Forty-Five: You Know Nothing 4/4

After what seemed like an interminable length of time the door opened again, Emery holding Josh's jacket in his outstretched hand, imposing unnecessary distance between them. His expressive brown eyes were despondent; he sounded a little broken when he said, "Your jacket. I was about to text you."

Voicing things was always Josh's downfall. This time he had to start with an action he couldn't take back. He took his jacket only to let it fall to the floor without a second glance, stepping closer until he'd all but collided with Emery.

Still he didn't stop.

He caught Emery by the sides of his waist as he walked them both further into the room. The door hung wide open, but Josh was far past the point of worrying about inconsequential details.

He didn't think to stop until Emery was pinned to the wall, staring at him wide-eyed. His lips were slightly parted and his arms shook, half raised, as if he couldn't decide whether or not to touch Josh. Josh himself had no such qualms, high on the feeling of finally being this close, drunk on the warmth of skin beneath his palms, where he'd slid his hands just underneath the crisp white shirt.

"All this time," he said in a quiet tone that belied the fierceness of his feelings, "I thought you'd been treating me like a whore that night. But it wasn't a whore — it was a witch. Somehow you thought it'd make sense, to weigh me down with rocks and throw me in the river. What was the logic? If I floated I was guilty, and if I drowned I was innocent but out of the picture anyway?"

Emery's breath was tremulous, eyes fixed on Josh's unwavering gaze. Josh didn't give him a chance to reply. "I'm not guilty," he leaned forward, "but I'm done drowning."

Josh could almost taste the kiss he'd been dreaming of for years. But, even as Josh had been holding him and all but declaring his love, Emery had been shocked beyond sound. Beyond movement. His last words had been about a forgotten jacket. What if... "Did I miss my chance?"

He barely recognized his own voice, the icy fingers of dread that clutched tightly around his heart making his vision blur. Maybe love wouldn't be enough, not after everything Josh had put Emery through. His decision to let himself be so willingly vulnerable might not even matter, in the end.

But Emery was worth the risk.

"Emery?" Please let there still be time. "Am I too late?"

"Josh," Emery uttered, wide eyes flooding. "You could never be too late."

The wave of relief that crashed over him was so powerful he had no idea how he was still standing. He took his hands from Emery's waist, cupping his face on both sides, thumbs sliding underneath his glasses to gently wipe away his tears. Their first brush of lips was slow, a promise of what was to come.

Getting to kiss Emery after so long spent picturing it was like drawing breath. He'd wanted it for so long, told himself he'd never have it for so long and now the reality of it was here, and whatever he'd imagined paled before it. Emery pressed against him with a sob, arms encircling Josh at last.

Words were still not coming easily to Josh; he hoped he could make Emery feel the depth of his devotion in his kisses, his touches, the smile that had taken up residence on his face. Kissing someone wasn't the easiest thing in the world when you couldn't stop smiling, he discovered.

He'd touched Emery often, but not like this. Not without the pretense of indifference, the façade of easy friendship covering the deep-abiding love that had lived inside him for so long.

Josh wanted to give him the world.

The sound of the elevator moving brought him back to reality, reminding him of the open door and his jacket on the floor. He broke from Emery for just long enough to retrieve it and shut the door, a monumental show of willpower. When he turned back, jacket in hand, Emery's eyes had lost their smile, his shoulders burdened by an invisible weight. Emery hadn't been sure they'd be on the same side of the door once Josh closed it.

The jacket fell once again to the floor, this time inside the studio, and Emery's eyes lit with hope anew. They walked towards one another, meeting in the middle, together.

"Josh," Emery repeated, voice shaky.

"I'm here," Josh murmured into his lips, "I'm right here with you."

Emery's kisses were passionate and restrained in equal measure, as if he wanted but wasn't certain he was allowed to have. There was nothing he could possibly want that Josh didn't want just as much, if not more. His hands found Emery's tie, loosening it but not undoing it, one of his fingers hooking on the inside of the knot to pull Emery even more completely into his arms.

It was exquisite.

There was a hysterical quality to the giddiness Josh felt with every button of Emery's shirt he was allowed to undo, every inch of skin he was allowed to touch in the way he'd been craving for years. He wanted to explore Emery's body but, somehow, he could never stray too far away from his lips.

Not too late, his heart sang. Not too late, not too late, not too late.

There was no bedroom in the tiny studio — just a pull-out couch that Josh was certain hadn't been designed for any activity more strenuous than sleeping — but they'd make do. Nothing — save Emery himself — would have kept him from being with Emery, not now that they'd reached this point after so many years. Emery clearly felt the same, breaking away to rummage through one of his boxes until he found the supplies he usually bought for the shelter — lube and condoms.

Josh stared at the condoms. He'd always been obsessive about protection — Brian had been the last person he'd been with without a condom, and they'd already been living together for a year when that conversation had happened. He didn't know why he'd prefer not to use one now. It was ridiculous. Not to mention Emery might prefer to use one, and if he did then they would.

Ridiculous or not, it was what he was feeling, and if there was anything he'd learned from tonight's revelations was that it was always preferable to voice what was going through his mind, rather than leaping to conclusions without asking Emery. His voice shook a little when he said with some trepidation, "I haven't been with anyone since before you came to live with me. And I donated blood last month. No STIs."

Emery's expressive brown eyes peeled away all of Josh's layers, leaving him exposed to his core, easily read. "Mark ran all manner of bloodwork when he diagnosed my TB. I had no other diseases." He dropped the condoms back in the box. "And I haven't..." He swallowed. "I haven't even contemplated wanting to be with anyone since before you came to live with me."

Since before Josh had— Years. It'd been years since anyone had touched Emery as if they wanted him. Throughout all he'd been through, he'd been alone, always alone. Josh took him in his arms again, heart aching. Never again. Not if Josh could help it, not while he lived.

They were new to each other for now, in this at least; many moments were far from being well-coordinated or falling completely in sync. The couch didn't help, lumpy and small, unforgiving of any wider movements and threatening to collapse under the weight of two people. It felt perfect.

Having Emery as a lover was nothing like what Josh might have imagined. To have all that intensity, all that single-minded focus trained exclusively on him was beyond compare. Emery read him, took the time to understand what Josh's body was telling him in a way no one ever had before; his touches were reverent — as if Josh were something precious, and it—

He'd have balked at this level of intimacy with anyone else, would have felt suffocated under it. Would have been more than ready to put distance, both physical and emotional, between himself and anyone who tried touching him like this.

Emery was as far from 'anyone else' as was humanly possible.

Josh made no effort to hold back all the words of affection he'd have kept hidden from Emery not too long ago. To think of what the man in his arms had gone through — from losing his parents to losing Emma, from being used by his fiancé to being betrayed by the partner he'd trusted in...

To being betrayed by an entire system that had abandoned him on the streets as soon as it became clear he hadn't been complicit in the fraud, while so many confirmed embezzlers walked free and in positions of power all their lives.

And Emery had weathered it all, losing more of himself every time something was taken from him, to the point where he'd offered up his money to those who would love him because he couldn't envision a world where he'd be worth anything beyond that.

'You might be surprised to find out that, in the years between Si— Vincent — and you, no one ever said no. Some, at first, but they always came back in the end.'

No one. No one had told him they wanted him beyond the balance of his bank account. And Emery kept reliving the hurt his fiancé had caused, over and over, every time he wrote a check to a man who wasn't a sex worker but who took it anyway, in exchange for touches that lost their meaning in the process.

It made Josh want to keep him safe in a way that defied description — he'd hold the world at bay for Emery if need be. Whatever blunders he'd make — and he had no illusions in that regard, he would make them — he could certainly make Emery feel loved every day he chose to stay, starting today.