Alone with You

Title: Alone With You
Author/Pseudonym: ScrewTheDaisies
Rating: NC-17
Archive: The Art of Slash (www.theartofslash.com)
Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction, which means that, while the characters may be based on real people, the story itself is completely untrue. The story was written for the entertainment of the author; no impeachment of or malice toward the people mentioned herein was intended.
Fandom: Metallica
Pairing: Lars/Kirk
Summary: They really DID mean to kiss during that video on the Jump in the Studio site, damn it


*******

Lars, lowering the "...And Justice for All" tour program, was getting the impression that this wasn't going to pan out the way they'd planned. For one thing, Kirk had his arms crossed over his chest. He was close to Lars, yes, but...arms...crossed. And although Kirk's babble to the camera had started out with, "We're just...I'll say it again....we're just so comfortable in our masculinity and our maleness and our love for our own selves that we can kiss each other and not feel threatened or affected or anything you know...," which had been promising, he had then segued into, "And I love women...and there's some women out there who know I love women, and there's some women out there who know you love women...so that's...end of story...."

Love women. Yep, the plan was fucked. Kirk had obviously changed his mind. Lars, his own mind very far from his mouth at that moment, said, "Women...women is your friend," whatever the fuck that meant. Because that was that. End of story. The moment they'd planned--the moment where they were going to kiss in front of the camera for the first time since 1996--was passing right before his eyes, leaving him behind...and unkissed.

"Women rule and they do, too," Kirk said.

"Women is your friend," Lars repeated, and then his brain caught the nonsense Kirk had spewed. "What?"

"Hey, if it wasn't for women, we wouldn't be here."

Phil, hanging in the background this whole time, jumped in at that point, talking directly to the audience behind the camera. "You guys notice what I noticed? As they're professing their masculinity, what'd they have to do? He had to reference women as a tag line to assure that there's no, you know..."

"You get out. Get out of here," Kirk said, but he was moving farther away from Lars.

Yep, Lars thought, moment gone. Plans swirling down the drain. But maybe if Phil left.... "Go help James or Bob or something. They're the ones with issues."

"If they were really comfortable," Phil said, about James and Bob. "If they were really comfortable..."

Move on, Lars thought. Move the fuck on--talking to himself, not Phil. What was supposed to happen wasn't happening. Time to move the fuck on. He folded open the "...And Justice for All" tour program to another page and held it up for the camera to see.

Later, after the kitchen cleared out, when it was just him and Kirk, Lars leaned back against the table and said, "So, that didn't go off."

Kirk folded a corner of the tour program. "No, it didn't, did it?"

Lars looked at him, waited until Kirk lifted his eyes. Then he said, "So what do you think went wrong?"

"I don't know. It just felt...kind of...I don't know. I just...well, it's not like you exactly made a move either, you know."

"No. No, I didn't." He watched Kirk continue to mangle the corner of the program. Finally, he said, "Do you think we're just getting fucking old or something?"

"No...what would that have to do with any of it anyway?"

"I don't know." He raked a hand through his hair, what was left of it. Sure, what'd getting old have to do with it? At nearly forty, he wasn't stylish like he'd been in '96--well, at least at the time he'd _thought_ he was stylish. And before Load, when they'd drunkenly groped and hung off of each other--he hadn't been stylish, then, either, but he'd been young. And he'd had hair. He tugged at the locks at the back of his neck. Fucking hair. He'd been mentally willing it to grow--begging it--for eighteen months, but it wasn't happening. So much for that idea.

Somehow Kirk had managed to keep looking good. Bastard.

"Look," Kirk said, tossing the program on the table. "Maybe we were just...I don't know...self conscious. I mean, before we'd either been drunk or we'd just done it on the spur of the moment or...whatever. This time we made it into too big a thing, planning to do it. Maybe it has to just _happen_."

"Like this?" Lars said, leaning forward to touch his lips to the corner of Kirk's mouth. Almost as soon as contact was made, he pulled back.

"No," Kirk said. "Not like that."

Lars started to pull back even farther.

"More like...." Kirk tugged at the collar of Lars's shirt, bringing him back. Lars didn't wait to find out what Kirk was going to do. He put his hand behind Kirk's head and pulled his face across the distance between them. When their mouths met, seven years fell away.

"Still using that crappy Ayurvedic toothpaste, huh?" Lars said.

"Shut up."

Lars kissed him again, enjoying the faint, familiar taste of anise--that crappy toothpaste. "This is good," he said against Kirk's mouth, then couldn't help himself from pulling back to grin.

"Remember why we stopped?" Kirk asked.

Yes. "No. Why'd we stop?"

Kirk gave him a don't-bullshit-me look.

"Fine, I know why we stopped. Why are we starting again?"

Once upon a time in a tour bus far away, Kirk had fooled around with him for the shock value and novelty of it--this is also why Lars got into it, too. At first.

"Maybe you thought I'd lost interest over the years?" Lars asked.

His hand was in Kirk's hair, at the back of his neck. His hip moved forward an inch to press against Kirk's hip. His heart thudded against his breastbone. He started to rub Kirk's neck through his hair. He was stupid for saying that, letting Kirk know that his feelings hadn't changed a bit, but what was the alternative? Let himself get teased and worked up again for weeks? Months? Fucking _years_? With nothing to show for it....

"Hey I missed this, okay?" Kirk said, lifting his chin. "And maybe all the excitement with the album and setting tour dates and auditioning bass players.... I've got all this energy that's...it fucking needs to get out and I don't know what to do with it. So...I keep thinking of the last time I had that energy, and what I did with it. Okay, well, not the last time. I had it for the S&M thing, but...I just...."

"You just what?" Lars's fingers tightened. It had never occurred to him that there was an album/tour/excitement correlation to their fooling around. And if there was...what the fuck _had_ he done during S&M?

"Never mind. Let's...you think they need us right now? We can go up to my room...."

Lars's bare-walled office upstairs had furniture befitting...well, an office. Kirk's, on the other hand, had a big, comfortable couch.

Kirk tugged on his hand, but Lars stayed put. "What'd you do during S&M?"

"Nothing already. Hurry while everyone's fucking busy...."

"No. Seriously. What'd you do?"

Kirk stopped tugging on Lars's hand. His shoulders dropped. "You really want to know?"

Shoving his tongue in his cheek, Lars nodded.

"I jacked off a lot. Happy?"

"Jacked off thinking about what?"

"I don't remember. That was...that was how long ago?" Another tug on Lars's hand. "It doesn't even matter. Come on. Let's go."

"You could have just said you jacked off thinking of me. Or...or your fucking wife. Or Anna Nicole Smith. Or...Jesus, you could have made anything up. Why can't you do that? Why's it have to be this vague 'I don't remember' crap? Anything. You could have fucking said _anything_. Now I'm left thinking you're hiding something."

"What?"

"Come on, you don't fucking remember anything about what you were beating your meat about?"

Kirk wrinkled his brow. "What, five years ago? You want me to remember what I jerked off to five years ago? I don't think I can remember what I was thinking about when I jerked off in the shower this morning and you want to know what I jerked off to _five_fucking_years_ago_?"

".... Yeah."

"Shania Twain."

"No you--"

"No, but it might as well have been because I don't fucking remember."

Both of them looked up as the door swung open. "There you are," James said. "What the fuck are you doing? I thought we had shit to finish...."

"We do," Kirk snapped. "And when we're finished our shit, we'll come in there finish the band shit, okay?"

"Uh...well, okay! We'll be in there then."

"Fine."

Lars and Kirk watched the door fall closed again.

"What the fuck is with you?" Lars asked.

"Me? _Me?_"

"Fuck it. Forget it. Let's just go--"

"No, not fuck it. Not forget it. Come on." Kirk grabbed Lars by the hand again and yanked him in the direction of the other door--the one that led most quickly to the stairs and, subsequently, to the upstairs rooms.

"This was a stupid fucking idea," Lars said even as he grabbed the banister with his free hand and used it to help pull himself up the stairs behind Kirk.

"Just shut up and come on." At the top of the stairs, Kirk pushed him into his room and slammed the door shut behind them.

"Okay, so here we are," Lars said. "Plenty of privacy to talk, right?"

"Fuck talking." And then Kirk crossed the two steps between them and flattened himself against Lars--hips, lips, and knees hitting each other all at once. Lars dug hiels els into the carpet and held his own, reveling in the feel of Kirk's body...Kirk's better body.

"You didn't used to be this hard, did you?"

"I was always this hard, baby," Kirk said with a grin. He rubbed his proof against Lars's abdomen.

Lars slid his hands between them, pressed his palms flat against Kirk's pecs. "No, I mean these."

"Oh, well, those...."

"And these." Lars closed his hands on Kirk's biceps.

"Yeah...those...." Kirk nipped at the top of Lars's earlobe.

"Back here, too." Lars pulled Kirk against him as he explored the taut muscles that his many mornings of paddling a surf board past the breaks had developed.

"Mmm. I like you back there. Can you go lower?"

"Here?" He pushed his fingers under Kirk's waistband.

"Mmm. Lower." Kirk's hands grabbed his ass, pulling them even closer together.

"Here?" Lars's wrists disappeared under Kirk's waistband. He cupped his fingers against Kirk's ass. "Fuck, it's even harder here." He rested his head against the side of Kirk's neck. Sliding one hand out so that he could hold Kirk around the waist, he used the extra room his hand's vacancy left to push his other arm deeper yet, until his fingers found thigh. He lifted his index finger a little then and Kirk made a soft noise in his ear.

"Still like having your ass played with, huh?"

"Shut up."

Pushing the grin off his face, Lars nuzzled Kirk's neck with his cheek, his lips...then his lips parted, his teeth opened, and he bit down until Kirk's head bent toward him, trapping his face against Kirk's shoulder. He ran his tongue back and forth over the muscle he'd caught in his teeth. Kirk grinded his cock against him. He grinded right back. And then pushed the side of his index finger higher.

"I missed you...." Kirk's words tickled the inside of his ear.

"Who'd you think about while you were jacking off?" he asked, moving his finger yet higher, feeling it come to rest against heated flesh.

"You...."

"Why didn't you say so sooner?"

In answer--or in avoidance of an answer--Kirk sunk his teeth into Lars's shoulder.

Lars backed his finger up a little along the strip of skin that ran from below Kirk's balls to between his cheeks. He also turned his finger slightly so that the pad of it found Kirk's most sensitive spot. "Gotcha," Lars said, meaning that Kirk hadn't answered his question. "Who'd you really think about?"

"You," Kirk said against his shoulder.

"Bullshit."

Kirk's muscles began to give way under the pressure of his fingertip.

"I've missed you," Kirk said.

"Yeah, what are you gonna do for me?" Kirk's muscles hugged his finger as it slipped inside. The position they were in only allowed him to maneuver his finger in to the first knuckle. He grinned again, knowing that having only that little bit inside would drive Kirk apeshit.

"I could suck your cock," Kirk said. He licked up the side of Lars's neck, then caught Lars's earlobe with his lips and tugged.

Lars withdrew his finger until only the tip pressed against the muscles. "How much do you want to suck my cock?"

"Put it back in...."

"In a minute. Tell me how much you want to suck my cock."

Kirk dragged a breath between his teeth. "Fuck, I've been wanting to suck your cock for seven years."

Lars pushed his finger back in, eliciting a sharp inhalation from Kirk.

"My cock's been right here...."

"Fuck," Kirk whispered, pressing his forehead against Lars's shoulder. "Fuck."

Lars tightened his grip on Kirk's waist as Kirk tried to squirm his ass down onto more of Lars's finger.

"Who'd you think about when you were jacking off, Kirk?"

"You!"

"I'm not convinced."

A slight moan as Lars withdrew his finger a little before shoving it back in, and then, "Fuck, it was you. It was always fucking you...."

"Yeah? What was I doing?"

"Licking me."

Lars shoved his finger in again.

"Sucking me."

And again.

"Thrusting your dick in me."

"Was it good?" Lars asked through a dry mouth. His forehead was wet. His nerves jangled.

"Fuck yeah...fuck, it was the best."

"Tell me more." His finger slipped out of Kirk. He pulled his arm out of the back of Kirk's pants before turning Kirk to face the couch. Standing behind him this time, Lars reached around his waist once more and unfastened his pants. "Go on."

"Uh...I would lie there--"

"Where?"

"In a hotel room or...or I'd stand there in the shower...."

"And what?" He eased Kirk's pants off his hips, and then his underwear. He cupped his hand around Kirk's cock, pushed against his backside, said, "And then what?"

"And I'd think about you. About things we'd done. What we _could_ be doing...and I'd pretend you were there...."

"How? How'd you pretend I was there? Doing what?" His arm around Kirk's waist again, he nudged him to his knees on the floor. Kirk's hands gripped the back of the couch. The bottom of his rib cage pressed against the front of the seat cushion. His back curved, pointing his ass toward Lars, waiting. "Kirk?"

Kirk lifted his head, but didn't look back. Lars imagined him with his eyes closed, mouth open. He splayed his fingers across Kirk's thighs. His thumbs pushed against the bottom of Kirk's ass.

"I would play with my cock," Kirk said finally, "and pretend it was you."

"And?"

A quick laugh that said he knew what Lars was thinking and that Lars was right. "And then I'd let my fingers slide lower, over my balls...."

"And?"

"Until I brushed my asshole. And I'd imagine it was your finger pushing into me. Fuck, you do it so good...."

"You want me to do it now?" Lars pushed his thumbs toward each other until the tips rested just at the start of Kirk's inner thighs.

"Yes...."

"You said you'd suck my cock."

"I will." He straightened, pushing back against Lars's chest. Reaching behind him, he tugged at Lars's hair. "I'll do it now. I want to suck you."

Lars pressed his chin against Kirk's neck, just below his ear. He murmured, "You said you've wanted to for seven years."

Kirk's fingers dug into the back of Lars's neck. His ass ground against Lars's crotch. "Oh yeah..."

Lars kissed the side of his throat before saying, "Maybe I'll let you after you tell me why you've waited seven years."

Kirk's head tipped back against Lars's shoulder. Lars saw his neck.... Looking higher, he saw the seductive curve of an eyelid drawn down....

Kirk swallowed. "Fuck now, talk later?"

With a laugh, Lars said, "Yeah, that's always worked in the past. Fuck now, then watch Kirk's shirttails flying out the door...."

"Hey. It wasn't always like that."

"Mmmm." He nuzzled Kirk's neck. "Sometimes you'd pass out instead."

"And then there's the Load period. That was--"

"Really short-lived, and you were only really into it when there was a camera around." The incredible disappearing Kirk. And now for him to sit here and say shit about how he'd been wanting him for the past seven years...fuck that. "Kirk...."

Kirk yanked at the back of his hair. "Don't."

Lars, pulling his hair free of Kirk's fingers, sat back on the floor with a sigh.

"Lars, don't do this...."

"Why'd you have to say that shit? I mean, why fucking lie?"

Kirk tugged his pants up. Then Lars watched him climb up from his knees, turn, and, with a heaving sigh, drop on the couch. He crossed his arms and slid into a slouch.

"Well?"

"Earlier you said I should have made--"

"No. No, this is not fucking the same thing as making up who you were thinking about when you jacked off. _This_ is fucking with my head."

Kirk rubbed the side of his calf against Lars's. Lars, despite the turned-inside-out ing ing that Kirk's game had given him, cupped the back of Kirk's ankle. His thumb drew a circle against Kirk's skin. Why the fuck did he have to stop and think? Why couldn't have gone with it--fucked now/talked later like Kirk had wanted?

Leaning forward, elbows on knees, Kirk sought Lars's eyes and, once he had their attention, he said, "I did miss you." He put his hand on Lars's arm, which rested on Lars's knee. "I really did."

"I'm... Shit," Lars said, turning his gaze to the fingers on his arm. "I got confused. And it's, you know, it's partly my own fault because I let myself think--"

His words stopped when Kirk dropped to his knees between his legs.

"Hey, we should be getting downstairs," Lars said, turning his face away, making like he was going to get up to go.

Kirk's hand touched his cheek, nudged him back into the moment. Lars put his hands on the backs of Kirk's upper arms to hold him away. He thought again of bolting.

But Kirk kissed him, despite the weak grip he had on Kirk's arms. And then Kirk pulled back.

He watched Kirk's eyes, which watched before dropping as he leaned in for another kiss. After a second, Lars returned it, sweet and soft. Gentle. Kirk's tongue grazed his lips, which parted so that he could touch Kirk's tongue with the tip of his. In another few seconds, Kirk, his hand on the back of Lars's head, drew back to look into his eyes once more.

"I love you," Kirk said.

"Yeah...that whole brother thing."

Kirk's fingers pressed against his skull just above the back of his neck. "It's true."

"I didn't say I didn't believe you. Of course, the whole brother thing...that just makes what we've done kind of gross...."

"I never fooled around with James, you know," Kirk said.

Lars laughed. "Okay, there's one thing I was never fucking suspicious about."

Kirk grinned. "All right. I never fooled around with Jason, either."

"Yeah, another big surprise."

"Or Cliff."

"But you thought about it, right?"

Kirk's jaw dropped in exaggerated surprise. "What?"

"Come on. You wondered about his big dick."

"Why, did you?"

A smile flashed across Lars's face. "So who else didn't you fool around with?"

"Ummm...Bob."

"Thank fucking God." And then his smile dropped away. "Who _have_ you fooled around with?"

Kirk touched his forehead to Lars's. "You."

"And?"

"And...."

Lars lifted an eyebrow.

"And...." Kirk's eyelids slid closed. "A guy or two...nobody ynow.now...nobody I know anymore. It wasn't anything."

"Is that what you say about me?"

He tightened his grip on Lars's head. His other hand clutched Lars's thigh. "I love you."

"But?"

"But I love you." He kissed Lars again, this time with more need than he'd shown a minute ago. Lars didn't know if it was need for him or need for him to believe him. Either way, he was feeling himself being sucked into the need. His hands moved from Kirk's arms to his back, then crossed and held him tight as he let himself succumb to the kiss.

"Fuck," Lars said, breaking away. He turned his head aside and down. "You're fucking...stop fucking confusing me." He lifted his chin, gave Kirk a hard stare. "What the fuck is it you want out of this? Just a fuck? Just a fuck but pretend it's more? What?" He pushed his hands up under Kirk's hair and held his head so that Kirk had to look at him. "What the fuck is it you want?"

"I want...I want to be two normal fucking people who can do this and it doesn't mean anything to anyone but them. Okay?"

"No. I don't-- I don't get it. What the fuck do you mean?"

With a sigh, Kirk sagged. Then he flopped back and tipped his head against the couch's seat cushion. Lars watched his Adam's apple move as he swallowed.

"Kirk?"

Kirk's hands rose from his lap, hesitated, then dropped, the back of one falling into the palm of the other. Then Kirk pulled himself up. "I have this conflict." The back of his hand slapped into his palm. "I-- I want to have this, me and you, but I don't...I can't get myself to feel okay about it because...I have some sort of expectations or I think the fans have some sort of expectations...or someone somewhere does and.... Shit."

"Your wife? My wife and kids? James?"

Kirk, a miserable look on his face, raised his eyes. Then he covered his face with his arms.

"Fuck," Lars said, leaning forward, reaching to pull the arms away. "Kirk. I love you, too."

Kirk tugged his arm out of Lars's hand, averted his face. Lars rested his chin on Kirk's shoulder, circled his arm around Kirk's lower back.

"Just...just, can we have sex?" Kirk whispered. His fingers plucked at the bottom of Lars's shirt. "I need to have sex with you."

Lars's stomach lifted in a feeling similar to going over the top of a hill in a roller coaster. Sex today wasn't the ultimate solution he wanted. It wasn't even something he could count on after they left this room. But to be needed, just for the moment, and to feel like it was the raw truth for once....

Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back. Kirk's hair tickled his cheek. He sensed Kirk watching him, waiting for a response, trying to guess or hope what it would be. He bent his head forward, going on that same sense, and let his mouth fall open half a second before he blindly found Kirk's warm, familiar lips.

"I love you," he said again, against Kirk's mouth.

"Don't leave me," Kirk said, nuzzling Lars's cheek.

"As long as there's a band, you're not getting rid of me."

"Long live Metallica," Kirk whispered in his ear.

The shiver from Kirk's breath traveled in slow motion from Lars's ear canal down his spine. _Long live Metallica,_ he thought, gripping Kirk to him. _Long live it._

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