touches Henry’s arm and discretely places herself between Henry and the table.
Henry catches his breath and forces a smile her direction. “No scenes beyond the kinky, I promise.”
It doesn’t take more than a handful of seconds for Elias’ brain to process. Not with the way Henry and Rupert are looking at each other. “Shit.” He rubs a hand through his thinning hair and squints at Rupert, muttering “He’s fucked you. Of course.”
"Actually I fucked him. After I'd beaten him up some." Rupert realises it's finished. Done. There is no going back. He will have to go back to the drawing board. Call Olivier, apologise for last time, get him back on side, pay him a bit more...
“You didn’t mention he was a switch,” Henry steps around the hostess and seats himself, giving her another smile to prove that there isn’t any trouble here. None at all.
“I should have realized... wait...” Elias blinks. Looks at Rupert. Back at Henry. “Beaten?”
“He only mentioned he was a trained boxer after he’d lured me to his room,” Henry winks at Rupert. Who doesn’t wink back. Well that’s just...
Elias exhales roughly and slouches in his seat. It’s a blind that Henry recognizes. Elias trying to look more relaxed about this than he really is.
“Holy fuck.” Henry snorts. “You didn’t know. Neither of you did?”
"Of course not, numpty." Rupert retorts. He looks at Elias, can't read him. He pushes back his chair, hoping Henry and Elias aren't going to have a good laugh at his expense.
Their server approaches. Henry could really use a drink. Elias probably could too. “Samuel Adams, for both of us,” Henry indicates Elias and lifts a brow at Rupert.
Rupert who is rising from his seat.
“Sit down,” Elias snaps. “And no beer. Diet Coke for him, extra ice. Refill my water.”
Automatically, Rupert obeys. But he is feeling very uncomfortable. This is not how it should be. “Look, um, maybe I should leave you two to talk about this, come back in a bit? "
“I don’t think so, Rupert.” Henry leans forward, elbows on the table. Looks expectantly at Elias. “Is this a deal breaker?” Elias meets his gaze steadily and Henry doesn’t have to wait for an answer. It’s easy to read in Elias’ eyes. “I didn’t figure.”
“It is awkward though,” Elias answers softly with an apologetic look at Rupert. Rupert looks so miserable it twists Elias’ gut around. At the same time, there’s a smoulder of anger, unexpected, but there all the same; sparks lit by the thought of the man hitting Henry.
“It is.” Henry nods. “A little. Odd more than awkward.” He gives Rupert a lopsided smile. “Surprising.”
Rupert is a boy yeah, but he is still Rupert and he still has 51 years of arrogance behind him.
" Elias ... Sir ... Henry, you fucker." Despite himself, Rupert is beginning to see the funny side of all this. "Look, Henry and I boxed, we had sex, we had great sex and I am sorry that he is your lover because ... Because he is your lover and I've pissed you off and ... " Rupert's lips twitch. "But surely you can see the funny side of this." He looks at Henry. Don't tell him I turned tricks for money. Not until he's told them both about Olivier. Rupert realises he wants to tell them. ‘Exorcise it.’ But not until everything is sorted.
Elias rubs at his scrunched brow with the pad of his thumb. “You’ve...you’ve not pissed me off.” Not the whole truth but as close as he’s going to admit in this muddled situation.
"I think I have." Rupert retorts quietly. He can see Elias is unnerved and the urge to smile has left Rupert. "I think I am too old and too tired for this, wouldn't it be better if I just left."
“No,” Elias answers quickly, but falters as soon as the protest is out. He doesn’t want Rupert to leave, but he’s not sure what to say either, beyond, “Please stay.”
Henry’s drink is delivered and he takes it, setting it down and settling back in his chair. Relaxed, see? It’s fine, Rupert. “He’s not upset with you, Rupert. The problem is between us, and nothing we can’t work around, right?”
Rupert doesn't say anything. There are too many undercurrents, too much for him to really understand. He isn't sure where he stands here, whether he is allowed? Allowed to muck around with Henry. He withdraws into himself and watches the way Elias and Henry react to one another. The problem is he isn't strong enough to walk away. He wants this thing with Elias to play out despite his great fear.
The sparring bothers Elias quite a bit. His reaction to it more so. But he nods, because it is something they can work out. “I don’t want...” The tip of Elias’ tongue flicks along his bottom lip as he hesitates. Does he have any right to stipulate such a thing?
“Me playing punching bag for Rupert?” Henry gives both men a real smile. “Elias, you know I don’t go looking for that shit often. I don’t think it will injure Rupert’s delicate feelings if find someone else when the urge strikes me.”
"No, of course not." Rupert replies, eyes lowered submissively.
“Rupert, I can’t expect you to give up playing with everyone else...” Elias says, reaching for Rupert’s hand.
"I know, it's just I feel weird, I ... Don't know, I think you're freaked out by what I did with Henry but I didnt know who he was ... Is ..." He looks at Henry. Wonders when Elias is going to see him naked. Wonders what he will say if or when he sees the marks on Rupert's skin. The fear rises and he feels a bit sick. "Sorry, I am being a drama queen."
“Princess,” Henry says into his ice.
Elias shoots a glare at him and Henry answers with a grin. “It’s what I called him the night we sparred. Princess. And he showed me that he’s not. Fuck, Elias, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to find out that you’re wanting Rupert as a boy. I was worried that you’d found some sort of simpering drama queen to kneel for you.”
Blinking, Elias shakes his head, fingers tightening on Rupert’s hand, “That’s not my thing.”
“You never said,” Henry tells him. “And I only ever saw you with the boy you were keeping when we started trying to straighten things out between us.” Henry shrugs, “He simpered.”
Rupert's fingers move in tiny circles on Elias' hand. He looks up though, at Henry, and smiles. His words helping to make him feel less fish-out-of-waterish.
"I can do simpering, if it's required." He points out, dropping his eyes again. this is the queerest place he has ever been. The only thing keeping him from bolting is the power he can feel emanating from Elias. It keeps him here, keeps him, whether Elias realises it or not, in Elias' thrall.
“Let’s save the simpering for a special occasion,” Elias murmurs. It’s playful, a tease he’s able to indulge as he relaxes. This is going to work out. “That was a friend’s boy,” he explains to Henry. “I was keeping him while Jim was shooting in Europe.”
Again with the relief. “Mmmmm.” Henry nods. Studies Rupert whose passivity is... “Interesting. I wouldn’t have imagined you as quietly submissive, Rupert.”
"I'm ... Getting to grips with what sort of submissive I am." Rupert says, almost smiling. "I have never had a Sir before and it's all a bit new." Well that's one way of putting it. His nerves are quietening at last.
“So,” Henry mouth twitches with the hint of a frowns. Not that he really believes Rupert is playing games, but he has to ask, “Elias is an experiment?”
"Don't be so fucking stupid." To his surprise, Rupert is furious. "I have spent a long time pretending I don't have this side to me and I need to stop running before .... " Rupert breaks off. It's too late for that before. He has, afterall, been raped already.
“Before?” Now Elias is frowning, thumb slipping around to the bottomside of Rupert’s wrist. He can feel Rupert’s heartbeat tripping away, entirely too fast and he tightens his grip.
Rupert doesn't know how it is that Elias does this. "Before I get myself into trouble." He says quickly. "Before I make the wrong decision." His heart is beating faster and he knows Elias can feel it too. Bloody Henry and his bloody big gob.
Elias shoots a fast glance at Henry. I got this... There’s a very subtle shift in Henry’s posture. Agreement. Elias turns Rupert’s hand palm up, strokes his thumb over it in small circles. “That’s what we talked when you came to me last time. About not waiting until you were desperate, eh?”
"Yes, that I didn't have to wait," Rupert breathes more calmly. "And I never, ever thought of you, or this, as an experiment, rather as a sort of ..." A further letting down of carefully constructed defences. "Coming home, Sir." The sobriquet slipping out before Rupert can call it back.
“If part of it is an experiment,” Elias answers easily, “a trial to see what works or doesn’t work for us, that’s okay. Understand? I’m not expecting this to mesh perfectly from the start.”
Rupert is unreasonably annoyed. Already Elias is taking Henry's side. He bites back any remark he might be going to say. He has a nasty vicious tongue on him when he chooses and showing that side of him to these men would be a big mistake.
"An experiment then, sir.” The epithet used to make his point. He glances at Henry, waiting for a tart rejoinder.
Henry crunches more ice. Not meshing perfectly. Oh, yes, he can see that. Wisely though, he keeps his opinion to himself.
Elias doesn’t hold his tongue. He doesn’t like the way Rupert has bristled and he doesn’t like the challenge in his boy’s expression as he looks at Henry. It is clear in his tone. “You have a problem with that?” The point of his thumb goes into the nerve cluster at the join of Rupert’s thumb. Nothing like a little pain to get someone’s attention.
"No." No one does monotone like Rupert. "I have no problem at all and please can you let go of my thumb because that fucking hurts." He scowls for a moment then his expression goes blank as he fights the urge to cry. This is all going so horribly wrong. How can he have gone from so fucking happy to so fucking not happy in such a short period of time.
No problem at all? Elias narrows his eyes. He lets up the pressure against the nerve cluster; it served to redirect Rupert’s attention back to him, though Elias isn’t liking what he’s hearing. “You’re seriously going to lie to me? Now when we’re negotiating this through?”
There is a pause.
"Up until we met, Elias ... Henry ... I paid a fucking fortune to a pro Dom, someone I met here who went private. Then as the times between submitting became shorter ... I realised I had to find someone ... Someone of my own who wouldn't charge me by the hour who would give a fuck for my well being. You came along, Elias, and I've spent the last few weeks psyching myself up to this. It may be an experiment to you but to me it's a lot more."
Rupert is looking at the floor. When he glances up he thinks he sees Olivier, his stomach churns then he looks again, it isn't Olivier. Breathing deeply, he waits for either Elias or Henry to respond.
“I’m the one who mentioned experiments,” Henry says quietly.
Elias shakes his head, nudges Henry under the table. That misunderstanding doesn’t mean so much as the fact that Rupert is talking. “It’s more to me too, Rupert. Trust me, I wouldn’t have asked Henry here otherwise. How often were you seeing this pro Dom?”
"Started off every six months or so, then he got married, took a year off then it was getting too often, every six weeks or so." Rupert can't look at either Henry or Elias. His heart is beginning to race. He can almost feel the sensation of being fucked that last time. How could he have been so fucking stupid, he gave Olivier his safeword. Christ. He wants to tell Elias everything, 'fess up. These things have a habit of coming back to bite you in the bum if you don't and he doesn't want there there to be secrets between them so early on.
There’s more to the story. Rupert’s body language is telling the story his mouth isn’t. “Too expensive?” Elias prompts for more.
“No,” Henry shakes his head, abandoning his nonchalant slump against the chair back as he sits up and forward. A frown creases his brow, eyes sharp, “He broke your trust, didn’t he?”
"He ... He ... I think he ... Yes he did. He ... I think it was sort of non con." Rupert is shaking.
“Sonofa...” Henry’s hands clench into fists.
Expression stricken, Elias is already out of his seat and moving to Rupert’s side. He pulls the man against him, hands going around the trembling shoulders. “Shhh...”
"It was the last time and he ... I gave him my safeword and he raped me and I have marks that haven't healed and I am so sorry ‘cos I didn't want to come to you marked and it was my fault..."
“Shhh. It’s okay, just... I have you now,” Elias soothes, fingers going over Rupert’s lips to stop the hurtful words. Rupert trails off with a harsh breath. Would that Elias could so easily stop the hurt entirely.
Eyes misty, Elias looks over at Henry. “We need a room. Please?”
Henry’s already up, fishing his wallet out and dropping a tip on the table, more than enough to cover their server’s time and then some. He doesn’t care. He’s in protective mode now, “Home.”
Elias sucks in a breath. “But...”
“We’re not doing this here,” Henry says firmly in his don’t-even-try-to-negotiate-with-the-nea
“Come on, Rupert,” Elias steps back and tugs at Rupert’s chair. “Let’s go.”
Rupert does as he is told. He registers every emotion carefully. Neither Henry or Elias seems pissed off with him and to be honest after worrying about it for days, he is relieved to be finally getting it out there. He is as docile as a lamb. Allowing himself to be led, getting into the car, almost keeping the tears at bay.
Elias slips into the back seat with Rupert. He’s barely got the door closed before Rupert has melted into his side. Not the good, sexy kind of melting. It’s more of a dissolve and it breaks Elias’ heart. “It’s going to be okay, boy.”
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