Minding His Manners

“Come here Tony,” Joel called softly about an hour later.

Tony sighed, arms trembling as he relaxed. Taking a deep breath, he crossed the room and dropped to his knees in front of the couch, head resting lightly on Joel’s knee. A tremor ran through him at the first touch of Joel’s fingers through his hair, a purr rumbling in his chest. “I’m sorry, Sir” he whispered. “Please…” he swallowed heavily. “Please don’t hate me.”

Joel frowned and shook his head, sliding off the couch to sit on the floor next to Tony. “Hate you?” He asked, a note of disbelief clear in his voice. “I could never hate you. Tony,” he paused, tipping Tony’s face up with one finger and meeting his eyes. “I love you. Don’t ever fucking forget that or think otherwise. I could never hate you.”

“Really?” Tony asked in a small voice.

“Really,” Joel promised, pulling Tony into a quick, tight hug before pulling back and meeting his eyes again. “I may get annoyed and exasperated with you when you misbehave, but I love you more than anything in the world. The only thing I hate is having to punish you; it’s not fun for you and it’s not fun for me either.” A smile started to tug at Tony’s lips at Joel’s words and he opened his mouth to reply, but Joel kissed him quiet. “I love you,” Joel repeated, grinning at the way Tony’s eyes lit up at his words. “And I obviously don’t tell you it enough,” he realised, annoyed with himself. “But I do,” he nodded, running the backs of his fingers down Tony’s cheeks. “This is something we need to talk about. But not now. Benji’s going to be going to be here shortly. Go upstairs, get cleaned up and get dressed. I’ll sort things out down here, and we’ll talk about this later, ok?”

Tony nodded, leaning into Joel’s touch, turning his face to the side and kissing his fingertips. “Ok,” he agreed, kissing Joel hard on the lips before rising to his feet and finding his boxers. He pulled them up as he left the room, one last grin over his shoulder at Joel before climbing the stairs.


~El Fin~