Easing Into It

Romance short. An exhausted psychiatrist is wooed by his new barber.

4k. M/M, rated M. Adapted from a TweetFic. There is a cute dog!

---

Gerry is not, and has never been, tremendous at self-care.

He tries to be, tries to take his days off — he tries to take pleasure in the little things in life, has bath bombs stacked in his cupboard for him to enjoy on the rare occasion he has time for a bath, spends a little more on the nicer chocolates and finer wines.

Realistically, of course, he has a very heavy patient load — realistically, he’s ever snowed under with paperwork.

When he goes into his barber’s — the same barber he’s been going to for twenty-four years, cosy and comfortable with fine leather seats and a lovely scent in the room, he hesitates when he finds that Deacon Mills is not present.

“The old man finally retired,” says the barber, some young buck in his thirties, very handsome, with artfully sculpted hair and a handsome beard, and gold studs in each of his ears. “I’m taking over his lease — I already filled in for him on his days off. I’m Elijah.”

He’s really got the most beautiful hands, strong, skilled. Gerry shakes one of them, and he doesn’t think he imagines the way the barber looks him up and down, takes him in. Heat runs up his spine.

Deacon had been a very pleasant man as a barber, and two of his brothers were gay — one had died of HIV complications during the 90s, and he’d always been very kind with Gerry, done his best to be understanding despite it not being in his wheelhouse. Suddenly, Gerry feels unkempt and underdressed, unattractive.

He’s really not tremendous at meeting new people, and never has been.

“You are just so tense,” says Elijah as he washes Gerry’s hair a few minutes later, scrubs his fingers into the scalp and makes him shudder. He keeps flinching, keeps trembling — Deacon had had a much lighter touch. This is not at all bad, is, if anything, very pleasurable, is much more intense.

Gerry hasn’t had sex in about a year, and he’s horribly, horribly aware of it.

“I can recommend you a masseuse, you know,” says Elijah, and then winks at him as he meets his gaze in the mirror. “Or somebody else, you know. A specialist masseuse.”

“Good lord,” Gerry whispers, feeling his cheeks light up, and Elijah laughs softly.

“Just kidding,” he says.

Rinsing through Gerry’s hair and putting him in the chair, combing through his hair with his fingers after towelling it off, he puts his phone on the counter in front of them. “Okay, so, Mr Mills has given me precise instructions about how you like your hair, and you like to have a shave too, yeah?”

Gerry nods, and Elijah slides a hand over his shoulder.

Even that makes him shiver, not used to such casual contact, the warmth of his palm, and Elijah smiles at him in the mirror before he puts the gown over Elijah’s body and gets to work.

The whole time, he —

He does like to have his hair cut, to have his nails done, and yes, to indulge in a massage from time to time. He’s been neglecting getting his hair cut, has let it grown out far longer than he ordinarily would, and he’s been doing his own nails recently. It’s been a year since he had sex — it must have been two or three since he made an appointment for and went to get a massage.

“I’m… sorry,” he murmurs, aware that his eyes keep fluttering shot, that his body keeps giving little quakes when Elijah brushes his ears with his fingers or the base of the scissors, or nudges the back of his neck or his forehead. “I’m not always the best at being touched.”

“I don’t mind,” says Elijah. “Big guy like you, brown eyes like that, this gorgeous head of hair. Me, I’ll touch you all day long if you ask me.”

“A. Ah.”

The blush rises high in his cheeks, warm and rich and red — how long since he was flirted with? Even longer.

“How’s the work?” Elijah asks him, and the question somehow takes him by surprise. “It must be hard — must be long hours. Taxing.”

“Yes,” whispers Gerry. “It is. But I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t needed.”

“Mental healthcare, it’s a pretty tough fucking industry. Needs a lot of changes, right?”

“A lot of things do need to change,” Gerry agrees. “That means there need to be people changing them.”

Elijah smiles at him in the mirror, his lips shifted up in the warmest of small smiles. “Yeah, I see that. Really important work.”

When he’s paying, Elijah asks, “You want to come out for a drink?”

“A drink?” Gerry repeats.

He doesn’t say no. Elijah says a time, mentions a bar around the corner, says, “Tomorrow night.”

Gerry mutely nods.

* * *

The last date he’d been on had been a year ago, too, a blind date with a carpenter friend of a coworkers’s — the two of them had gone to dinner, had had sex afterwards, and had mutually agreed that neither of them were really ready to go further. The carpenter, Nick, had only been six months widowed at the time, and it had been nice, but a dead end.

He ends up working late, doesn’t have time to go home and change — it’s a mercy, not letting him fuss over his clothes and his hair and his appearance, but he arrives flustered and unkempt, hair mussed, sweat on his skin.

“Have you eaten?”

“I — No, I haven’t, but don’t worry, I can — ”

“No, no, we’ll get you something to eat, it’s fine.”

A few minutes later they’re across the road, and Gerry is staring at the menu and studying every single line of text to spare him from looking at Elijah’s face, from meeting his gaze.

“I’ve always liked older men,” says Elijah, unprovoked, and without warning.

Gerry stares blankly at him, and then says, “I… see.”

“Just in case you’re worried about that,” Elijah murmurs. “The age difference.”

“Ah.”

“Of course, I feel like you just carry around non-specific, general worry.”

Gerry’s taken surprise by that and he laughs, feels his shoulders relax. Helplessly, he admits, “Yes. Yes, that’s rather true. Anxiety and work-related stress, aggravated by insomnia.”

“Great self-diagnosis.”

“Mm, I shouldn’t look pleased. I might start on you next.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I could never turn down free therapy,” murmurs Elijah. “Just that something tells me you should be relaxing after work instead of doing more work.”

“That’s the sort of expert opinion I should be giving myself.”

Elijah smiles at him, and there’s something warm in it, the look on his face. Gerry wishes he could feel entirely at ease with him, knows that he could do. He feels the explanation burning on his tongue, the desire to assure the other man it’s not him, that it’s Gerry, that it’s…

He holds it back. Once he allows that deluge, it’s rather hard to hold the instinct to over-explain back.

“Amateur interest in psychology?” he asks instead.

“You could say that,” says Elijah.

“True crime?”

“Ha, God, no.” He exhales, and his smile is softer now, more self-deprecating as he gives a shrug of broad, handsome shoulders. “AA,” he says. “You start to see types, when you go to support groups for long enough. You start to see patterns.”

“How long?”

“Six years.”

“Very good,” Gerry says automatically.

The praise makes Elijah’s eyebrows shoot up, and Gerry feels himself flush, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks down at the tabletop. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “Too condescending?”

“Not condescending,” Elijah assures him. “Maybe a little too professional.”

“Got you. I’ll be less professional now.”

“Oh, please,” says Elijah. “I beg you — I will beg you, if you like.” He slides his hand over the back of Gerry’s hand, and Gerry jumps, feeling a shock run through him. Elijah doesn’t move his hand back, but it becomes more gentle where it touches him, a lighter weight. His fingers are warm. “Sorry. Not great at being touched?”

“I — I really do try to be.”

“You date much?”

“No.”

“Casual sex?”

Gerry stares at him, his mouth fallen open, and then he laughs breathlessly, feeling as though every inch of his skin is on fire under his clothes. “Good lord. You really are so… forward.”

“Forward, backward, side-to-side,” says Elijah. “I can do it all.”

“I don’t much, I’m afraid,” he murmurs. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Please. You think I’m disappointed on Christmas because no one’s unwrapped my presents before I have?”

“I… Wow.”

“Wow!” Elijah repeats, and Gerry laughs.

“I’m better with my patients, I swear,” he says. “Far more collected.”

“Well, you’re being unprofessional, remember,” says Elijah mildly, putting his chin on his other palm, and he squeezes Gerry’s hand. The pressure is nice. “No collection allowed.” He slides his fingers further up, brushing them under Gerry’s sleeve, and he really can’t take the ticklish feeling of it, rapidly pulling back his hand. He winces at himself, his eyes closing tightly.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, no sorry needed. I was just testing.”

“How did I do?”

“It’s not really a pass/fail,” he murmurs, his head tilting slightly to the side. There’s a deep kindness in his face. “I just wanted to see where was, uh, okay. You can tell me, too, you can — We can hook up, if you want, but we don’t have to.”

“I want that more than I think I want anything,” Gerry murmurs. “I’m sure you know you’re quite gorgeous.”

“I do, yeah. I’m model material — have modelled a bunch of times.”

“So modest, too. But I’m really not…”

He trails off, and Elijah finishes for him, “Not used to it. Yeah, I see that. We can go slow — I can still touch you, when you want, when you’re ready. I’d like to.”

“Why?” he asks, his voice sounding so baffled he feels awful about it, and Elijah huffs out a soft laugh.

“You’re hot. For me, you’re hot. And you’re… I enjoy it. Easing guys into things.”

“You enjoy the therapeutic process,” says Gerry dryly.

“Mmm, maybe a little,” Elijah replies, so utterly unashamed that it makes Gerry’s heart skip a beat.

“You’re really quite terrible.”

“Terribly good.”

“I bet.”

Food comes. Conversation continues. The night goes on.

* * *

It’s a pleasant evening.

Elijah likes videogames, plays a good many of them, it seems, and he mentions that his younger brother plays competitively.

“Competitively,” Gerry repeats. “As in — What, are there conventions for that sort of thing?”

“Uh, yeah, they do. They call it e-sports,” says Elijah. “Benny streams online, and he keeps ranking, is part of a local team.” He laughs at Gerry’s blank expression, and murmurs, “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy to me too.”

“You play the same games?”

“Sometimes. But they’re pretty fast-paced, and I’m not always in the mood to play online. You heard of Animal Crossing?”

“I’ve never played it,” he admits. “But it’s so popular with my patients that I’ve even recommended it once or twice.”

Elijah grins, his eyes sparkling. “Oh, huh,” he says. “You can try it at mine, if you want.”

“Oh?” asks Gerry, raising his eyebrows. “No ulterior motives for inviting me home?” His voice trembles just a little on the last few words, and Elijah is kind enough not to point it out.

“Oh, yeah. You play AC, I’ll use you as a pillow.”

“Well, I imagine I make a wonderful pillow,” he says, unable not to imagine it, the weight of the other man curled against him, lying over his lap or against his chest. “A lot of padding here.”

“Trust me, I’ve been imagining it.”

“Utterly incorrigible.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Sound good, though?”

“It really does,” Gerry says quietly. “It’s a peaceful game, isn’t it? Easy?”

“Has its own challenges, but yeah, it’s easy. Accessible. Your patients really like it?”

“Escapism is valuable, crucial, even, to a lot of us. But even to those who don’t care for gore or fighting, or a potential for loss, you know, games like that hold a good deal of appeal. Farming games, too — Harvest Moon, Stardew.”

“Oh, you are a gamer.”

“Mmm, no. I learn it all by osmosis.”

“Guess I’ll have to give you a crash course.”

“Love to be an educator, don’t you? Does nobody ever teach you a lesson?”

“Why, you want to?”

“I really don’t know. What are you angling for, for me to put you over my knee?”

“I wouldn’t complain,” is the immediate, enthusiastic response, and how is he not supposed to be endeared by that? “But no, I like to learn. Why, what other skills do you have in that toolbox of yours?”

“I’m a fabulous baker.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yes,” Gerry says. “My mother taught me, actually — no daughters, and as the most visibly homosexual son, I rather took up the labour in that respect. Learned to bake, learned all her tricks for getting scratches out of tables and making an oven shine.”

“Did you like that?” asks Elijah. “Being… Did that make you the favourite?”

“Oh, I got the most attention, certainly,” says Gerry quietly. His voice comes out flatter than he means to when he says, “A double-edged sword, that.”

Elijah understands his implication immediately, and the compassion writ across his features makes Gerry’s heart ache. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s really quite alright. Elijah.”

“That’s my name. Feel free to wear it out, if that means wearing me out too.”

“Filthy young man.”

“Uh huh,” says Elijah, winking as he swipes a chip from Gerry’s plate. “Call me that, too. You prefer Gerry, or Doctor?”

Gerry coughs, taken by surprise, and he pats his own cheeks to try to ease the furious blush that arises. “Under no circumstances are you to call me doctor.”

“Gerry it is,” says Elijah, and when his foot carefully nudges Gerry’s under the table he jumps, but then exhales and relaxes as Elijah’s ankle comes to rest against Gerry’s. He’s warm through those rather skinny jeans he wears, and gently, Gerry curls his foot around the back of Elijah’s heel.

* * *

They walk to Elijah’s apartment, and the whole way Elijah puts his hand through Gerry’s arm and rests his other palm against it, leans into him, and it’s lovely, a balm from the cold.

He feels the loss of it when he pulls away to cross the threshold into his flat.

Elijah’s dog, a handsome, incredibly muscular animal named Proust, falls at his feet, begging for his belly to be rubbed, and Gerry laughs, bending to scratch at his barrel chest. “Oh, aren’t you gorgeous?”

“He is,” says Elijah. “You like him?”

“I love bully breeds.”

“Big guy loves big guys.”

“Oh, you’re not so big, are you, Proust? I’m sure you’re as little as you can manage, hm? I’m sure your daddy picks you up and carries you like the little baby you are.”

“Not as much as he’d like.”

Gerry is careful about easing off his shoes, setting them aside, and Elijah leads him in, pushes him to sit down on the sofa which is heavy, plush, warm. Proust drops immediately over his feet, making him laugh — the laugh peters off when Elijah drops on top of him as well.

He’s on the seat beside him, not quite in Gerry’s lap, but his knees curl inward to rest against Gerry’s thighs, and his arm slides around Gerry’s shoulder even as he rests a controller on his knees.

Gerry feels fairly surrounded, Proust’s weight over his feet and Elijah’s leaning into him — Elijah is hardly a big man, is a little on the short side, in fact, but he’s heavy and solid, carries a similar bulking muscle to his dog.

“This okay?” he asks.

Is it okay?

Perhaps. But then, perhaps Gerry is liable to perish right here, crushed on two sides by a beautiful man and a beautiful boy. Elijah is heavy, and there’s constriction in Gerry’s chest even though Elijah isn’t touching it. His skin feels warmed from underneath, like rising steam.

“I might explode,” Gerry warns him.

“Oh, I love explosions,” says Elijah quietly, his fingers lightly scratching the top of his shoulder in a way that’s making the whole of his back tingle, although it also makes the soreness in his shoulders cry out.

He leans in, brushing his lips over the side of Gerry’s neck, and the noise Gerry lets out is choked and gasping — Elijah’s breath is warm and he smells of a lovely cologne. Gerry leans into his mouth even as his body lurches, shudders.

“It’s okay?” Elijah asks in a whisper.

“Yes,” whispers Gerry. “Yes, it’s — Yes.”

“More?” His breath is warm on Gerry’s ear, making him shudder, and his fingers touch Gerry’s chest, the controller resting untouched on his belly for a moment, and Gerry heaves in a sharp gasp.

“I — Mm.”

Elijah’s mouth brushes his neck again, and it’s warm and wonderful and so overwhelming he thinks he could burst. When Elijah stops it’s merciful and also so painful before he brushes his nose against his skin, then leans his head against Gerry’s, squeezing him in a hug.

“I’m sorry,” murmurs Gerry. He slides his hand to rest on Elijah’s lower back, although he lacks the courage to squeeze him closer.

“Why?”

“I can’t… I’m not touching you back. I really don’t — ”

“Don’t,” says Elijah. “You don’t have to — and besides, I brought you here to game, not to touch you.”

“Oh.”

“Am I a tease?” asks Elijah, waggling his eyebrows, his chin resting on Gerry’s shoulder. “Should I keep touching you while you play? If you want, me and Proust can swap places — I’ll just be between your legs instead of lying on top of your feet.”

“Good — Goodness,” chokes out Gerry.

“It would be so much goodness,” says Elijah, and he laughs softly. His fingers touch very gently through Gerry’s hair, which is an echo of — “Ouch, sorry. That’s not a good touch, huh?” His fingers draw away, and Gerry exhales in relief.

“Did I make a very bad face?”

“Not bad. Just… I don’t know. Pained instead of conflicted.”

“Not my hair. Please.”

“Whatever’s good for you,” Elijah tells him, and squeezes his shoulder.

“I really don’t think you ought — ought be between my legs in front of this innocent young man. You’ll corrupt him.”

“Proust? He doesn’t know. He’s been de-nutted.”

Gerry pulls a face at that, and Elijah’s laugh is really quite wonderful, all warmth and honey and joy.

“De-nutted,” he repeats. “What a dreadful thing to say. And in any case, it’s rather worse to parade our sexual capacity in front of him when he’s missing out, isn’t it?”

“I couldn’t with him watching anyway,” admits Elijah, chuckling. “He’s snuck in while I’ve been with guys before, or even just been making out with them in here, and he watches so… actively. It’s really off-putting.”

Gerry sniggers, and he leans forward, scratching Proust’s big, meaty head. “That’s for the best,” he murmurs. “I think I’m going to be bad enough at this without any sort of distraction.”

“It’s Animal Crossing,” Elijah tells him. “You can’t really be bad.”

Gerry’s hands are clumsy, but it’s easier than he expected.

He doesn’t know how long they sit and play for, but there’s a sort of tension burning with him as the minutes go by, a sense that between them, a clock is ticking, one that he can’t see.

When Elijah gets up to make tea, Gerry tries to play, but keeps glancing over at him.

Proust is sitting up on his haunches, and when Gerry sets the controller aside he cups his smiling face from underneath, hands under his big, square chin, feels the great weight of his head against his palms. His eyes have a watery quality to them, but that just makes them look all the more soulful.

“You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” he asks, and Proust stares up at him, his tail thumping lazily against the floor, great thwacks of the thing.

“What about me?” calls Elijah from the kitchen. “Aren’t I a good boy?”

“You certainly are not,” Gerry retorts. “You’re a menace.”

“Yeah? You like menaces?” Elijah wiggles his arse as Gerry looks over, and Gerry’s laugh is as breathless as it is filled with anxiety.

“I do, it seems.”

He rubs at Proust’s cheeks, but Proust suddenly pulls away at the sound of the fridge door opening, doing a funny little square jog.

“Your dog is horribly capricious,” Gerry complains, and Elijah laughs as he looks down at Proust between his legs, squeezing his knees against the big animal’s shoulders and scrubbing at his head with his knuckles.

“Yeah, he’s got a vivid imagination, too,” he murmurs, and demonstratively puts the milk back.

For all his protest, he does toss Gerry a little milk bone out of a jar on the counter, and Proust’s claws skitter on the floor as he follows it, standing in front of Gerry and wagging his tail eagerly as he digs it out of the sofa cushions to hand it over.

“Ugh,” he groans at the crunch and slobber that follow, but it’s not quite enough for Proust to lose his affections.

He’s nervous about it, but as Elijah comes back, he puts out his arms, and Elijah sinks into them, leaning into him.

“God, you’re — you really are very muscular.”

“I am, yeah,” says Elijah. “Bet I could lift you.”

“Oh, now, I don’t know about that.”

“I could bench you, definitely.”

Gerry takes a moment to digest the absurdity of the idea, then reaches around the other man to take his mug and sip at his tea.

“Gerry,” says Elijah.

“Mm?”

“We’re not gonna have sex tonight.”

“… Oh?” Gerry asks, and he doesn’t know if he feels terrified or unspeakably relieved, and Elijah smiles at him, tilts his head slightly to one side.

“No,” he says. “We can keep playing this for a while, and then we can go to bed. You can go home if you want, or you can stay here, with me and Proust — he farts in bed, just warning you. But no, no sex. Not tonight.”

“Have I put you off that much?”

“No, it’s not that,” says Elijah immediately, squeezing his knee, although he only does it once, because Proust puts his chin on Gerry’s knee and silently demands Elijah pet him instead.

“I’m not put off. Just, you know, we’re easing into it. No pressure. I don’t put out on the first date, anyway.”

Gerry huffs out a sound, putting his hand on Proust’s cheek and then scratching the side of his neck.

“No pressure,” Elijah says again.

Gerry leans forward, hesitates, not sure about it, but Elijah mirrors him. They brush their lips against one another. It’s rather chaste, but Gerald is unspeakably grateful for that, at the tingle of his lips.

The next kiss is deeper.

The next after that has Proust putting a mighty paw on Gerry’s knee and whining pitifully at the state of his neglect, and they pull apart laughing, which Proust takes as an opportunity to jump between them, cramming his body between theirs.

“Oh, you miserable animal,” says Elijah, laughing. “Jealousy? Jealousy!”

Proust’s tail whips emphatically against Gerry’s belly, and Gerry chuckles, scratching his back and pressing a kiss to the back of his head as Elijah nuzzles their noses together and rubs his chest.

“We could play something else,” Gerry suggests. “Will you promise not to mock me mercilessly if we play something head-to-head?”

“I absolutely don’t promise that, no,” says Elijah over the dog. “But yeah, let’s play something.”

That invisible clock, it seems, has stopped ticking, the anxiety fading somewhat, and they lean together as Elijah pulls out another controller, their heads together, Proust sprawled across their laps.

“I hate to admit this, but you’re really very good,” murmurs Gerry, and Elijah kisses his shoulder before leaning back into him.

The evening goes on, and it doesn’t drag, but sails, smooth, blissful.

Anything else can come later.

FIN.