Title: Frozen (Beware! RPS!)

Title: Frozen (Beware! RPS!) Sequel to "Season 3"
Author: Janet F. Caires-Lesgold
Feedback to: jfc@freeshell.org
Archive: Mailing list archives only--others please ask permission!
Category: Romance, angst, Michael's side
Timeframe: Sometime before filming of "Unsafe"
Rating: M (mature readers only) for language and m/m sexual activity
Pairing: Michael/Tom
Summary: Learning things

DISCLAIMER: This story is just for the entertainment of my online friends and myself, not for any profit. It is pure fantasy and does not intend to reflect on the actual behavior or personalities of the people named herein. Please do not sue me for my little bit of fun!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The other RPS stories in my Quantum Fics series can be found elsewhere on this archive - Enjoy!

AUTHOR'S NOTE #2: There might have been a story at the end of "Season 3", possibly involving the guys' hair after filming had wrapped, but it didn't happen. Then came Season 4, and things changed a LOT. This may be the last story in this series because of that. Thank you for reading.

DEDICATION: For Tiff, who disagrees with me but loves me anyway.

Please don't redistribute or alter this story in any way without the express permission of the author. Thank you very much.

_______________

It's been a crazy year. You were finally able to relocate back to L.A., away from godforsaken Vancouver. Luckily, they haven't needed you on set a lot--just a day or two a week most of the time. You've tried not to lose touch with your co-stars, but it's easy to go about your own life when you almost never see them.

However, it hurts when you think of how distant you've gotten with regard to your "arch-nemesis": your best fuckbuddy, your closest friend in Canada, the man you love. Last year you were practically in each other's pockets, and this year, you hardly hang out with him unless you're filming together, and even that's pretty rare.

At last, though, you have an excuse to be alone with him again. He has an upcoming scene at an ice rink, but he doesn't know how to skate. How convenient that you can skate like a fiend, and are available and willing to act as his teacher. The chance to spend the afternoon with Tommy is perfect incentive.

You don't get to be on skates very often when hockey equipment is not involved, therefore, in street clothes, you feel so light on your blades, it's like flying. The show rented you a rink for a couple of hours, though it's cold enough outside that you could have done this on the pond out behind your favorite diner. But you're not arguing--indoors out of the elements, where you can have a little privacy, will be just fine.

A couple of circuits of the ice, one backwards, and you're ready to impart your wisdom to your student. So where is he?

You're about to dig for your phone and give him a call when the door from the locker room opens. Sure enough, it's Tom, appropriately attired in a heavy sweater and, judging by the ill-defined ass, sweatpants over jeans. He's still beautiful, possibly more than before, because his cheeks are a little ruddy from the cold air, once again giving him that perfect farmboy blush, which he's far beyond with you. You give him a wave and glide over to the bench where he has stopped to lace on his skates.

"Hey, you," you greet him once you're in earshot.

"Hey," he answers with a telltale lack of enthusiasm.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," he nearly whines, though he's managed to get his shoestrings completely tangled.

"Need a hand there, buddy?" You step off of the ice and get on the floor in front of him to try to help.

With a resigned sigh, he sits back and lets you sort out whatever he's done wrong with his lacings. "This is so lame," he mutters, almost not speaking to you.

"What's lame? The fact that they want you to learn to skate a little? I think it's pretty cool."

"To you it's cool since you already know how to do it. I know I'm going to fuck up..."

You finish his bow with a little wrist flourish. "So you fuck up. You fall on your ass fifty times, and you keep getting up and trying again until you don't fall on your ass anymore. It's how you learn anything."

"I guess..."

"Were you the picture of grace and expertise when you first got on a horse? I rather doubt it. So you kept trying and got better at it. You'll be fine."

"Yeah, whatever," he grunts, tugging on his mittens and getting to his feet at last. "Let's get this over with."

Stepping over the threshold, you turn to take his arm, but he isn't even at the gate yet. "C'mere. Whatcha waiting for?"

"I dunno." He takes a shaky step, then brings his feet together stiffly and stands absolutely still. "Hold it."

He's looking at his feet instead of at you, and hasn't moved more than a few inches, so you're not really sure what's wrong. "You can do this. I'll hold your arm." You reach over and take his arm, which is actually trembling. "Tommy?"

"I can't do this. I'm sorry." He tries to pull away, but you grab him even more tightly.

"What's going on? Don't you trust me?"

"Fuck you, Mike. Of course I trust you." The eyes he raises to you at last are genuinely furious. "I just don't want to do this."

You try to cheer him up with a trademark wicked grin. "Hey, man--you have to. Might as well let me show you how, because nobody else is going to take care of you like I will." Behind his angry gaze, you become aware of a sliver of sheer terror, and your fingers sense the pounding of the pulse in his arm even through the thick knit of his sleeve. "Wait. You're scared, aren't you?"

"No," he insists, but you don't believe him.

"What are you afraid of?"

"I can't stand up on these things," he gripes, all evidence indicating that this is a lie. "I don't want to fall. I'm gonna hurt myself."

A wave of affection keeps you from giving him too hard a time, but you can't resist noodging him just a little. "But dude," you argue, your heads very close and your voice accordingly soft, "you're Superman. Nothing can hurt you."

He gives you a more conflicted and bitter stare than Clark Kent could ever muster. "You can," he answers, his voice similarly low, but laced with rancor.

"What?" You blink in confusion.

"You leave me up here to go off and pursue whatever your heart desires, and the only way I get to see you is a stupid-ass skating lesson. I hate this."

His words are a slap in the face. "You don't wanna be here with me?"

Looking a little chastened, he replies, "No. Well, I want to be with you, just not here. It seems a pretty gimmicky way to make time with my 'secret boyfriend'."

You drag him back down to the bench with you and grab his mittened hand in your own. "So this isn't about the skating..."

"Nawwww," he drawls, demonstrating that he's already learned something from you. "I resent that you're so far away anymore, and that we can't be together, even at work." His voice drops to a whisper. "I miss you, Mike."

It's second nature for your arm to slip around and grab him close. "Oh, god, beautiful. I miss you, too." You look up and notice him lick his lip nervously, and you cannot resist. A short lunge, and your mouths are touching so sweetly that you won't trust your voice to remain steady for a moment or two once the kiss ends.

He squeezes your hand, which you read as a signal that he wants to speak. Drawing back, you feel your heart break a little to see the sadness in his eyes. "This is so hard, y'know? I can't give you anything. It all belongs to Jamie. I love her, and I've promised my life to her. You're going to go back to California when the show is done, or even sooner, and there won't be anything permanent left of 'us'."

"Not even the tattoos?" you joke, because it would tear you apart to say anything more serious.

A small chuckle accompanies the broken grin he flashes at you. "Okay--maybe the tattoos," he acknowledges, giving your hand another squeeze. "It's just..." Obviously struggling for the right words, he looks away, almost to the far end of the rink. "I don't want this to be over."

"Huh? But it's n--"

Before you can finish your argument, he catches your eye again and continues. "Let's be realistic here. We're together because of this job. You've got other things you want to do besides keep flying up here for your eight lines a week. Someday this job will be finished, and you'll go back to your big career. This little fling won't mean anything, because it shouldn't. You want a real life, with somebody who can be yours alone. You're gonna meet somebody, and you'll forget all about me."

You, normally Mr. Chatterbox, are rendered speechless by the bleak future painted with his words. You can't look at him anymore, so you yank him close and fling your arms around him, tucking your chin over his shoulder so you don't have to face him for awhile. Your eyes close tight as he hugs you with all his considerable might. "Not anytime soon, okay? I'm not gonna forget you, even if I have work somewhere else. I love you, and not just as a friend. Never just as a friend..."

Under your fingers, his ribs stutter a little, but you refuse to think of him doing anything more than sniffing hard and swallowing back something he can't let out. "Thank you, Michael. I love you, too. I always will."

A few more minutes of quiet comfort in each other's arms, whereupon you rub his back briskly and give it a gentle slap before pulling away to kiss him one more time. "You okay? Wanna go skate now?"

"Sure," he grins apologetically. "Let's hit the ice."

You give him a hand back up onto his blades, answering, "Literally, in your case!"

An hour or two and a couple of dozen spills (only two involving you) later, he's comfortable enough on the ice to look like a novice on camera without killing himself or his guest star. Nursing a banged-up elbow, he limps over to the benches to untie your perfect bows in the laces of his skates.

You slide up behind him and brake your feet at an angle to spray him with a shower of ice crystals, making him laugh as he brushes out his hair. "Now what, Ms. Lipinski?" you ask, earning yourself a playful glare. "Hit the showers?"

"Sounds like a great idea," he replies, tugging off his first skate. "You wanna come to the house? James is out of town."

This brings you up short for a moment. "After the shower, or before?"

Gradually, he reveals that spotlight smile. "Before. Mine's big enough for two..."

Thus inspired, you hurry out of your skates and bolt out to your car, only looking back to see him following and shaking his head in amusement.

In a few minutes, you're dancing about on his front stoop waiting for Tommy to show up and unlock the door. Soon, he drives up and uses the automatic garage door opener, so you wander across the yard to duck inside the garage, then tap your foot pointedly and look at your watch waiting for him to get out of the car.

While the mechanical door slides back into place, he climbs out of the driver's seat, wrapping his long arms around you before he even slams the car door. His kiss is both urgent and deliberate, as he makes you feel he's got you right where he wants you.

Once he ends the kiss and lets you go with his right arm, apparently needing to hang onto you with his left, reversing the trend from the rink, he locks the car and walks you into the house. The dogs bounce around your legs happily until he lets them out the back door into the fenced yard. "Shower?" he asks simply, and you can do nothing but nod in assertion.

You are tugged along to the master bedroom, when he lets you go long enough to take off his clothes, so you take that opportunity to remove your own. With a speed apparently not hampered by the discomfort of his body's many abrupt introductions to the ice, he reveals his naked beauty to stand before you and reach for your hand to lead you into the bathroom.

As he's adjusting the temperature of the spray, he turns to you with a sincere gaze. "I'm sorry I was being such a brat earlier about the skating..."

"It's okay," you reply. "You're right to be worried about the future." The water is ready, so you follow him behind the plastic curtain into the tub, and continue your conversational thread. "I don't know what's going to happen to us after we finish filming the show. Our lives could go in such different directions, I can't promise that we'll be together with any regularity, or even at all." While you have had concerns about this very topic, you hadn't previously put them into words, which suddenly makes it all painfully real.

"I know," he answers, water running in rivulets around his neck and down his chest, "...and it kills me to think that even though I want you, I can't necessarily have you."

Forcing your lower lip not to quiver, you swallow and insist, "You can have me now." Paying no attention to the shower spray, you clutch him close and try to calm down.

After a long, sentimental embrace under the warm water, he finally pulls back, grasps your head in his hands, and kisses you deeply and passionately. With great dispatch, he snatches up a bottle of liquid soap and scrubs you down with his bare hands. When you're all soapy, he yanks down the shower nozzle and rinses you off carefully, paying particular attention to the hardness between your legs.

Once he's satisfied that you're clean, he hangs the nozzle back on its hook and drops to a crouch in the tub. "Thank you for teaching me to skate today," he says, his voice faint above the noise of the faucet, then bends his head to your erection.

You lean your head back against the tiled wall, steadying yourself as best you can with wet hands. Tom's mouth takes you in, hot and moist and desperate, and you whimper almost as if it hurt. His tongue traces its head, and then he swallows your cock, petting your balls with one hand and rubbing your belly with the other.

A glance down along your sternum affords you the most glorious vista of those misty green eyes and that cupid's bow top lip curled around your sex, until you can't bear to watch anymore and shut your eyes just to feel what he's doing to you. The passage down his throat is snug and perfect, sliding just so and getting tighter with every heartbeat.

Droplets of water, which you try to convince yourself are merely humidity, trickle down your cheeks, and when you think you are at the very brink, he lets go of your balls. Before you can even squeak out a protest, he slips his finger into your ass, and you are gone. Your cock pumps firmly, you throw back your head a little too sharply into the wall, and a throaty sob wells up from your chest. You're not absolutely sure, but either you've come harder than you ever have in your life, or you're dead, and given option A, option B doesn't bother you as much as it might otherwise.

Somewhere in the fog, you are unencumbered below your waist, and strong arms envelop and ground you while you come back from wherever you've been. His voice soft, Tom shushes you, whispering loving words and reassuring you even while pretending not to notice that you're crying.

As soon as your breathing returns to something like normal, he makes sure you're not going to slip out of reach along the wet ceramic surface and fall down if he lets go of you, then quickly splashes around under the shower spray on his own. Before the hot water runs out, a warm washcloth is carefully applied to your face and your genitals, whereupon you are nestled in a big, fluffy towel and helped out of the tub to a safe perch on the toilet lid.

Tom rushes around, turning off nozzles and rinsing down porcelain, then comes to stand near you while he dries himself off. "You okay?" he checks casually, to which you nod from under the white terrycloth veil on your head. "Good," he continues. "I need to fuck you tonight, in case I don't get the chance again."

This makes you lower the towel to scowl at him, but his earnest, serious expression causes you to bite back any argument you might have made to the contrary. In fact, few words pass between you as you move into the bedroom and turn back the covers to get into bed. Instead, once you lie together, you kiss until you are breathless, communicating on a much more basic level.

You are nearly hard again when he readies himself to penetrate you, but you ask for nothing, letting him take his time and prepare you both. There is something reverent in his lovemaking tonight, as if he wants to memorize each stroke, every sigh, and bring them out later to admire when he's alone and far away from you. His hands won't leave bruises on your hips, but you almost wish they would so you would have similar souvenirs.

Crossing your ankles on the small of his back, you ride along with his thrusts, welcoming the burn inside your body that has become less frequent, but could never be unfamiliar. Tom grimaces, baring his teeth briefly, then stills as he comes to completion with a small groan.

For a second, you consider brushing his hand away when it curls around your cock, wanting to feel the erection he's given you for as long as possible. Logically, however, you realize that it cannot last, so you succumb to his touch and allow yourself to tip over the brink again, though it could not surpass the incredible orgasm he gave you with his mouth in the shower.

You uncouple reluctantly, Tom's finger idly tracing through the cooling puddle on your stomach then rising to his tongue to be licked clean. He offers you some, which you refuse with a grin. As soon as the used tissues and condom are dispatched, you cuddle together on the pillows again, sometimes staring up at the ceiling, sometimes lost in each other's eyes.

"Maybe we should think about getting some dinner," you suggest, attempting to get out of bed. "Chinese?" you add, recalling your first romantic dinner together so long ago.

"Maybe," he answers with a lazy grin, his arm moving across your shoulders like a clamp to keep you horizontal beside him. "Just not yet."

Whether he doesn't want this moment to end too soon, or he means he's not giving you up for awhile doesn't really matter right now. Either interpretation is just fine with you.

THE END

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