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Title: My Electric Bill Is Triple Digits [I Left The Light On For You All Winter]
Pairing: Jepha Howard [first person narrator] and Bert McCracken. [the used]
Rating: NC-17 for explicit themes.
Summary: I won’t say this is a tear jerker because we all have different levels of sensitivity. This is about moving on and deciding when you’re ready or how far you’re willing to go. This is about different human emotions; honest, raw, brittle. This is the thoughts you think but you don’t say. This is about fucking.
Disclaimer: This is a work of f[r]iction. All events, characters, names, and places featured here are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person(s), living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Author's Note: This was about two weeks of productive work. Months spent idling over the idea or shoving the whole thing on the back burner. I don’t use betas. I like feedback.

***
When we’re out on my front step with my trench coat hanging off my shoulders and my cell phone digging into my thigh, I think about how much better this could be if it were you. I think about your number on speed dial and my toes are turned in slightly, weight swaying, cement cold and smooth underneath me.

He’s shorter then me, but not by much. He’s somewhere in his early twenties, with a certifiable glamour grunge look about him; unshaven cheeks and bagging shorts in the dead of winter, combined with red eye shadow and smoky liner accenting the crystal colour of his irises. You, you just have brown eyes, deep and dark and bright, like a thoughtful puppy. Like a sad Saint Bernard. You’ve got easy ashen blonde hair, but his is black, messy and unkempt with random unnatural highlights, reds and greys and orange. His is bordering inadvertent dreadlocks from the lack of maintenance, while you actually tended to yours with a hair brush each morning.

Smoothing down flyaways is just another little detail I’m missing. I think I’m describing you wrong. I think you’ll forgive me for that.

My hands are in my pockets and I can feel the metal of my keys and I can feel my cellphone in their respecting sides, and it’s suddenly like I’m making a choice. I could send him on his way and spend my night leaving messages on your machine that you’ll never listen to…or I could invite him in and not think about you.

“Jeph…” my date says softly, coaxing, standing at the bottom of the steps. He reaches upwards, moving his fingers around my wrists and his skin is cold where it touches mine.

“Hmm?” I breathe, blaming the cold for the sting in my eyes.

“I know it’s been hard for you…”

I keep still, not wanting to influence him to do much of anything.

“It’s hard when people leave you…” he continues, taking a step up while I stay on the edge of the porch.

“Yeah,” I agree half heartedly, feeling my brow fall lower in concentration, trying to listen to him and ignore the freezing temperature. Between us, our breath is a silver fog, dissipating into the thin night air and the stars are alive as far up as I can see. The city pollution isn’t even a factor and my front lawn is frozen into jagged bits of jade coloured glass.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, you know. You’re a great person,” he tugs on my wrists until he’s freed my hands from the warmth of my pockets, his fingers closing tightly around mine.

If only he knew. I wish you could answer your phone just this once so I can share the joke. We both know I’m not even a good person, much less the more enthusiastic ‘great’. I’m not talented or special. I never have been. If I were ever anywhere close, it was only because you pushed me to my potential.

I never even said thanks for that, did I?

“It’s okay, Bert. Really. We don’t have to talk about this.”

“It’s important to me,” he says genuinely, looking up the steps into my face. His skin is pale in the white moonlight, cheeks showing more shadow then usual, his eyes frosted with black liner and he’s more sincere and sensitive right now then I’ve ever witnessed him. It’s just another joke I want to share but can’t. Maybe we were just cynical assholes, but I know you’d get a kick out of this. “I feel like he’s the reason you don’t want to get serious. You’re…almost… waiting for him to come back to you,” he looks like the idea scares him.

It intrigues me.

I blink and feel this strange, inadvertent smile on my lips. “What makes you think he won’t?”

Bert shakes his head sadly and steps backwards, looking appalled and devastated all at once. He’s dropped my hands and I tuck them back into my pockets quickly for warmth, fingering my keys. Somehow, his clothes seem to be hanging off of him even more dejected then prior, and he looks meekly pathetic, staring up at me like a freshly disciplined little boy. “Jeph…Jepha, look. He won’t. He’s not going to. You know that. I wish you’d believe me.”

I heave a sigh and watch the smoky breath float off into the still night. “It’s not that I don’t. I just feel like I have to leave a light on for him. So if he ever…decides to…or wants to…he always can. Maybe not even for... Like. I don’t know, like I have to. Like I can’t just write off everything…like it never happened, I’m just. You know. I’m his friend, Bert. I have to.”

“You’re wasting electricity,” he says darkly for a moment before glancing away, almost sniffling. “Am I wasting my time?” Bert asks, and his beautiful eyes are wide and bright, and he’s got his lip trembling, but he can’t look like a kicked puppy. He looks more like a furry, sad kitten, abandoned in a gutter down town. He looks like his soft, scruffy kitten fur has been exposed to too much city filth and he looks like he belongs curled up in someone’s lap by a fire side, lithe and cuddly and interested.

He’s a starved kitten in an alley way; you can’t expect me to turn my back on that. He needs a bath and a decent meal. He needs that warm, inviting lap. He needs my lap.

Oh god, when did I become this? If I’m coasting on prolific, you know I don’t mean to. When did I become such a fucking cop out? And next, I’ll be rambling about how he tastes like strawberries and I want to buy a picket fenced house with him.

You know what though?

You can’t rough house with kittens.

Maybe you can’t rough house with puppies either.

I never got the chance to tell you I’m sorry, but I am.

“No…no, that’s not what…I mean. You’re not, really. I’m over him. I really am. I just…I don’t want him to…I won’t forget about him, ever, I just…”

“Invite me to stay the night, Jeph. For us.”

I think about how that sounds, tilting my head up to the sliver of moon and lit up night sky. Us. Me and Bert. It should never have even gotten the chance to be that way, you know. I know it.

I wonder what you’re doing right now. I wonder what you’d want me to do. Move on? Forget? Start over?

“Bert…”

I watch his shoulders tense, his head dropping lower and his messy, uneven bangs falling over his eyes in a calculated arch. He says nothing, but his ribs decompress to force out a heavy sigh. His knee high socks are black and his shoes are coated with a layer of ice. I’m used to seeing him goofy, never pretentious, and never letting disappointment show. Spending time with him, I’ve labelled him a pessimist in denial, although labelling people has pretty much lost its interest since you’re not here to laugh with me.

I shake my head and turn away, pulling open the screen door and tightening my fingers around my keys.

I stick one of them into the slot on the doorknob, unlocking the front door. I push it open and it’s a wave of warm, comfortable smelling air, something akin to cigarette smoke and the fabric of my hoodie when I bury my face against one sleeve and inhale. It smells like spiced tea and vaguely of incense and I just don’t want to be alone right now.

I hear Bert’s shoes crunch against the gravel and ice and my chest tightens, glancing over my shoulder. “Bert?”

He glances at me, his shoulders hunched against the cold, eyes partially hidden.

He can’t stay. I know that. You know that. I don’t know when I become someone desperate for reassurance, but I used to be cool. I used to not need this. I used to like being left up to my own devices.

The words on my tongue are goodnight, but they come out wrong.

“Come inside.”

His face contorts, brow creasing, and he looks like he wants to decline, as we’re pretty much doomed to sit in my living room awkwardly, staring at each other if he does come in. “Okay, Jeph,” he says, so lightly I almost don’t hear. This I think is odd too, and I wonder why neither of us are falling into our usual calculated roles, me being distant and apathetic while he’s cracking silly jokes and being generally personable. Tonight, my empathy is showing through clearer then the stars in the fresh night sky and he’s being nothing if not reserved.

It’s not really relevant though, because I heard him.

And I’m sorry.

***
It’s not as weird as I wanted it to be, our first real kiss. I wanted it to feel bad, just for you. I wanted to feel guilty, but I don’t.

It’s not the first time we’ve kissed. It’s not even our first make out session, but it’s the first time his hands are sliding over my hip, up the bottom of my shirt. It’s the first time my fingers trail up his bicep, ending up fisted through the back of his jagged hair. Our noses nuzzle slightly and his cheek is rough against mine, and his skin feels warm and smells deep.

He doesn’t smell anything like you.

He doesn’t feel anything like you.

I just feel his hands sliding over my ribs, his thumbs tracing the bones beneath my skin, and I’m falling back on the couch until the back of my head hits the armrest. As soon as I’ve got support from behind, I bend my legs up with my thighs open, his thin body falling right between so our laps press together.

I feel warm instantly, my lower back straining up from the cushions to push our hips together harder, my chin tilted up to keep our mouths together. His tongue is thrusting in and out of my lips, my teeth catching against his lower one with my liprings clicking between our mouths. He pushes his lithe body up against mine again, tugging my shirt up the expansion of my chest, his palms still cold from the dead winter air.

I feel something like a moan fill up my chest when he keeps pushing up against me, that tingling warmth from before spreading through my entire abdomen and all I want to do is tell him not to stop.

I’m sorry. I need this. I haven’t been touched by anyone in so long. I can’t even remember the last time I masturbated. I can’t remember the last time I got off. I can’t remember the last time I had any release.

“Oh…god,” I let myself moan. I’m almost fully hard now, my jeans feeling tight and coarse against my skin, pinned up against his warm, thrusting body. I just clench my eyes shut, head tilted back, feeling his mouth latch below the curve of my jaw, teeth and wet tongue against my skin.

He pulls back for just a moment, leaving the fresh mark exposed to the cold air, his ribs stirring against mine with each of his heated breaths. He’s tugging my shirt off, tossing it across the room before returning his hands to my chest, stroking his thumbs and the warmed pads of his fingers against my skin gently.

I squirm beneath him, forcing our hips together harder, wanting blunt, crude pleasure. I’m not in the mood for these easy, calculated movements. I want something hard and impulsive. I want to feel teeth and my muscles straining and tensed up as much as possible.

I feel for the bottom of his hoodie, tugging it up the smooth ness of his spine, his shoulder blades flexing beneath my palms. He’s wearing a long sleeved shirt beneath that and it’s almost tantalizing, him wearing layers to keep my hands away from his bare skin.

Beneath him, I’m looking up into his pale face, my fingers scratching at the bottom of the shirt, letting out small whimpers every time he shoves forward. He smiles so I can see the straight white ridge of his teeth, sitting back on his knees off of me to remove his shirt. I watch his back arch and his muscles move so smoothly, his hips wriggling and chest sliding with his breaths.

I shiver, tightening my thighs around his body as much as possible, needing more pressure against my lap.

He braces his hands on either side of my shoulders, his weight sinking the cushions slightly, holding his mouth over mine. He lets his nose nuzzle mine, thrusting up against me again hard and steady, and I think he’d be good at real fucking.

I don’t mean to be thinking like this. I didn’t mean to really want him, maybe just a few kisses and an assurance that it’ll just take some more time…I didn’t think it’d go this far.

But it’s been so long…and I’m really turned on by him, by his litheness, by his purrs and nuzzles and the push of his body against mine, the warmth of his skin, his breaths and his movements.

I kick my shoes off and wrap my arms around his bare shoulders, our skin pressing together so tightly that I can feel his heart resonating through my own chest. The discarding of my socks proves to be a harder task, but I manage and hook my feet against his knees to keep our bodies together.

His tongue thrusts into my mouth again, my lips sucking on the wet ness, biting at his mouth with my teeth and kissing him back fervently. My nails are sliding down his back, gripping his ass beneath the coarse fabric of his black shorts, and he moans out instantly, the first deep, masculine noise he’s made.

I whimper back, opening my legs up again, his hands sliding down the contours of my chest, nearing the tops of my jeans. My hips jerk upwards in response, wanting contact from him more then anything else.

It’s taking him forever to discard our clothing, and I spend the mean time sucking on his fingers, splitting them with my tongue and licking, nipping, getting them wet and dripping in my mouth.

I have to grab his wrist and push his hand down, spreading my legs out for him and lifting my hips suggestively before he’s pressing wet fingers between my thighs, rubbing and touching.

I grunt softly and sort of thrust up against the air, sinking my ass back down on his fingers while he steadies his hand and lets me sit back slowly. I let out a satisfied groan of pleasure, pushing my ass down until his two fingers are deep and curved against my sensitive insides, my eyes rolling back in my skull as I rock downward.

“God…that feels…” I can’t form a coherent sentence right now so I give up and try to just make encouraging noises. I don’t want him to stop. I love the feeling of being penetrated, and I’m sweaty and panting, riding my ass down against his hand.

“I can just fuck you with my fingers…” His voice is breathy and constricted, his lips nuzzling against the hinge of my jaw, and I’m trying to lift my weight up on the balls of my feet with my shoulder blades flat against the couch and my knees bent. “If you’re not ready to…”

I thrash my head back to get my bangs out of my eyes and when I talk, it’s through my teeth. “I want it deeper…” my voice puts a strain on the last syllable and I let out a gasp and swallow a mouthful of spit. I feel his fingers curve and his wrist twist, feeling deeper inside of me. “Fuck me.”

“We don’t have to…” his fingers slow a bit and he looks down on me almost sympathetically.

I twist and sort of curl my toes against the cushion. “I want to. I do. I want to now,” I grasp for him, but he almost leans away, unconvinced. I’m panting, my lips wet and swollen and watching him beneath the over hang of my bangs.

“I don’t know…” he trails off while I reach for him, trying to find his erection between his legs without taking my eyes off his face.

I don’t know why he’s doing this to me. Denying me what I want. Making me beg and look pathetic and sex starved.

I keep my knees up, grasping his dick and pulling it between my legs, giving him a look of pure desperation. “I do though,” I insist, feeling his fingers brush against the inside of my thighs while his dick touches my balls. “Give it to me.”

I wriggle my hips a bit to get closer to him, licking my lips and picking my ass up a few inches. He winces like he’s pained, one of his hands lifting up to brush the side of my face.

He keeps rubbing at the inside of my thigh with his free hand, frowning at my withering, my panting and sweating. It’s like he’s trying to calm me down, make me relax, but I’m so fucking turned on right now, not necessarily by him, but just in general. My cock aches, my whole stomach aches, and I want to get fucked so badly. I just want to come. It’s the only thing that’s going to make me feel any better.

“Jepha…” he whispers it, sounding sincere and apologetic.

I swallow again, reaching for his wrist and moving his hand to my dick. He bites the side of his lip, letting his fingers ease around me, looking down.

“Mmmph…what?” I squirm again, arching my back up so his cock brushes between my legs and I watch a strange look of pleasure wash over his features at the movement. I do it again and his fingers squeeze my cock.

“I want to love you…” he looks up at me earnestly, like such a small little boy aching for approval, but I don’t have that kind of authority.

“I want to fuck you,” I reply before I can stop myself, and he looks crestfallen. I can’t feel sorry for him right now. Maybe I will later when I’m in a better state of mind, but not right now. Not like this. “After…after, we’ll talk about this after you’re done with me?” I try to match his earnest expression, feeling his fingers slip lower again, but mine isn’t genuine like his.

He nods in a detached way, pushing two fingers inside of me again with my hips lifting my lower body up. He obviously doesn’t want it to be this way, but I do.

“Don’t…you don’t have to finger me anymore, just fuck me with your cock,” I groan, lifting my ass up again.

“Is this how you want it?” he mumbles, touching my thigh with his other hand and pushing my knee back against my chest a bit.

I can only nod my head emphatically at this point, pushing up against his body to give him better access to my entrance. I watch him fumble a little, spitting into his hand and coating his dick with the saliva before lining us up, and I strain to keep my hips raised.

He presses his tip against my ass and I close my eyes, feeling him push and feeling myself get even more stretched out. His hand stays down there for a few more moments to steady himself before he lets go, moving both his hands up, resting them on either side of my ribs.

He keeps pushing his hips forward and after my sphincter, his slides in a lot easier, dick pressing up against sensitive spots. He holds still and watches me while I exhale in pure satisfaction, flexing my fingers against his shoulder blades.

“Ohh…mmmmph…” I whine, nuzzling my mouth against his collarbone. I need him to move, to make that rough, constant massage against my prostate. I want to get off with him inside of me. “You can fuck me.”

He nods, looking down at me, pulling his hips back from my body before snapping them forward again. I groan loudly, thighs trembling and tightening against his sides and my head falling back. It’s been so long since I’ve been fucked.

This is me, all shaky and breathless while he starts moving, fucking his hips up against my body. I lift my feet all the way up into the air, crossing my ankles behind the back of his head while clutching onto the couch cushions until my knuckles are white.

My cheeks flush and I make more noise for him then I can recall making for you, but I’ve never been a loud one. It’s just been so long and he needs a lot more encouragement then you.

At some point, I’m just screaming fuck me over and over again, hoping to drill it in his head while he drills his dick up my ass.

At some point, my hand is all over my dick, masturbating myself while he grabs my hips to hold my body steady, thrusting and working himself in and out of me. I’m screaming out loud to a hopefully empty room. I’m in a delicious amount of pain and ecstasy. I’m hot all over with a clenching stomach and shivers working their way all beneath my wet skin.

I’m still screaming to be fucked, even after I tense up too tightly, after my whole body flushes and shivers and I lose it all over my hand.

And he doesn’t pull out. He just keeps thrusting, deep, pushing all up against my prostate and I feel like I’m going to lose conscious ness from the pleasure of it.

He falls down against me, lifting his head to look into my face earnestly. “Do you want me to…”

I already know what he’s going to say and I’m shaking my head no. I don’t want him to go. I want to curl up with a warm body right now, so I loop my arm around the small of his back and hold his heaving chest down against mine. Our skin is wet, touching, comforting me in some weird way and I want this.

Right now. I want this.

It’s not you, but we all have to make compromises we hate.

You, you would be yelling at me right now. You would be saying, never compromise. You would say be what you want. Get what you want. All that.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I haven’t heard you talk in so long, maybe I haven’t heard you spill your guts in so long, that I forgot what it sounds like.

Bert, he lays his flushed cheek against one of my damp collarbones, keeping his hips between my thighs as he hardly stifles a yawn. I raise a hand and brush careful fingertips through his hair to soothe him, scared of scaring him.

Scared of scaring him off.

Gentle sweet and nuzzling. You knew I had it in me, the capacity to appreciate human contact. You always knew I had a lot in me before I knew I did.

Bert is asleep before I am. He’s asleep before I have to come up with an excuse not to talk again and I’m thankful for that.

I guess I just don’t like talking to anyone else. I like talking to you. You understand. I’ve been spoiled by you because you always get what I’m talking about before anyone else does. I don’t want to be despoiled. The thought makes my guts wrench.

I need to talk right now.

I have to talk to you even if you won’t answer.

***
I walk out onto the back porch, cold, smooth cement underneath my bare feet and the sky a murky rose now that the time is creeping towards dawn. The backyard is small and fenced in, a slim expansion of broken grass and balding patches of earth. The back porch, it’s small and concrete and peeling with an old coat of red paint.

I take my cell phone out while reaching for the weather stained patio chair laid on its side just off the side of the porch. A bit of twisting and its settled on all three legs with one of the back slightly shorter, making it tilt back and forth unevenly as I sit down in it. I’m already cold and shivering, wrapped in a blanket stolen from one of the arm chairs.

Me cell phone lights up blue as soon as I hit a button, my thumb moving over the smooth keypad to punch in the same number I always find myself calling.

It rings once.

You won’t answer and I know that. It’s funny, that I’m the one keeping your phone line on. Your apartment has been cleaned out until it’s devoid of nearly all furniture, or so I’ve heard.

Your mother told me this but your mother never really liked me, so who knows.

You mother probably thinks I’m crazy.

It rings twice.

Hell, I think I’m crazy sometimes. Calling you like this. It’s so late it’s early now, maybe the sun thinking about raising up over the black, gnarled definition of the tree lines in the distance. I think most people would say that I need to let you rest in peace. I think, if I was confronted on this, or if I confronted myself, I’d just be shooting the rod.

It rings three times and I curl my bare, cold toes against the concrete and stretch a bit against the uncomfortable plastic hardly supporting my spine.

You know me well enough to know that I’m not the type to forget.

Fourth ring.

I smile, very faintly but it’s very genuine and I guess that’s all that matters.

I know you well enough to know that even if you never pick up, even if you can’t pick up, you’ll find a way to hear this.

Fifth ring.

Of course I was torn apart when you died four months ago, but we all deal with things like this in a different way. Some people are probably more healthy about it, but I have to take this one step at a time. You should know that. One careful baby step at a time and I don’t want you to miss out.

When you died a huge part of me went with you and I want you back and I want me back, but all I’ve got is this and your answering machine.

Sixth ring and there’s a beep and the tape clicking and your voice rolling over the phone line from dimensions away.

”Hey, I’m not in right now. Leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you as soon as I get around to it.”

I believe that you’ll get back to me as soon as you get around to it.

There’s a faint, early morning breeze that ruffles my bangs to the side, and I tuck them behind one ear with two fingers while I tilt the phone to my opposite ear.

“Hey Quinn. It’s me again. I finally let Bert come in…”