When Emmett gets home from the conference in Los Angeles, he finds two men on his sofa. Funny. When he left, there was only one man on his sofa, and neither one of these is him.

"Miguel, Jerry," he says seriously, "if you broke him, I will kill you."

Miguel has the good grace to look away, and Jerry's mouth opens and closes a couple of times, but no words come out. Jerry's always a little nervous around Emmett. He has a snake phobia.

"It wasn't their fault, E," Julian calls from the bedroom.

Emmett rolls his eyes and drops his suitcase to the floor. He puts his satchel on the coffee table in front of Jerry.

"Be careful, there's a Saskatchewan Pit Viper in there," he says, just to make Jerry leap up off the couch and Miguel choke on his own spit. "Let yourselves out," he tells them on his way to the bedroom.

Julian's propped in the center of the bed. He's got a case file in his lap and his glasses on, but the thin gold rims can't hide the tightness around his eyes. His left knee is propped on pillows and swathed in a heavy brace, bracketed with ice packs. Emmett sighs, then kicks off his shoes and crawls up the bed. He lifts Julian's glasses away and puts them and the file on the bedside table, next to a pair of prescription bottles.

"Oxycontin? Ah, crap, Julian - not the ACL?"

Julian nods miserably.

"I'm sorry," Emmett says. He wants to be angry, but he knows what the injury means to Julian, knows that he'll have to give up his twice-weekly basketball games for the foreseeable future, possibly forever.

"The doctor at the emergency room said I'll probably have to have surgery." Julian lets his head sag back on the pillow, his eyes slipping shut.

"Did you take some?" Emmett asks, shaking the bottle.

"Not yet. I figured I should be wide awake for the ass-chewing." Julian cracks one eye open, grimacing.

"Well," Emmett says, smiling down at him. "Ass-chewing wasn't exactly what I spent the whole flight thinking about. I don't know if I can change gears quite that fast." He looks at the pill bottle. "You need to eat with these, and it's probably time to get that ice off your knee."

"Emmett!" Julian whines. "You're a fucking tease. I want hear what you were thinking about on the plane."

Emmett grins evilly at him, starting to gather the ice packs. "Well, let's just say I had the tray-table down for the whole flight," he teases. "Let me get you drugged up and then we can negotiate a bedtime story, okay?"

Julian grumbles the whole time it takes Emmett to bring him a sandwich and milk, but he takes the pills with a speed that suggests he's over toughing it out. After he eats, Emmett helps him to the bathroom, then back to bed, then tucks new ice packs around his knee. Julian watches quietly while Emmett strips down to his boxers and slips into the bed.

"Tell me," Julian says, and Emmett's happy to hear that his voice has started to slur - the painkillers are kicking in.

Emmett moves close and drops his hand lightly to Julian's stomach, worming it underneath his washed-out tee-shirt to play with the silky hair there. "Mmmm," he says, getting comfortable. "I was on the airplane, and I was thinking about you."

"Uh-huh," Julian says. "Missed you."

"I missed you, too. Missed you a lot." Emmett tugs the hair below Julian's navel. "I should have taken you with me - kept you out of trouble." Julian's skin is warm under his fingers, smooth and silky. "I was mostly thinking about your ass, though. How good you look on your knees, with your ass in the air, waiting for me."

"No knees," Julian says, his eyelashes fluttering as Emmett's fingers explore the bottom of his rib cage.

"No," Emmett says. "No knees, not for a while. Which is very sad, because I had plans for those knees."

"Plans?" Julian sounds so plaintive that Emmett rolls himself up onto one elbow and leans across to kiss him.

"I wanted to strip you down and put you on your knees, right here in the middle of the bed." Emmett's cock is hard, as hard as it had been on the plane. He'd felt like a pervert, sitting there in his coach seat next to an older couple. He'd half-listened to them talk about visiting the Smithsonian while fantasizing about leaving the lights on and looking at every inch of Julian, touching all that pale skin and dark hair, teasing and taunting.

"I knew you had a game tonight. I was hoping to make it home before you, so I could catch you before you got in the shower. You know how much I like it when you're all manly and sweaty." Emmett watches avidly as Julian's face flushes, just like he knew it would.

"Gross," Julian says.

"Is not," Emmett answers. "You just hate not being tidy. It kills you to be sloppy and hot, with your hair sticking up all over. But - god - you're sexy like that, Julian. And the way you smell and taste." He pushes his fingers into the hair under Julian's arm, firmly enough to not tickle.

Julian tries to shift away, but he hisses in pain when he moves his knee.

"Quit moving," Emmett says. "Or I'll stop."

Julian freezes in place. "I'll be good," he says, giving Emmett a contrite look from under his lashes.

"Hm." Emmett brings his hands down to the hem of Julian's shirt and carefully peels it off, mussing his hair even further. "Oh, that's good," he says. "All disheveled. So, I was going to have you on your knees, hot and sweaty and stinky. And you'd bitch, you know you would. You'd want me to let you clean up."

"And you'd say no." Julian would have sounded disgruntled, if he hadn't been breathless from the action of Emmett's fingertips on his nipple.

"That's right." Emmett tugs at the little bead of flesh, watching muscle jump under Julian's skin in reaction. "I would tell you no, and you'd make that little frustrated noise you make when you don't get your way. And then I wanted to lick all the way up your spine, up your salty skin to the back of your neck, to that spot I like to bite."

He releases Julian's nipple and shifts down the bed a little to grasp the waistband of Julian's cut-off sweat pants. "Let me get these off you," he says, and Julian lets him do all the work until he's naked except for the brace. Emmett bends his good knee and puts his foot flat on the bed, arranging himself between Julian's legs.

"After that," Emmett says. "I'd lick my way back down again. Hand me the lube."

Julian rummages blindly on the bed table with one hand, then hands him the tube.

"I'd lick all the way down your back," he says, getting the lube open and wetting his fingers. "I'd trace every muscle and every rib; cover every bit of your skin with me. Taste you all over."

"All over?" Julian asks, his breath hitching.

"Oh, yeah," Emmett groans. "All over, til I got right...here." As he says the word, he touches the tip of his finger to the entrance to Julian's body.

Julian shudders. "With your..."

"Yes," Emmett says, rubbing lightly. "With my tongue. Right here."

"God," Julian gasps, and Emmett lifts his head to see the bright blush that covers him from mid-chest to hairline.

"I'd be on my knees behind you, holding you open," he says, letting the tip of his finger slide and flicker just inside. "And I'd tease you just a little. I'd make you ask for it, because I know what it does to you."

"I hate it," Julian says, his voice breaking.

"Almost as much as you love it," Emmett says, pressing in further. "You hate it, but you come so fucking hard when I do it to you. Even harder when I make you beg for it."

He pushes his finger all the way in, then pulls back and quickly presses back in with two, making Julian cry out.

"Stop moving," Emmett says. "You okay?"

"Fuck!" Julian's head rolls against the pillow. "Fuck, that's good."

"Okay." Emmett shifts around a little, arranging himself do he can pin Julian down, resting his head against Julian's belly while still working two fingers in and out.

"Suck me," Julian begs, and Emmett huffs out a laugh, blowing air across Julian's cock.

"Can't," he says. "Not if you want me to keep talking. You'll just have to jerk yourself off." He watches avidly as Julian wraps elegant fingers around himself and starts stroking. "Oh, that's nice. Where were we?"

"Making me beg," Julian says, his free hand coming down to touch Emmett's head, scratching back through his hair.

"Oh, yeah," Emmett says. "Making you beg me to rim you. I love trying to get you to say the words. Your voice gets all high and thready, and I can almost hear the blush. You want my tongue in you so bad - bad enough to ask for it."

"Please, Emmett," Julian says, groaning. "Please. One more finger. Injured man, here. Don't tease."

Emmett buries a smile against Julian's belly and gives him what he wants, working a third finger into his ass. Julian doesn't last long after that, just a few glides of Emmett's fingers and jerks of his own hand and he's on the edge. Emmett pushes his fingers in hard, crooks them to press Julian's prostate and closes his eyes, smiling when the first hot splash of Julian's come hits the side of his mouth.

"Fuck. Oh, fuck, Emmett," Julian gasps, his hand twisting, the head of his cock smearing come along Emmett's face from chin to temple.

When Julian slumps back against the pillows, sweaty and spent, Emmett raises his head. "Did you?" Julian asks, and Emmett shakes his head before carefully disentangling himself from Julian's legs. He pulls himself to his knees and wraps his hand around his cock.

"Watch me," he tells Julian, and Julian's sleepy eyes follow the short, quick motions, widening fractionally when Emmett comes over his own fingers, Julian's name on his lips.

Emmett gets up on unsteady legs and goes to clean up, coming back with a damp cloth and a glass of water for Julian. Julian rests quietly while Emmett cleans him up, then holds up an arm in welcome. Emmett eases himself into the spot at Julian's good side and carefully fits their bodies together.

"Wake me up if your leg hurts," Emmett says, reaching to turn out the light.

"'Kay," Julian says, yawning. "Missed you."

"I'm home now," Emmett assures him. "Not going anywhere."