Guardian Angel

As Lucien Murdock stared down at the palm-sized stuffed tiger that peeked up at him from behind his glass of water, he felt his chest tighten painfully.

This, he thought to himself, fighting back the urge to sniffle,was why he didn’t like to meet new people.

Rejection stung in ways that words could never truly heal. It stuck hard and deep, wounding so finely, so thinly, that it almost seemed undetectable, making it impossible for the croon of positive thoughts to stitch up. He should have known—

“Luci,” Ronan Elmore whined, clicking his fingers in his face. “Luci, pay attention to me. I’ve been talking to you.”

Blinking hard, he forced his head away from the stuffed toy and towards his current best friend— Ronan really hadn’t given him much choice in the matter.

“Sorry,” Lucien whispered, cheeks flushing. “I was miles away. What did you say?”

Ronan’s eyes, a deep blue, softened. His whole face seemed to, for that matter. Which only brought it to Lucien’s attention that something was different today.

Usually, Ronan was very loud when it came to his appearance. He loved clothes that were bright and unusual, and his face was never considered done unless it had been smoothed over with a thin trail of make-up and finished off with an avalanche of glitter. His hair, short and blond, was usually turned into a sea of glittery, sparkly waves, too.

Today, however, that was not the case. His face, seeming more macho than it did the sweet and gentle cast it often portrayed when he decorated it in his sparkles and shine regime, and he was dressed all in black. He was also very quiet, which was very unlike him.

“I said,” Ronan said, forcing an overly dramatic sigh, “Tell me how your date went. I need the deets, babes.”

Once again, Lucien’s eyes dropped to the tiger. His eyes were so warm that part of him was convinced that they were more than plastic beads. It had been why out of all of the selection, he had chosen him.

“It was okay,” Lucien said at last. It wasn’t lying. The date had been great. Angelo Toussaint, the man that Ronan had as good as bullied him into going out for dinner with, had been nothing shy of the perfect gentleman. He had opened the car door for him and had pulled out his chair for him when they had arrived at the restaurant. They had headed down to the local pier afterwards and the little tourist shop had been still open. Angel had bought the tiger for him there.

“Just okay?” Ronan pressed, but it lacked his usual enthusiasm and was cut off by a sharp yawn. “Come on, Luce! You’re killing me here.”

“What do you want me to say?” Lucien whispered. He knew his cheeks were still blazing. The heat that engulfed his face made it feel like his face was melting.

“I want you to tell me all the glossy little deets,” Ronan drawled out, rolling his eyes. He reached for his iced frappe, taking a deep slurp from the straw, but his eyes never once left Lucien’s. “You went on a date, with a potential Daddy, might I add, for the first time since you kicked that loser you used to date to the curb. I need more than okay, babes? Did he treat you nicely? Do I need to kick his ass?”

Ronan was one of the few people that knew that Lucien was a Little. It wasn’t so much a secret as something he considered to be highly personal. He didn’t feel the need to advertise.

He was okay with Ronan knowing though. As Ro was a Switch, somebody who could be both a Caregiver and a Little, he knew that he could trust him with that sensitive piece of information. Especially as Ronan had a way of nurturing the Little side of him. He had a way of nudging it to the surface with such subtle delicacy.

“No.” Shaking his head, his hands reached for the tiger, pulling it against his chest, his fingers curling into his soft fur. “He was really nice.”

Breaching the six-foot mark, blessed with broad shoulders and a kick-ass physique, Ronan had the uncanny ability to make anything he did either look inspiringly graceful, or overly clumsy. The way he quirked an eyebrow, leaned back in his chair and bobbed his head in a sassy manner, that was all grace.

“Babes, I set you two up on a date because I thought you’d be perfect together. If it didn’t go well, please tell me. And if he was mean to you, friend or not, I will make him cry.”

And the thing was, Ronan looked nothing but serious about the threat.

Which would have been comical in a way.

Angel Toussaint was like a mountain. At six foot three and as solid as a tree trunk, his sheer size and natural demeanor alone was enough to have most people side-stepping. Yet, when you added the all black theme he had been sporting, calf-high New Rock boots, G-Star black jeans and a heavy-duty leather jacket that was slung over the top of a wife-beater, he looked down and out deadly. Lucien had almost bottled it and blew off the date when he had first saw him.

In his head, Lucien could just picture Ronan running up to the guy and throwing a handful of glitter in his eyes, sticking his tongue out and running away.

If nothing else, the mental image brought a smile to his lips.

“He was a gentleman,” Lucien offered at last. “He was just very quiet and a little bit intimidating. Not— not on purpose. He was just really big and I felt super small and— and—” Lucien trailed off hopelessly, glancing down at his tiger once more. “I’m just not so sure that he liked me. He said he would call me, but he didn’t.”

Which hurt because once his initial fear had settling once it became apparent the man wasn’t the brute his first impression had made him out to be, Lucien had quite enjoyed himself. He’d been really good looking too, which had been a huge confidence booster at the time to think that somebody like Angel would be attracted to somebody like him.

For a two bedroomed house, the kitchen was relatively small. The upside was that the quaintness held a homely effect, ushering in a deep, cosy ambience. Lucien had painted his house Pokémon-themed; every room was painted based on the colour of a certain Pokémon. The kitchen walls were a Bulbasaur green. So were most of his appliances, like his toaster and kettle. The countertops, just because he hadn’t been able to afford to rip them out and change them, remained the same glossy white they had been when he had moved in.

As Ronan frowned, tilting back onto the hind legs of his chair, the beam of sunlight that had seeped in through the window— the tied back drapes a shade of pink to represent the bulb on Ivysaur’s back once Bulbasaur evolved— and fell across the other man’s face in a magical kind of way.

It reminded Lucien just how beautiful Ronan actually was. If not for the fact that they were so close that he saw him as only a brother, he would have probably still had a crush on him.

“Did he buy you that stuffie?” Ronan asked at last, flicking the chair back onto all fours after staying back too far and almost falling.

“Yes.” Patting the tiger’s head, he remembered how elated he had felt the night before. He’d crawled into bed, cuddling his new best friend close, losing himself to the high buzz of activity his thoughts released, reliving the night and cooing over specific moments.

The sense of rejection and stupidity hadn’t settled in until the next morning when Angel hadn’t texted or called. And then when noon came and there was still nothing, he cursed himself for being stupid enough to have thought that Angel was being anything but polite.

“He’ll call you then.” Said with so much confidence, it had Lucien’s head tilting.

“How do you know?” he asked, hating the way his heart let out a hopeful sigh. He hadn’t realized until last night, as he stupidly tried to picture his future with the man he’d just met, how much he missed being in a relationship. And as Ronan had said that he was a Daddy Dom too, his hopes had soared that t he could potentially be Little around him without feeling ashamed.

His ex hadn’t minded when he had slipped into Headspace, or even when he called him Daddy. Kyle just hadn’t known how to cope with it. He would always treated him the same as he would have if he wasn’t feeling Little. He tried, and Lucien appreciated that either way, but having somebody who understood, somebody who would play with him, as Ronan would on the occasions he had slipped around him, that seemed almost too good to be true.

“I’ve known Angel for a long time, Luci.” Ronan gave a slow smile, followed by a half-hearted shrug. “I know that he can be hard to read and understand at first but he’s a good guy. He wouldn’t have led you on by saying that he would call you if he wasn’t going to. He wouldn’t have bought you the teddy if he didn’t like you. He’s too straight up to do that. Besides, I talked to him last night after your date. Didn’t sound like he didn’t like you to me.”

Lucien gasped. “You spoke to him? Why didn’t you start with that? What did he say? Did— did he think I was weird?”

He had a bad habit of getting flustered and perhaps even a somewhat stuttery, especially if he was nervous. That had happened over dinner last night. He had been so anxious that when the waiter had come to take their order, he had crumbled and had barely been able to get his words out. Angel had taken control of the situation, completing the order for him. Besides checking that Lucien was okay with what he had ordered, he hadn’t flagged it as an issue.

Which made it hard to know if it had annoyed him or not because like Ronan had said, Angel was very hard to read. His face, though very handsome, dark and sinister in the kind of way that trouble-kissed sinners were, remained a void mask. No emotion had broken through. No smiles. No frowning. There wasn’t so much as crease to his brow or a narrowing of his eyes. In a way, Lucien had found that trait scarier than he had the size of the man.

“He said you were funny and cute. I mean, the bastard didn’t thank me for making you two agree to it, but I’m perfectly sure that was what he meant.” Then, smiling sweetly, Ronan said, “He doesn’t do second dates if he isn’t certain that he likes somebody. He’s a picky, finicky, pain-in-the-ass, but he knows what he likes and what he doesn’t. So if he said he would call you, he will. Just bear in mind that he owns a nightclub so he’s probably used to staying up all night and sleeping during the day. Just give him a bit of time, babes.”

Was he really so desperate that those few short words were enough to breathe hope into him once more?

He must have been because he couldn’t help but nod. “Okay. I— I hope he does call. He did mention that he had a club. I just didn’t think of that.”

Ronan nodded. “Exactly. So expect a call. Besides, even if he doesn’t, or it doesn’t work out, he has an identical twin brother. I’ll just set you up with him, instead.”

Despite himself, Lucien found himself laughing. He hadn’t been friends with Ro all that long, perhaps eight months, or just a touch longer, but the other man had become such a huge part of his life. He’d become a stable and comforting fixture in it. It often felt as though they had known each other for years.

“So tell me about the tiger. He’s a little cutie pie, isn’t he? Have you named him yet?”

Smirking, Lucien gave the smallest of nods. He had a strange tradition when it came to naming his stuffed animals and it drove Ronan nuts. “His name is Rabbit.”

And right on cue, a groan sounded. “Why, Luce?” Ronan laughed, throwing his head back in mock despair. “Why must you do this to me?”

He named all of his stuffed animals by the name of a different animal. His beanie lizard was called Chicken. His monkey stuffie was called Penguin. He had an elephant called Octopus.

Ronan said that it messed with his head and made him feel like he was tripping. Lucien found it uniquely adorable and planned on doing it until he ran out of animal names.

“Sorry.” Lucien giggled, but then he grew serious. “Thanks for being nice and coming to check on me, Ro-Ro. I think I was more upset than I realised.”

“Of course. I figured that when you wouldn’t answer my calls.” Ronan turned his head to the window with a frown. It was a little after two in the afternoon and the sun, which carried with it a narcissistic amount of heat, blinded the world beyond the pane. The grass on most of the lawns had been dead for weeks due to the heat. Lucien had tried watering his but it wasn’t as effective as those that had a sprinkler system. “But seriously Luci, you know I love you too much to have set you up with an asshole. So smile because a smile a day keeps the tickle monster away.”

So what choice had he but to smile?

“So,” Lucien said, his mood already having shifted. Ronan was magic like that. He always knew how to make him feel okay. “We’ve talked about me. What’s up with you? You look really tired, Ro.”

Which again, was most unlike him. When there were dark rings under his eyes, if they even had the chance to exist to begin with because Ronan was a real princess about his beauty sleep, there was no way he would have left the house without hiding them beneath a ton of glamour.

Yet. here he sat, looking . . . well, exhausted.

“Great sex does that to a guy,” Ronan said with a wink. “You should try it.” Then he paused. Shrugged, following it with a heavy sigh. “I haven’t been sleeping that well recently, but late last night, my friend Sly called me. He needed advice. I wanted to go over and cuddle him until he was all better but I know I need to let him figure things out for himself. It’s harder than I thought. I couldn’t get back to sleep after he called.”

If Lucien were the jealous type, he would have been envious of Sylvester Morgan. He had never met him personally, but Ronan talked about him all the time. Up until recently, Sly had lived almost a hundred miles away, back in the small town that Ronan had used to live before he had moved. After getting Sly some kind of job, or something like that, he was now living just outside of the city. Ronan had been ecstatic about it.

Frowning, Lucien urged him to talk about it. He could tell that Ronan really needed to let it out, as he was terrible at keeping things bottled up, and they spent the next half an hour talking in riddles because he had to find a way to tell Lucien what was happening with Sly without actually telling him as he had been sworn to silence.

Not a lot of it made sense, but it seemed to have been a weight off of Ronan’s shoulders because by the time he finally left, he seemed happier.

So was Lucien-- not long after his friend’s departure, Angel’s number lit up the screen of his phone.