Bailey tucked his hand back into the pocket and kept facing away from Nate. The hood was still up, so Nate could not see his face. But he could hear him sigh.

"I don't know," he said quietly enough that Nate nearly did not catch it. He moved to the bed to hear him better, picking up the tangled sheet draped across the floor and settling it smoothly over the mattress. As he moved about, Bailey continued with a small huff. "I mean, I do know. It's...weird to have to face my dad when I could still feel the rope digging into my skin."

Nate peeked over his shoulder to see Bailey had removed his hands from the pocket and was rubbing over his wrists beneath the sleeves. "I guess," he murmured, still looking at the trophies, "it was hard for me to go from being your sub to being my dad's son so quickly."

He frowned at that, and his eyes flashed to Nate's. Caught looking, Nate turned to sit on the bed and give his full attention.

"That makes it sound..." Bailey sighed again and rubbed his hands over his face, the sleeves flopping over the ends of his hidden fingers. "Whatever. It just felt weird to act like a normal kid when in my head I was still in the mindset of being, like, a mindless sex toy for you. That separation is something I struggle with anyway, and when we had to stop suddenly, I was so panicked that he'd catch on. He'd seen the rope marks or something."

A haunted expression crossed Bailey's face like the idea made him physically ill. Like, he might hurl onto Nate's carpet just at the thought of his dad walking in on them like that. Nate was not sure how he felt about that possibility. It had not happened, so he just was not thinking too much about it. Besides, all his focus was on Bailey's emotional well-being.

"So..." he did not want to put words into Bailey's mouth, but he wanted to make sure he understood, "you are still feeling like a mindless sex toy, but you had to try to act normal in front of your dad because you did not want him to find out."

"Yeah," Bailey tucked his hands against his belly and looked down at the ground, "I know we talk it out and are both okay with our dynamic, but sometimes I'm ashamed of enjoying being treated like that. It's not...I mean, generally, people don't think that is a healthy or okay thing."

Pain struck through Nate's chest once again, settling heavy and aching in his gut. It was wild to hear Bailey admit that when he had been guiding Nate through accepting that he liked being on the opposite side of that dynamic, something many people thought was unhealthy and not okay. He didn't think he could speak through whatever was going on in his chest. So, he was glad to silently listen and fight for control over the trembling in his hands.

"I just got all confused and angry at myself." Bailey's lips twisted. "Am still a little disgusted with myself."

"You literally wanted me to dump you on the side of the road," Nate whispered. "And you don't want to run into any of my family members for the same reason?"

Bailey nodded, still not looking up. "I know we are both okay with it, but in my head, sometimes, I still..."

Nate took a moment to collect himself, gathering all the jagged edges goring him from the inside and boxing them away so they would not cut Bailey. Once he felt like he had his own emotions under control a little better, he patted the mattress beside himself.

"Will you please come sit with me?"

Bailey rocked in place for a long moment before crossing the space between them and perching a couple of telling feet away from Nate. In respect of those few feet and the fragile bubble where Bailey was not lashing out at him, but talking instead, Nate remained as still as possible, hardly daring to breathe.

"I want to make sure that I'm understanding correctly," he said. "You aren't feeling bad right now because you still feel like all those things I call you, but because you feel ashamed of liking it when I call you those things?"

Bailey's head tilted to the side a little bit. The yellow glow of the lamp highlighted the features visible beneath the hood. "Well," he said, "when I feel ashamed for liking those things, I wonder if they are true. Like, why would I enjoy being called a useless cumrag unless it was true."

This was really out of Nate's wheelhouse. He had not done enough research to prepare himself. The urge to hold his head in his hands nearly overwhelmed him, but he remained still and asked in a controlled tone, "Do you feel like that often?"

"No, I'm..." Bailey tugged on the strings of the hoodie and turned his eyes toward the ceiling. A watery quality to his voice made Nate's gaze cut to him sharply. And, indeed, tears were welling in his eyes as he stared up all wide-eyed.

"I'm better than I used to be. It was...um, well, Tanner...um," he sniffed, then let out a sore laugh as he clenched his jaw and wiped the few stray tears that rolled down his cheeks. "But I don't feel like that often anymore."

Nate had a murder board in his mind of everything that upset Bailey, especially when it came to their play, and nearly all the red strings seemed to lead back to Tanner. He shoved a pin right into the asshole's forehead and promised to come back and address it when they were both a little less emotionally high-strung. For now, they just needed some comfort.

"Bay?" Nate's voice broke over his name, but he marched on, "Would you let me hold you, please?"

Bailey stopped wiping at his face with the hoodie's sleeves and peered at him from beneath the hood. He gave the slightest nod. Nate surged toward him, wrapping an arm around his waist and dragging them both to the top of the bed so he could rest with his back against the pillows and Bailey sideways in his lap. He tucked Bailey's head under his chin and squeezed his body to his chest.

"You don't think I'm a bad person for treating you the way I do while we are playing, right?" he murmured. He asked this to start a line of thought about how neither of them had anything to be ashamed of because they both fully consented to and enjoyed their play. But as soon as the words left his mouth, they seemed to leave behind a pit of swirling anxiety that he was desperate to fill with Bailey's answer.

"Of course not," Bailey said.

The relief was instant and all-consuming.

"Well, good, and I don't think that you liking humiliation and pain and whatever else during our play makes any of those things real, either. Or that it's a bad thing that you do like them."

"I know that." Bailey snuggled a little closer, and some of the pain in Nate's chest broke off and floated away.

"Are you still feeling that way? Like the things I say to you when we play are true?"

Bailey was silent for a beat, then said, "Well, some of them are true."

Before Nate could launch into a denial, he continued in a light, perhaps even a little teasing voice, "I'm your little slut no matter what."

Nate shook his head and petted Bailey's head over the hood, "Yeah, but that's not all that you are. You know that, right?"

Bailey's head bobbed. Nate moved his hand so he could drop a kiss to the top of his head.

"Can I take a shower here?" This was their usual after-scene ritual, and they were both still messy with lube and cum.

"Sure, darling."

Nate poked his head out the door to make sure Karlie wasn't out and about, then put an arm around Bailey's waist and ushered him across the hallway and into the bathroom. Not having his hands on Bailey at any given moment right now was unbearable. But he let go of him for a moment to draw the shower curtain closed and turn the water on. When he turned back around, Bailey was hugging himself where he stood between the two sinks, eyes roving over the counter and avoiding the mirror.

"Let me guess," his lips quirked, "that one is your sink."

He gestured with a hand hidden by the long flop of the sweatshirt's cuff to the absolute disaster area of Karlie's sink. She had every kind of moisturizer known to humanity, along with cleansers, brushes, tonics, and whatever the hell else went into her wildly complicated bathroom routine. She sat him down and did her skincare on him once, and it made his face feel incredible, but he did not have the discipline to keep up with all that. More power to her.

"Yeah right," he chuckled, reaching out to draw Bailey towards him. But Bailey squirmed away and went to his actual sink to pull out the drawers and poke around inside.

"Do you have an extra toothbrush?" he asked.

"Somewhere, I'm sure." Nate turned to the closet behind them where the towels and extra toiletries were stuffed. "Why, you afraid of getting cooties from mine?"

Bailey scrunched his nose up in disgust.

Steam began to billow over the top of the shower curtain, dampening the air around them and clouding the mirrors. Nate set the extra toothbrush he fished out of the closet onto the counter beside Bailey, who was busy sniffing his deodorant.

"Smells like you," Bailey commented.

"Bet it does," Nate agreed. "Come on. Arms up."

Bailey blinked at him until Nate grabbed the hem of his sweatshirt and tugged it up to show his intention. The deodorant dropped onto the counter with a clatter. His arms flew above his head, and he closed his eyes in anticipation.

Nate's heart clenched at the sight. Bailey was too cute, and he seemed more and more willing to display just how cute he was capable of acting. Their fights in the past always kept them at a distance, circling each other like boxers in a ring, but now every miscommunication and snag just seemed to draw them closer together. Getting to know Bailey like this was intoxicating.

After the sweatshirt passed over his head, his hair stuck up at odd angles. He left his arms in the air for Nate to guide his shirt off as well. He remained still unless he was directed to move while Nate eased him out of his boxers and sweatpants. Then he allowed himself to be guided under the stream of water.

The usual little shudder traveled through him as he shuffled under the water to make room for Nate. He always seemed to tense up under the hot water before relaxing into it. Nate put his hands on his hips, interrupting the water sluicing down his wet skin. The flush already spreading across it from the hot water brought the rope marks out in stark relief. Nate slid his hands up Bailey's sides and down his arms to cradle his wrists.

"Thank you," Bailey said. When Nate glanced at him in confusion, he was also looking down at the marks. Nate hummed a questioning note when he did not elaborate any further. Was he grateful for the marks? Nate was not sure exactly how he felt about that, though he knew they both liked them even if they caused a bit of grief sometimes.

"Ah," Bailey huffed a laugh. "I tend to say that I'm sorry too much, which isn't a productive way to communicate. What I mean is, I'm sorry that it's so much to take care of me sometimes and thank you for doing it."

Nate dropped Bailey's wrists so he could put his hands at the small of his back and draw him into his arms. Then he leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. "Please believe me when I say it is my pleasure. It is not too much to take care of you. After all, it's my demands that you always put up with."

Bailey smiled up at him through his lashes before tilting his head back for another kiss, which led to lots of hand wandering over water-slick skin and pressing up against one another until Nate pressed Bailey up against the wall and stroked him off with a confident hand. Bailey returned the favor. And then they finally got around to actually cleaning up.