Kerr opened his eyes to a face full of Ben's hair, as he did on the cusp of every new night. He'd done it for years, always awakening before his young fledgeling to find them both on their sides, Kerr's arm curled around Ben's waist, bodies fitted snugly together and their legs entwined to varying degrees. Tonight, his knees were offset behind Ben's, one of his larger feet in between his love's, their insteps cradling. He was hard but that was just what his body did. There was no desire to do anything with it.
Usually they fell asleep in this position, too, but they hadn't for the past four dawns. They'd been keeping strictly to their own sides of the huge bed, Kerr naked but Ben clothed, at no risk of even accidentally coming into contact with each other. After a perfunctory kiss goodnight, they'd resigned themselves dutifully to surfing the outer perimeter of the mattress, a vast, contact-less chasm open between them. Yet every dusk Kerr still awoke like this, wrapped around Ben. Just like always.
Tonight was the first night he didn't recoil instantly to his side. Instead, he stayed where he was.
He wished it wasn't such a monumental thing, but it was. He'd had no desire to touch Ben since he'd been with Saraekiel and even though he'd berated himself and told himself every night that he was being utterly ridiculous... he hadn't been able to bring himself to change it. Every time he'd got close, images of Ben fucking him came at him and he flinched or winced or his fist curled and he did his best to deflect the impulse so that Ben didn't notice. He was more than aware of the fact that Kerr wouldn't touch him, though, so what did it even matter?
Kerr had never suppressed his desire to make contact with Ben to this degree, not even when they'd first met. It had become appallingly clear just how instinctual it was for him to touch his love after the night of their big outpouring. He'd avoided Ben with work that night but the next they'd both got on with things. Business as usual. And every time he spoke to Ben, every time he even thought of him, he'd consciously stopped himself from casual touches. He'd barely noticed how often he usually held his hand, rested his hand on his leg, fixed his hair or kissed him until he was stopping himself from following every instinct that arose. It was a soft, miserable kind of torture that he wished he was mature enough to stop inflicting on them both.
To his credit, Ben was being amazing about it and Kerr was insanely grateful. He showered alone and kept his clothes on at all times so Kerr wasn't reminded unnecessarily of the mark. As the nights progressed, it had become easier, his imagination less vivid, his repulsion fading. Ben was becoming his again, slowly, but he was becoming frustrated with his inability to fast forward this awful time. It would take as long as it took, apparently but he hated the thought that Ben was suffering or thinking he didn't love him. He did, he just...
Last night, he'd found himself smiling more freely when he was with Ben, able to sit close to him on the couch, to hug him once. Now, tonight, he'd awoken and didn't flee immediately across the bed. He decided to stay that way and see how it went once Ben awoke. It felt good to hold him but maybe that was just because he wasn't looking at his face and thinking... things. Time would tell. He nuzzled in until his lips were pressed to the back of Ben's neck, waking up properly and feeling his body deflate as it naturally would. He wasn't getting ahead of himself.
