THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB Ian Written by Lady Poetess egiggles at moose-mail.com /~bbp Please do not reproduce on any website without permission. This story has no resemblance to anyone dead or alive. ONE The young man grinned as he stepped down at the bus depot. He had traveled thousands of miles across sea and plane, hitchhiked his way through roads and highways, but this time, the feeling in his soul was more right and intense than he had ever experienced it. He had come home. He had come home to the man he loved. Love was a trivial word, one that Ian Joseph Somerhalder would admit to have abused in his quest for pleasure in his carefree life, but he would give up the games now. He was home. After years of seeing the world and bearing so many badges of honor and sin of his travels, he had finally learned one thing - he belonged here to feel whole and complete. Love and Ian's beloved Patrick Dempsey belonged together in one combination that was so right, so perfect. Ian wished he had realized it sooner, but he was so caught up in the rush of youth, beauty, and pleasure that a man like he could indulge in that he was so blind and stupid for too long. It had taken severe heartbreak and memories of the man who had always been there for him to make him realize what he was too blind to see all along. He could recall from memory how Pat seemed to glow when the man smiled. Pat was handsome, but he was handsome because of the way the man's eyes lit up when he smiled, and the way those laugh lines around his mouth and eyes deepen and crinkle when he smiled like that. Even the way those dimples deepened in that deceptively simple act of smiling - Ian always felt as if he was struck by a hammer in the chest whenever he was at the receiving end of that smile. Pat made him feel as if he was caught up in a wild raging storm of undefined emotions, and sometimes Pat made him realize how unnaturally silent his life was. He couldn't help performing a little skip as he hurried to catch a cab home. Home - who would've thought the word would sound so sweet and purifying on his wounded soul? "I'm coming home, Pat!" he yelled, he had to get this hammering urgency in his chest out. "Yeah, I'm coming home!" he shouted, this time louder, not caring if he came off as crazy to anybody watching him - he stopped caring a long time ago - and fuck the world, he began to dash down the night, laughing in an exuberance he hadn't felt in too long. "Ian's coming home huh?" Patrick Dempsey ran his fingers through his hair wearily, biting down his impatient response to that statement which he had heard too many times already today. It was the tip of his tongue to tell them that as Ian's closest to a family member, he would be the first person to know. His house staff was excited about it. His employees were animated by the thought of having the great Ian around again. And now he couldn't even drink his blues away without having the bartender getting excited about Ian. "Another one," Pat said, barely able to mask his weariness, as he ignored the unsubtle poking into his personal affairs. He caught Rupert trying to launch another assault on his nerves and narrowed his eyes in warning. "Okay," Rupert answered smoothly. "I thought you'd be happy to talk about the return of the prodigal son." He couldn't take it anymore. Pat pulled out a cigarette. He had stopped smoking so he didn't carry a lighter, but it felt fucking comfortable to just feel a stick between his lips. Rupert knew better than to say anything. Anyone could see that Patrick Dempsey was far from pleased that Ian Somerhalder was coming back. It was odd, for Patrick was known to be very fond of the young man he had befriended through Ian's late brother. It was probably because both men were gay and Ian found someone he could look to for a mentor and a role model. Not that Ian turned out to be anything like the sober Patrick. Ian ran wild, enjoyed life to the hilt, modeled, bummed, and no doubt fucked his way through life without much care for anything else, a walking Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue pretty boy who never failed to brighten up the life of those in his vicinity, and that included Pat. So why was Pat looking depressed and even terrified? Rupert wondered what the story was behind those two. But he knew better than to ask. TWO Ian relaxed when he saw the familiar figure seated at the bar. Of course, Patrick would come here. He always came here after a long day at the office to loosen up and wind down. It was stupid for him to panic when he learned for Marguerite that Pat never came home after work. Pat was stable, Pat would always be at home when Ian came home, and Pat was a rock. How could he actually imagine that Pat would be gone from his life? Beat slower, heart, for he could ease the weight on his heart that threatened to rage out of control; breathe steadier and calmer, and be calm and sane once more. The momentary desolation that rendered a future in his eyes, dull and bleak, without Pat and his smile and strength to bolster him on, all faded back into the shadows in his soul as he stepped into the pub and let the warmth in the building slowly drive away the chill in his bones. But his voice cracked as he called out Pat's name, not caring if heads turned to watch him in surprise, and his steps faltered even as he tried to will himself to walk faster. He was being melodramatic, he knew that, but he seemed to have lost all control on his emotions when he saw Pat's red-rimmed eyes looking at him. He was struck then by how Pat looked as if Ian was the last thing he wanted to see, but Pat just couldn't look away. The very concept of Pat repulsed by him ripped at his very core - he couldn't accept that, he refused to believe that - and Ian willed himself to remain in control even as the last of his willpower shatter to pieces. It was then his legs gave way, and he fell into darkness. He was sleeping on someone. Ian didn't have to open his eyes to know that Pat, as always, knew when to be there when Ian needed him the most. He could recognize Pat's scent, clean male skin and Pat's favorite soap and shampoo, and his hands could recognize Pat's body, the contours of the man's torso, and he didn't have to touch Pat's face to create a vivid image of the man in his mind. It was enough that he was here and Ian needed him to reassure him that Pat still wanted him. Pat wasn't carved of muscle like Ian, and his body, while fit, had enough softness to make Ian's cheek burned pleasurably as he rested on the bare shallow groove between the man's pectorals. His right palm was flat on Pat's stomach, enjoying the sensation of Pat's abdominal muscles clench and relax as slightly with each rise and fall of the stomach, with each breathe Pat took. When he lifted his right hip, he realized with a pleasant surprise that he was stripped down to his briefs. His bare thigh rubbed against Pat's hairy thigh, and Pat, Ian learned, was wearing his practical boxers. He hated those boxers. They hid just how well-endowed Pat was - Ian's fingers deliberately tightened around Pat's cock, rubbing the thick half-erect shaft of that fat cock with practiced fingers as he recalled just how well Pat used that cock. "That's enough," Pat gasped. "I know you're awake, Ian, so cut that out." Ian lazily opened his eyes and tried to smile. He couldn't, not when the sight of Pat broke his heart, the pain glorious, because he had missed the man so acutely he was only beginning to comprehend the extent of his feelings for Pat. "You fucked me happily enough during that Christmas three years ago. Or was that your evil twin that fucked my mouth so hard in Joaquin's storeroom before coming all over my face?" He deepened his sensual massage on Pat's now very hard cock, and Pat couldn't help it, he absently shoved the waistband of his shorts down so that Ian could play with him without the hindrance of a layer of silk. "I was drunk," Pat whispered. "No... oh yeah, Ian, don't stop." Ian chuckled. "It's okay, Pat. If you want me, you can have me." "But you're never around to let me have you," Pat told him. "I fucked you as hard as I could that night, but you were gone even before I had the chance to wake up and ask you if you would stay one more day with me." He shivered when Ian rubbed his thumb along the moist slit of Pat's cock. "Just like you will be gone tomorrow." Ian hooked his other thumb into the waistband of briefs and pulled them down. "I'm staying this time," he whispered to Pat as he lifted his right leg up over Pat's waist and out of his briefs. "For now," Pat corrected him. But he didn't stop Ian from pushing a foiled packet into his hand, and later, when Pat had protected them both, from positioning his pucker over Pat's throbbing cock, and he made the first hard thrust upwards, penetrating Ian with one forceful pierce of his solid male flesh. Ian laughed weakly despite the slight pain of having to adjust to Pat inside him. He'd won. Hadn't he? THREE "You'll leave me," Pat told him. "You always do." He wanted to turn away, but he couldn't. He would probably never could, even now, after one of the most powerful orgasms he'd had in these last few months. He had fucked Ian so hard that the bed creaked and threatened to give way. He'd fucked Ian with Ian lying beside him, lifting his left leg high so that Pat could thrust his cock deep in and out from behind, until he'd came what seemed like a gallon into the rubber he was wearing. He was still hard, and he then fucked Ian from behind the good old-fashioned way, this time plunging right to his balls pressed and slapping against Ian's taut buns with each thrust until they both made low, guttural, maybe even inhuman sounds of pleasure from their coupling. One more hot fuck, this time face to face so that Pat could ravage Ian's mouth with his as they copulated savagely, their lust still burning hot despite their last two powerful orgasms. And one more, this time each of them taking each other's cock in the mouth, Ian cleaning Pat's soiled cock lustily. He wanted Ian to stay. He always had, even as he dreaded to imagine what could have been if Ian actually stayed. His feelings regarding Ian wasn't clean cut. With other men, he could set down the rules, hell, they both knew the rules: they would keep this simple and neat, and if their lust had burned out, they would walk away, no messy emotional entanglements to get in the way. Pat liked his sex life that way, neat and clean like the rest of his life. In life, he had learned the hard way, nothing remained constant, and people always leave in the end. From the day he lost his parents when he was six, with every move from every relative's home that didn't want him until the Somerhalders, his parents' friends, finally succeeded in adopting him, he learned that he could only trust himself. Everyone else would hurt him even unintentionally. He weakened slightly, befriending Jack Somerhalder, the eldest Somerhalder boy who was also his age, and even beginning to accept his foster parents into his life, when a drunk driver took them all away from him just two years after his new life started. Just like that, his brief moment when he was finally beginning to live was gone. But Ian, who had a flu that night, survived if only because he didn't follow his brother and parents to the restaurant that night. Pat stayed at home to keep watch on Ian. Today, Pat could still remember the others' last words to him - a promise to bring back some Chinese food to make up for Pat's taking care of Ian. Ian was eight. Pat was sixteen. They were separated by social services soon after, and it was only by chance too long later when Pat happened to accompany a friend to her son's graduation that he met Ian again. When Ian's foster parents departed the world soon after, Pat took Ian in. The both of them seemed to cause deaths to their loved ones, sticking together was probably the best way to protect the world from them, Ian had joked through bitter tears then. Pat never told Ian that perhaps, Ian coming into his life again was the best thing that ever happened to him. Ian hid his pain well, and he was always smiling and laughing. He enjoyed life freely, loving and making those around him feel like the highest and luckiest bastards around to enjoy his attentions. Pat also felt bitter envy of Ian's easy joie de vivre that he suppressed very well from Ian. He was always the sensible, proper, boring one. Someone had to be, to pay for Ian's outrageous trips through South America (those photos and tales of Ian's orgies at those countries would make even a hedonist's toes curls - needless to say Ian happily shared everything with Pat) and to keep the roof over their heads. He envied Ian's freedom sometimes. He didn't care whom Ian fucked, but he sometimes wanted to run away just like Ian did from his fucking life. "I won't," Ian whispered, his snuggling closer to Pat interrupting Pat's thoughts. Yeah, maybe if he tried real hard, Pat might believe him. He held the man close. How did they come to this? He didn't know how, but he was shocked that Christmas when Ian made a move on him. He was too drunk to resist, and prompted on by feelings he wasn't sure he wanted to analyze too closely, he had reciprocated. He had dreaded facing Ian after the moment he opened his eyes the next day, but Ian left him a note saying that he had to catch an early plane and Pat shouldn't worry about what they had done. Pat had assumed that Ian wasn't serious about their fuck. He was relieved. He was furious. And now, when Pat had come close to putting his life back to it was before, Ian came back and blow everything into disarray once more. Ian would bring on the heartbreak, and heaven help him, Pat couldn't think of any sweeter torment. Pat awoke to sunlight streaming into the bedroom and onto his body, and he jumped alert before remembering that today was Sunday and he didn't have to dash to the office. He couldn't remember ever sleeping this late before, always waking up at five in the morning even on weekends to go over his work, and now, as he stretched his arms, he wondered why didn't do it often. He felt lighter, it was as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders and the room felt sunnier and airier. He could breathe - he felt free. Maybe today he would forgo caution and live today as if nothing mattered but just he and Ian. He would think about tomorrow when it came. Where was Ian? He yawned softly and reached for his shorts. Ian was leaning against the balcony and watching the world below as he sipped at a mug of hot chocolate. He smiled when he saw Pat. Pat frowned. That bastard was wearing only his briefs and Pat's dressing robe, barely fastened. He scowled at the widow Andrea who was watching appreciatively from across the block, and that woman had the cheek to wave gaily. Ian grinned at her and blew her a kiss. "Ask Patrick to smile more, Ian," Andrea called out irreverently. "He has a nice smile, but he is the grumpier than my bulldog." "Don't let the building superintendent hear you have a dog," Ian called out to her. "I'll just bake him some cookies if he comes calling." Ian laughed, and Pat watched, mildly annoyed when he realized that Andrea was never this friendly when Ian wasn't around. But that was Ian. He seemed to glow with confidence and easy charm, and people found him accessible despite his forbidding beauty. Beautiful Ian, whom everybody loved because he loved them all, ugly or pretty, fat or thin, any race, any age, any creed. Pat remembered how Ian took his friend's shy and plump sister to the prom just to bring a smile to the girl. No doubt Catherine would call soon when she learned that Ian was back - they had become, in Ian's own words, the 'best of girlfriends' in the years after. Ian, everyone's friend, everyone's lover, but no one actually had any hold on him. He left when he wanted to, and - Pat realized with sudden insight - not anyone in Ian's acquaintance actually know the real Ian. He talked and laughed, and while he willingly accepted what everyone wanted to offer, he never offered any intimate part of himself. Not even Pat was excluded from the wide circle of people who knew Ian but never actually knew the man. Andrea waved and retreated to her apartment, where she would get dressed before heading off to her club. Pat waited until they were alone before touching Ian's face softly with his hand. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Yeah." Ian didn't misunderstand the question. "I was tired from the long trip last night, that's all." "You ran all the way to Abracadabra to find me," Pat pointed out gently. "Marge told me. She almost killed me when I brought you home, because she blamed me for not being here for you. Her words were something like me being the worst big brother ever to you." And he was ashamed of his cowardice last night, he really. "I'm sorry, Ian, for not being there." Ian just shook his head mildly. "It's nothing." Pat's hand, by its own accord, rested over Ian's heart, and Pat sighed, loving this feeling, loving the way his own heart seemed to beat in accord with Ian's. "Is everything okay, Ian? Really okay?" he asked firmly but in a light tone. "Why do you come back in a hurry, Ian? I saw your face when you ran to me. You're fucking scared." Ian looked away, his eyes downcast, but Pat wouldn't let him get away so easy. "Ian?" "Can you let this pass?" Pat wouldn't play fair. Not now, not when he needed to know Ian as much as he could. "Let me learn to trust you, Ian." A voice inside sneered: when had he ever trusted anyone but himself? But he deliberately ignored the voice, just as he tried to ignore the look of desolation that briefly crossed Ian's face. "Something happened, that's all, Pat, that convinced me that I belong here, with you. It's hard to understand - I'm not sure I do myself - but I just snapped here, one day," Ian said, gesturing at his head. "It's as if all these cold feelings in me have collected all these years and fucking boom, one day I just can't hold them back anyway and they just came pouring out. I just know I have to come home." Something began to ease in Pat's heart at those words, something that defied his natural wariness at dealing with anything relating to emotions. "Welcome home, Ian," he finally said. "Let's get out of the house," Ian said with a smile. Going out with Ian was like playing chaperone to the most sought- after, popular hero in town. They seemed unable to escape Ian's old friends, and after a while, they both laughed as they drove instead to a motel at the outskirts of town and spent the whole afternoon making love. When evening fell, they sat at the hood of Pat's car and laughed as they laughed over anything they could come up with to talk about. "I don't want tomorrow to come," Pat said with a half-sigh, half- wistful note as he later sat on his bed and watched as Ian walked out of the shower. "I don't want to go to work. I hate my job. I hate my life." Ian looked momentarily distracted by that statement. "Why is that?" Pat tried to answer, but he couldn't. "I don't know," he confessed. Then Ian came to him and he didn't care for talk or uncomfortable questions anymore. FOUR an looked at the door and hesitated. Inside was Sebastian Spence, renowned anthropologist and explorer, and Sebastian was looking for someone with an affinity for South American, specifically Venezuela, to join him in a study-cum-field trip of two months. He wanted to go. That was his instinctive reaction to the notice he saw in the newspaper. Yet at the same time as his wanderlust reined its ugly head, he was also aware that his three-day tentative peace with Pat might not survive his leaving for South America again, so soon after he told Pat he would stay. He should go back. If he wanted this relationship with Pat to work, he should stop being so selfish and think of Pat. "Thinking of applying for the post?" A ruggedly handsome man of indeterminate age - anything from his late twenties to mid- thirties was Ian's guess - said as he walked up to Ian. Ian moved to help the man. The other man was carrying a huge wooden crate and he was having some difficulty with it. "What's in this box?" he grunted when they finally got the box into the table in the office. "Some souvenirs from a recent trip to Wales," Sebastian Spence said as he picked up a crowbar from the table and began working on the crate. "Moldy things for the history department," he explained breathlessly. The history department of NYU had gained much from its making Sebastian its honorary fellow. "Wales, huh?" Ian's eyes widened as the other man pulled a dirty jeweled goblet out of the crate. "That's not..." "This? Not the Holy Grail, at least I don't think so," Sebastian said. "I'll have to send this to the forensics department before I can say anything definite. So, Mr...?" "Call me Ian," Ian told him. "Ian Somerhalder's my name." "Okay. Tell me about why you are standing outside my door while I take a look at what else I've found, and we'll see where we go from there." It was at the tip of Ian's tongue to make his excuse and leave, but he just couldn't. He hesitated, and then the phone rang. Relieved, he mouthed that he had to go even as Sebastian pulled his mobile out of his back pocket. The other man made a gesture for Ian to stay, however, and Ian, who wanted to stay as much as he wanted to go, hesitated. "Sebastian Spence speaking." "Don't take him on," Patrick Dempsey said as he looked out of the window to the world below from his office. But all he could see in the end was his reflection, faint, alone and desperately unhappy with his existence. "My... companion Ian Somerhalder. I know he's there." "You have people spying on him?" Sebastian Spence sounded shocked. Pat heard that the man was a little on the old-fashioned chivalric side. Honest, open, and trustworthy like Sir Fucking Galahad, they said. Well, this Galahad was not taking Ian away from him. "It doesn't matter," he said curtly. "I am in a position to convince my employer Russell Crowe to withhold this year's contribution to your department, Mr Spence." "You're either the biggest coward in the world or its worst control freak," the man at the other line said. "Ian is sitting outside. I can tell him what you're doing and it'll be toast between you and your companion." "Are you threatening me?" Pat snapped. "No, but may I point out that you are threatening me? You could have asked me politely and I would have cooperated with you." Sounds of paper rustling. "You can't keep him grounded for long, you know. I could see myself in him. He will want to see things, explore new sights, but he will always come home to you." "I don't need your advice," Pat said, and made to disconnect the call. "Go ahead and hang up," Sebastian Spence dared him. "I'm sure you'll watch to spend every hour sending men to watch over him and cutting his wishes by underhanded means. It'll be a great relationship, I'm sure, you being paranoid and mistrustful of him all the time while he will feel unhappy and miserable because he wants to please you and doesn't understand why he and you are slowly suffocating inside." "Fuck you!" Pat said in a low, furious voice. "You have no idea what you are talking about." "What, Ian? In a minute." To Pat, Sebastian sounded unruffled by Pat's temper. "Maybe you and I should meet up with our respective partners sometime. You sound just like my partner when we first started our relationship. It almost went under because we both couldn't compromise. Nowadays I travel abroad a few months per year, or twice at most, but I can tell you that I miss home the most. I miss my partner. Traveling is what I love doing, but my home is here. Is that simple? Why can't you or Greg get this in both your fucking thick skulls?" Obviously things at the Spence home wasn't as settled as he initially suggested. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll send Ian off. Pardon my temper, I've had a long trip, I'm dirty and stinking, and I just came back from spending two hours being grilled by airport security." Then he hanged up. Pat stared at his phone, stunned. Then he flung it aside to the floor and ran his fingers through his hair, angry and confused and wishing he had never set eyes on Ian. No, he amended honestly to himself, he wished he knew what he could do to make things right. When Pat came back that evening, he found Ian seated at his favorite couch, watching TV. Ian turned and smiled, and Pat's libido gave an upbeat perk despite his emotional turmoil at the sight of Ian wearing only a pair of jeans that hung low without any underwear underneath. But he held back, trying to arrange his thoughts. "I have a confession to make." They both said the same time at the same time, it caused the both of them to study the other in surprise for a few silent heartbeats. And Pat, never a foolish man, while he knew what Ian would say, decided that it was best he didn't mention the PI that he had hired (and now released) or the phone call. "You go first," he said. "I wanted to go to South America today," Ian said. "But I didn't, because it isn't the right thing to do." And Pat couldn't take it anymore. It wasn't fair for Ian to bear this cross alone. "I know," Pat said. "Listen first, Ian, okay? It's okay if you want to go. It's not my right to stop you just because it's my problem that I cannot trust you to come back to me. I don't care if you go all the way to Antarctica, just as long as you come back to me." Fuck, how did he get this knot in this throat. He tried to clear his throat. "I probably can't keep up with you. You may get bored with me soon enough. But I have to trust you not to do that, right?" "Pat, I am not leaving for South America," Ian told him, walking up to him. "We will make this work, you and me together. You're right, Pat. I can't keep running away. I don't want to be alone." "Neither do I," Pat said. He had to touch Ian, or he would drown in this raging tempest in his heart. Touching Ian's cheek was the solid reassurance he needed desperately. "Oh Ian, I'm glad you're staying, but I will not stop you if you want to go." He looked into Ian's eyes, willing the other man to believe him. "I will just wait for you to come back." "And I won't keep you waiting." Ian smiled weakly, maybe even tearfully, for his eyes were suspiciously red and bright. "I've had fun and seen the world. It can wait. We can see it together." Pat nodded. "Now, my turn to confess," he told Ian with trepidation. "And I hope you can forgive me, Ian." And so he told Ian everything - the PI, the phone call, and Sebastian Spence's angry retort to him. He even got down on his knees to grovel. Ian just laughed, however. He told Pat that he couldn't blame Pat entirely - he almost weakened and left, didn't he? Ian got down on one knee and kissed Pat, willing the man to believe that to Ian, it didn't matter. "We'll just have to start over in a less messy way," he told Pat. Pat laughed or sobbed, he didn't really know, and he held Ian tight. "We will," he concurred. "Oh Ian, you walked back in here and turned me into a mess," he tried to say. "Wanna go get drunk? Rupert will be glad to see us, that nosey old queen." Ian tried to smile. Pat kissed a tear falling down Ian's cheek, and said that he thought that suggestion was just most perfect.