Behind Closed Doors

Posted on Fri Jan 19th, 2024 @ 4:09am by Hale Stratton [Major, United States Army] & Alonzo Blazevic

1,461 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Bangor or Bust
Location: Stratton/Blazevic/Thompson Quarters, Bangor Safe Zone, Maine
Timeline: 29 August 2010 - 11:45 p.m.

The after dinner basketball went well. It was fun to watch Hale and Ethan compete against each other as Alonzo worked in the distance reviving a fire pit for a campfire and placing a grate over it to use for baking. Campfire chocolate chip cookies. It was ambitious, but Alonzo had been up for the task. The end result was an ooey gooey confection that had Ethan melting and Alonzo was pretty sure he saw something in Hale's eyes, happiness perhaps, just a glimmer momentarily.

Ethan had retreated to his bedroom a little while ago while Hale and Alonzo were standing in the hallway. They hadn't really had a further discussion about their three bedroom home for the being, and not about the sleeping arrangements since moving in.

"So..." prefaced Alonzo. Ethan was off in his room being quiet which left the two adults to adult. Though this conversation was a bit difficult to know how to start or rather resume from before dinner was served. It was then Alonzo who just reached out and took Hale's hand and pulled him close. "We should talk, right?"

Leading Hale down the hallway, Alonzo took Hale into the master bedroom and gently pushed the door shut behind them with his foot. Hearing that sound of a door latched, Alonzo danced his way with Hale by playfully shoving the officer's shoulders. "That's better" he said softly as he got into bed looming atop of Hale nose to nose.

"If you want to talk," Hale murmured, looking up into Alonzo's eyes, "then maybe, we need a bit of distance." He smiled, a soft and intimate thing, that looked almost out of place on his normally serious countenance. "A man can only take so much, you know." He kissed Alonzo and, though he was still dressed, settled back against the pillows. The house was locked up, all the windows downstairs were closed, and short of a full on invasion, he wasn't going anywhere. Of that, he was entirely, blissfully certain.

Alonzo lowered any and all defenses, just accepting and reciprocating the kiss. "I'm...I'm alright like this if you can handle the closeness" he said with a smirk after. "I've wanted this for a while. I just" Alonzo swallowed and just looked into Hale's eyes.

"I didn't know if you," he lowered his head as pressed his lips against Hale's neck and kissed along the nape of the man's neck and gently slid his hand up Hale's shirt slowly feeling the army officer's stomach and chest. Another inhale and slow shaking exhale "felt this way."

Hale slid one hand up underneath Alonzo's shirt, running his hand up his back before settling at the base of his spine. Distracted by the proximity of everything he wanted, it was hard to frame the words but he tried. "I'm good at hiding who I am, what I am, from others. There's Hale the soldier and then there's me." He closed his eyes at the feel of Alonzo's lips on his neck and breathed out a sigh. "It's harder actually for me to be … me …" His smile now was almost shy. "Sometimes I don't know how to turn off the soldier." His second hand snaked up to thread through Alonzo's hair. "I think I've wanted … you … for a while. Just took me this long to figure it out."

Alonzo looked playfully into Hale's blue-gray granite eyes and teased him with every bit of mercilessness he had without crossing into dangerous territory. "Well, it seems like turning off the soldier isn't easy, but turning the soldier on might be my specialty."

Chests rising and falling. Inhales and exhales. Two hearts beating, and they weren't doing anything except...talking. if talking feels this good thought Alonzo, I should have majored in communications. "You want me?"

"Yes," Hale said and the word reverberated through internal barricades and blazed from eyes turned stormy gray. "And you? You want … me?"

Alonzo's breathing was not typical for him, and that was evident in the wobbly tone of his voice. "Of course I do. I'm here with you. I've wanted you for a while" confessed Alonzo.

He carefully rolled over off of Hale and in turning, pulled Hale with him so that their positioning reversed. He was now underneath Hale looking up into those granite eyes underneath the marble statuesque physique. "This feels right."

"Not quite," Hale said as he rose from the bed and stripped out of his belt, sneakers, socks, shirt. Extreme runner and lifelong athlete, Hale's body was sculpted muscle marred by a few scars from his time on the teams. He climbed back into position and said softly, his breath warm against the side of Alonzo's neck. "Now … now, it feels right."

Alonzo ran his fingers down Hale's spine practically feeling the man's vertebrae. It did. It felt more than right, but there were more feelings than Alonzo could express with words. Still, some of them he tried. "Hale, I haven't..." that was something the journalist felt needed to be said. "Not like this. Not with you know?"

What Alonzo was trying to express was that if they were going to take this any further, he wanted Hale to know that he wasn't as experienced with guys. He wiggled out from underneath Hale and went to the door, still wearing what he had entered the room in and looking at Hale who had discarded some clothing.

Alonzo turned the lock on the bedroom door, locking the two adults in. "Safety" he said with a small smile. "He seems like the knocking type but he also can be absent minded" Alonzo said referring to Ethan, the teenager that he and Hale were sharing the home with.

"Wise precaution," Hale said as he patted the side of the bed with one. He had rolled up on his side, head propped on his hand, admiring the view. "We could take it slow. So how how about," he said quietly, "we just … talk? You could, you know, take off your shoes? I could put a t-shirt back on? And maybe we fall asleep at some point? Slow …"

Alonzo pulled off his shirt, balling it up and whirling it towards Hale's face. "Oh no, you keep your shirt off. You keep it just like that. I just meant I'm not experienced that way, not that I'm afraid." What if we don't have much time left together. We're safe now, but I don't know what tomorrow brings. He didn't voice those thoughts aloud.

He started to return to the bed, unbuttoned his Levi jeans and stepping out of them along the way. "We can talk and more, just slowly more. Okay?"

"I like slow," Hale said as he wriggled out of his own jeans and tossed them and Alonzo's shirt off the side of the bed. "Savoring the experience …"

Alonzo got back into bed and pulled Hale back atop of his body and wrapped his arms around Hale's bare torso, pulling him close, pressing their chests together. Alonzo inched his head upward and kissed softly Hale's earlobe and playfully biting on the lobe. A brief whisper into his right ear "Why haven't we done this before now?"

He closed his eyes. Savoring. And turned his head so that the breath of the words slid across his face and came to rest on his lips. He kissed him gently and whispered back, "If I could, I'd go back and slap my past self upside the head for waiting so long." A warm chuckle reverberated through his chest. "Less than a week and it still feels like forever."

"Look at the state the world is in right now, the things happening out there. Where we are tonight? A minute feels like a day, a day is a week, and it just is so warped" stated Alonzo.

He brushed his hand down the side of Hale's face. "We shouldn't dwell over the few days where we didn't. It's been building up towards this."

"Yes, it has," Hale murmured, distracted by his nearness, his lips made a slow circuit along his jaw and down the side of his neck.

Alonzo held the man close, bodies pressed together. He opted to position he and Hale underneath the blankets. The journalist was happy to be there in the room, in the bed, and with Hale. Alonzo played with the officer's waistband of his last remaining article of clothing underneath the covers and slid them down to discard them.

Cocooned in a nest of blankets, curtained within a candlelit world, their bodies spoke when words seemed all too inadequate. And later, in the silent aftermath, they drifted to sleep, never more than a hair's breath apart.

 

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