Cam's lying face-down on the bed -- one knee drawn up underneath him, naked as the day he was born and every inch of his skin singing at him when he so much as shifts a muscle -- and Jackson's kneeling in between his thighs. (Daniel, Jackson insists on being called; here, now, in this bed, he will be Daniel and Cam will be Cameron, and Cam can usually remember to call him that out loud but he sure as hell can't change the way he thinks.) This is the breathing room, he knows; Jackson's giving him a few minutes to cool down, to back off if he wants to. Needs to. Jackson's nothing if not exquisitely courteous, even here. Especially here.

He can feel himself leaning into Jackson's touch. From the dip of the bed, yeah, but more from the way he can still feel the weight of Jackson's hand against the curve of his ass. Can still feel the scratch and burn of Jackson's nails digging into his skin. Jackson's barely touching him now at all, but Cam's still leaning into it, like his body's trying to say more yes harder. Or please.

He wonders, sometimes, how the hell he wound up here. What chain of coincidences, what set of decisions he made that led him to this bed, at this moment: naked, buzzing, painfully aroused, feeling as though his heart might leap out of his chest at any moment. If anyone had asked him a year ago, two months ago, whether he could ever imagine being so turned on he could probably come beneath Jackson's hand just from a single slap, he'd have called them crazy. And yet here he is, his face buried in the pillow, his hips lifting his backside up to display that reddened skin in the hope Jackson will find it appealing enough to continue.

If it weren't for the way Jackson's never once hinted that this is something shameful, Cam would have died of shame a long damn time ago. And yet he keeps coming back, week after week, showing up at Jackson's door with his eyes turned down and his body already humming, and Jackson takes him in hand and spreads him out and makes him feel and oh, Lord, it's enough to drive him mad with how much he wants it, but he does. And he doesn't know why (doesn't want to think about why), but Jackson seems to be more than willing to give.

He's starting to come back from that edge of sensation, just a little. Enough to be thinking about all of this, at least; enough to surface from the haze of his body shouting want want want at him. And it's like Jackson can see it, can sense it, because his hand comes down on the nape of Cam's neck with the lightest of ghost-touches, enough to make goose-pimples rise, and the promise of that touch catches Cam right back up with its claws and makes Cam shiver.

Jackson's apparently decided that the time-out has been long enough for Cam to have said no if he was going to, long enough for Cam to somehow communicate enough, stop. Cam doesn't want Jackson to stop. There's a part of him, a part he doesn't want to think about, that wishes he hadn't even been given the opportunity. It's the same part that sits up and takes notice as Jackson leans over him, bearing him down into the cradle of the bed, to reach for something over on the nightstand.

For a second, he wonders if Jackson's reaching for lube and condoms, if this will be the night Jackson decides to fuck him, and goddamn if his dick doesn't twitch at the thought of it before he stops. Jackson had spent hours, patient and implacable, drawing Cam's lines and limits out of him, and Jackson's been pushing those limits ever since, and Cam can't tell if the thought of Jackson fucking him actually turns him on or if it's just the thought of being forced over the one line he'd set in stone.

He can't see what's going on over him, but Jackson's other hand is walking his spine, tracing lines and bumps and scars, and that hint of connection is enough to keep Cam from panic; he rides the crest and the trough of anticipation, breathless to see what Jackson's going to do next, and the words itch on his lips: tell me, what next, what now. But Jackson's first order tonight had been don't speak until I tell you; at the time Cam had thought it would be the easiest command to follow that Jackson's ever given him, and it wasn't until he'd nearly bitten through his lip to keep from saying no please stop don't stop no please as Jackson sent him flying that Cam realized how much of a stretch it would truly be.

It feels like he's hanging there forever, Jackson's pants skimming over the stinging (so good) and burning skin of his ass (and Jackson's not hard, not even turned on maybe, and that sounds a wrong note in the symphony Jackson's playing on Cam's bones and nerves, but it's swallowed up so quickly in the harmony of Jackson's breath on the arch of his shoulderblade, Jackson's fingernails against the small of his back, that he forgets it again immediately). And just at the moment Cam feels like he's about to step out of his skin with the wanting, Jackson kneels back, and Cam just has a second to draw breath before the flick of fire spreads across his back.

He doesn't know, can't know, what it is, what Jackson's doing -- God, what Jackson's doing, what it is that makes him feel like this, what it is that reaches down inside his chest and pulses, burns, yes please and God Daniel no warring on his tongue. He has only a bare second to pray those words stay back in the heat and darkness behind his eyes before he realizes he's pushing back up against the empty air, reaching, begging, and the noise he can hear is his own breath vibrating out on a moan. He's trying to hold himself still, hold himself silent, the way Jackson has ordered him (because Jackson is doing what he wants, and therefore he will do what Jackson wants; nothing else, nothing more) but his blood is loud in his ears and he feels like thirty thousand feet and climbing.

A pause, a shift; the fire comes again, and this time he's waiting for it, anticipating it, and he can pick out each individual lick of feeling as it crawls over his back, like thermite kissing down to the bone. It's sharp, sharp enough as to almost be like knives, but there's something deep and broad and heavy about it too. For a second he thinks it's spreading, like Jackson's set him ablaze, and then the burn fades and recedes and cools, and he realizes it must be --

Wax. Jackson had a candle burning, when he led Cam in here and stripped him. And God, but Cam wants, wants to feel that razor line between not enough and too much, wants to be picked up and thrown into the center of it, wants to submerge himself in the ache and sting. It feels real, like so much else doesn't, like someone (Jackson) suddenly clicked the world into focus and narrowed everything down to nothing more than skin and body and blood. The wax falls against the small of his back, puddling, pooling, and he's pushing himself back up against it (yes please more) and reaching out, palms against the headboard, back arching, loose, burning, untethered --

Jackson's hand comes down against the nape of Cam's neck, holding him still, and it sends him crashing back down into the outline of his skin. Jackson never lets him go too far. Jackson is speaking, and the sounds become syllables, and the syllables become speech, and what he is asking, what he is demanding, is that Cam put words to the weight of what he is feeling. "Three words," Jackson is saying, and Cam's thoughts stumble over the sound of it.

(I need to know what you feel, and whether or not you enjoy it, Jackson's voice hisses in his memory. It's important that you be honest. And Cam is honest; Cam is always honest, except when he isn't, but there's no reason to lie to Jackson, and the way Jackson demands nothing but the purest truth is the most freeing and the most terrifying thing Cam's ever experienced.)

"It doesn't --" Cam is saying, before he can catch himself, before he can remember Jackson's orders (and oh, he's never been bad at following orders before, but he's never wanted to follow orders so closely before, and there's something lurking inside that knowledge, deep and weighty, that he can't make himself face). It doesn't go into words like that. But Jackson wants him to try. He fumbles for the words, for the right words, and he can feel Jackson's fingertips skimming lightly over the cooling shell of wax painted across his back. "Sharp," he finally says. "Rich. Strong."

They're not exactly right, but they're the closest he can find. Jackson's fingers trail down along Cam's tailbone, and Cam can't help but let his hips rise to follow, pushing, seeking. He can't tell if Jackson's pleased or irritated. Jackson shifts a little, and the breeze from the open window flutters across the underside of Cam's dick, against his balls. It makes him feel open and vulnerable, naked, bared beneath Jackson's gaze like an offering or a sacrifice. He shudders, but he forces himself still, because Jackson has ordered him to stillness and he will do what he is told.

"Good or bad?" Jackson asks.

And Cam's breath catches, because to assign words that small to this, this wash of feeling, seems so petty and demeaning, like trying to squeeze his feet into shoes too cramped. But Jackson's fingers are stroking the top of his ass, all the places Jackson's spent the night slapping or smacking, and oh, God, it should hurt, and it does, but it hurts so pretty he can't help but ask for more. "Good," he says, "very --" and his voice catches, because good is the wrong word for what he's feeling, all bound up in his chest, aching all the way down through the pit of his stomach, shading into delicious agony. "Very good," he manages to finish, because if Jackson doesn't think it's good, Jackson might try to stop, and the last thing he wants right now is for Jackson to stop.

But Jackson rewards him with another hiss-crack of wax, liquid flame, searing his skin (so rough so hot so good) and the wax is dripping along his sides as it cools, and he thinks maybe he can feel Jackson's fingers following the wax and touching, exploring, and the pain and the pleasure and the weight of Jackson's gaze on his skin are all blending into one. He can imagine himself through Jackson's eyes, spread out and waiting and willing, like some cheap slut, like one of those boys, the kind (he's never dared to be) you push up against a bathroom wall in a bar and make them slide down to their knees, the kind (he's always dreamed of being) who swallow you down fearlessly and then wipe their swollen lips with the back of their hands and smile, the kind (he's always been scared to be) you take home and fuck until dawn. His dick is dragging against the sheets, and every shift of his hips, every stroke he makes against the cotton, makes him want to bury his face in the pillow and scream.

"Please," he's saying, "please, God, Daniel," and he doesn't even know what he wants, but he remembers even as he's hearing his own words that Jackson told him not to speak. He can hear Jackson blowing out the candle behind him, and the chill spreads through him (idiot, can't even follow one simple fucking order, can't even get that right) as Jackson leans over him to put the candle back on the nightstand. Fuck, he should know better by now, he should know, and he can't even describe the noise he's making in the back of his throat at the thought that Jackson's going to stop, but he pushes himself up to hands and knees anyway, suddenly cold and restless. He'd rather get up and take himself into the bathroom to get cleaned up on his own than have Jackson have to order him there.

And then Jackson's hands (slick and sticky) close around his dick, and Cam lets the weight fall off his arms and grinds his face back into the pillow, and this time he does yell, because Jackson's got the stroke down perfect. Rough and ready, just a hint of a twist at the end, one hand stripping up and down Cam's dick and the other one gripping his balls, rolling them together, and oh God Cam can still feel every mark Jackson's left on his skin and they're all screaming at him as much as his dick is. His hard-on's been building all fucking night, and he's pushing his dick back into Jackson's hand and slapping his palm against the bed like Jackson was slapping his palm against Cam's ass earlier and for a second he wishes Jackson would do it again (wishes Jackson would push him strike him cut him hurt him catch that edge of fear and humiliation and let him ride it out until all the conflicting impulses come crashing down) before Jackson's thumb catches him just right and the only thing he's left thinking is yes.

When it's over, it takes him a long time to feel like he's breathing again, feel like he's anchored and steady, and it's the touch of Jackson's hands patiently working the wax free from his skin that finally does it. Jackson leaves off, realizing Cam's starting to think again, and sits himself up against the headboard. Cam doesn't know how he summons the energy to drape his arm over Jackson's thighs and hold there, but the minute Jackson stopped touching him his stomach started fluttering again, and he knows that if he doesn't touch, if he doesn't ground himself against that shining fire of Jackson's presence, he's going to feel like he's slipped out of phase with no hope of getting back for a long damn time indeed.

Jackson knows it too, senses it or intuits it or something, and he traces tiny circles along the top of Cam's spine with the edge of his thumb. Cam can feel all the promises in Jackson's touch, the careful calculated care there, and he shivers once and wonders for the thousandth time what the hell he's supposed to say after Jackson takes him apart and puts him back together like this. He always tries and considers a thousand things, from thank you to God yeah, and none of them would even come close to saying a damn half of how fragile and free he feels down so far he doesn't have words for it.

He doesn't have a way of telling Jackson what this does to him, what this means to him, so all he can do is tug at the strings of Jackson's pants a little, wordless offering: let me do for you too. And Lord, Jackson's self-control is fucking impeccable, because if Cam were doing this to someone (but he wouldn't be) he'd be jumping out of his skin right about now, and all Jackson does is shift his hips a little and press his dick up against Cam's palm to say his yes in return.

Cam rubs his face against Jackson's thigh before he can help himself -- Jackson's not looking for affectionate from him, he knows; these are transactions conducted as coldly and calmly as any back-alley negotiation. In the middle of the night, when Cam can't sleep, he can face the fact that Jackson's trying to fix him, trying to give him something Jackson thinks he needs rather than something Jackson wants to give. But that's not all too comfortable to think about, and Cam's got manners, besides, and, well, there are times when the only way you can say thank you to someone who's done something (something so intense) for you is to do something right back for them.

He settles himself between Jackson's thighs, draped across the bed, and Jackson's hand comes to settle at the nape of his neck again. That touch more than anything else makes him feel content, contented, and he slips his fingers into Jackson's waistband to free Jackson's cock. And God, but he feels selfish, because Jackson's cock is beautiful and Cam never can get over the charge he gets from being permitted to suck it. "This okay?" he asks, one last attempt to make sure Jackson's here with him, and Jackson runs his hand gently through Cam's hair and pulls him downward.

And Cam goes where Jackson tells him, opens his mouth and closes his eyes and tries to keep his jaw loose and his teeth out of the way, and Jackson cups Cam's cheeks and rolls his hips (up, in) and there's a part of Cam, standing distant and watching, that's glad Jackson can do this with him, can let himself go enough to feel, because he's always known Jackson doesn't have an outlet of his own, and if he can give Jackson something, something even a tenth as transformative as what Jackson gives to him, then maybe Jackson will be willing to keep doing this. And if anybody Cam knows needs to get the hell out of his head for a little while, it's Jackson.

It's a small voice, though, and quiet, because the rest of Cam is too caught up in the way it feels for Jackson to be fucking his throat, pulling him along, taking and claiming and using him. He's dizzy with the thrill of it, dizzy with the glory, and he surrenders that last bit of self into Jackson's hands and swims in the warm glow of knowing someone else is there to hold him for a while: Jackson's hands are strong, and his shoulders are stronger, and maybe (in giving himself up to Jackson, in letting Jackson decide for him, in shutting the hell up and getting the hell out of the way) Cam can find a little bit of quiet in the small and tender spaces between.

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