A/N: Just like I said in Chapter Four of this story's predecessor, I have no idea what Ashley Purdy's blood type really is. If I got it right when I mention it later in the chapter, it was pure dumb luck and meant to be just part of the storyline. Research is a good thing when writing, but taking one's research that far is just obsessive.
~Cyn


After their tour ended and everyone headed back home, big changes and plans were made. Jake and CC finished moving the guitarist’s belongings to the drummer’s town house, as it was easier since he didn’t want to move his sister again. Thankfully, there was a third, although very tiny, bedroom that they were going to convert from a music room to a nursery for the baby, and Andy and Ash had already said they could store their instruments over at their house in the mini studio. That actually made quite a bit of sense, given that if they weren’t in the big name studio, that was where they did their recording and production work.

While the moving was happening, Andy, Ash, Jinxx, and Sammi all combined minds to plan the two weddings, which could possibly be a double wedding. They weren’t sure how the wedding plans were going to work out because, although all of the guys’ parents accepted the homosexual relationships within the band, some of the other, more distant family members might not. Although they knew none of the parents, brothers, and/or sisters would care, they didn’t want the hate comments from aunts, uncles, and cousins that didn’t agree.

Andy was glad to see that his sweetheart was so happy, always enjoying the dreamy smile that appeared on his face when he looked down at his hand and saw his ring. He knew that, like it was for him, getting engaged was like a dream come true for him, and he was happy to be the one to make that dream come true. Now they just had to get the plans finalized so they could take that leap of faith and commit themselves to one another in the ultimate way. It was thoughts of his sweetheart that kept him at least somewhat sane throughout the insanity that was planning their wedding and Warped Tour, as well as finishing up Set the World on Fire so that it was ready for its release date in mid-June.

“Rori’s finally down for her nap,” Ash sighed, sitting down in his lap as he watched Jake work on the mixing and mastering, CC sitting in his lap.

“You feeling okay, mio deviante?” he asked, concerned by the look on his face.

“My stomach’s just been giving me some trouble the past couple days,” his sweetheart answered, taking in his expression. “No, not like that. I haven’t been nauseous or anything. Just…digestive issues.”

He nodded understandingly, not wanting to say anything about the shifts between constipation and diarrhea he’d been having the past couple days or so. “I hope your guts settle down soon. I know it can’t be very comfortable for you.”

“That’s an understatement, if I ever heard one, mio profeta,” Ash laughed. He loved the sparkle he got in his eyes when he genuinely laughed.

“Well, honestly, if you hadn’t miscarried in mid-March, I’d be asking if it was the baby kicking,” he said thoughtfully. “And if that’s why you were having these…issues.”

“If I hadn’t miscarried, I’d be inclined to agree since I’d be around sixteen weeks,” he told him.

“It’s a shame that happened, though,” Andy sighed sadly.

“It is, but if we’re meant to have another baby, we will eventually, mio profeta.”

“I know that, mio deviante. I just can’t help the sadness I feel at having lost a baby.”

The bassist snuggled into his lover’s chest, burying his face in his neck like he always did when he was sleepy or otherwise in a bad mood. He couldn’t help but wrap his arms tightly around his sweetheart and whisper reassuring sweet nothings in his ear, knowing that would help soothe him. It always worked in the past, especially when he was dealing with his depression and self-harm issues, so it would work now.

A short while later, Jake and CC decided they’d all done enough work on the album for the day and that they were going to head home. Casey wasn’t doing so good, and considering her HIV and that this illness she had was worse than some from the past, they were really worried about her. All of them knew that the little girl could die from any infection she got, even if most kids her age didn’t, and they wanted to get home to her as soon as they could. The other couple didn’t blame them and wished them a good evening, telling them to call them if anything happened, before seeing them out.

Once their friends were gone, they decided to head up to their room and see if they could squeeze in a bit of playtime before Rori woke up from her nap. They’d gotten used to being quiet after her birth and had never once woken her up, so they doubted they would now. Still, they locked the door to their room so she couldn’t walk in on them and turned on the baby monitor so they’d hear her if she did wake up. Those things done, they settled into their usual loving routine, which started out with back rubs.

“Oh, Godsmack,” Ash groaned. He lay face-down on their bed, his head turned to the side so he could breathe while his lover straddled his ass and firmly rubbed his back.

“That feel good, mio deviante, or am I using too much pressure?” he asked.

“It feels awesome,” the older man answered, sighing with pleasure. “I didn’t realize just how tense I was until now.”

“It feels like your back is trying to arch like when you were pregnant with Rori,” Andy said thoughtfully.

“I don’t see why it would be,” he told him over his shoulder. “I miscarried in March and haven’t been feeling like I’m still pregnant.”

“Maybe it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me,” the younger man agreed, continuing the back rub.

It wasn’t long before those strong hands began caressing him in ways that aroused him instead. He moaned softly when he felt a finger run in between his ass cheeks, gently rubbing over his rosebud. He arched his back higher on purpose, trying to get at an angle that would be easier for his lover to enter him, whether he used his finger or his cock.

Understanding what he wanted, Andy reached over to their nightstand and grabbed the bottle of lube kept in the drawer. He gently rubbed a bit on his rosebud, knowing it wouldn’t take as much for his fingers to gain entry, before setting the bottle aside again. He slid first one finger, then two, and finally three into his sweetheart, enjoying the sweet, breathy moans he released as he pleasured him, noting how his ass rose higher into the air. With a chuckle, he reached over to the nightstand again, this time for a condom, and tore the packet open with his teeth so he could sheath himself with it.

With the slimey piece of latex rolled down his shaft, he gently readjusted his position so he could enter him. Ash raised his ass as high as it’d been while his finger was buried in him, his back arched in what looked like a very uncomfortable manner. He quickly aligned himself but gently entered him, trying not to go so fast that he tore, even with all the lube. His sweetheart moaned softly as he buried himself to the hilt, gasping as he gently wiggled his hips back and forth to tease him. He grinned as his eyes scrunched shut and his nostrils flared, and he even noticed how he grabbed the bed covers in his fists and held on for dear life. He decided that he’d teased him enough for the moment and, bracing his hands on the mattress to either side of him, began a gentle rhythm.

His sweetheart’s eyes barely opened as he continued to moan, those moans gaining pitch and volume as his thrusts gained speed and strength. Those moans soon turned to screams of pleasure that had to be muffled by the pillow under his head, especially when he started slamming into his prostate, and he enjoyed hearing them. Andy was soon fighting not to cum too soon, wanting his sweetheart to get off before he did, and pushed his hand under his hips gently.

“Mio Dio! Porca troia, mio profeta!” Ash screamed, his voice still muffled by the pillow.

“You like that, then, mio deviante?” he asked, growling as he fought off his orgasm.

“Y-yeessss!” his sweetheart cried, his eyes flying open as he began to throb in his hand.

“Cum for me, tesoro,” he growled, gently stroking him as he reached his own peak. With a soft cry, he thrust in deep and started to throb as well.

“Mmm,” the bassist moaned softly, collapsing into the bed beneath him after riding out his orgasm. He didn’t care if he was laying in his own cum or not because of how good he was feeling.

“Feel better now, mio deviante?” Andy asked, collapsing beside him after rolling off him.

“Mmm hmm. Molto gratzie, mio profeta,” he answered softly, grabbing him for a kiss.

“Molto prego. Ti amo molto.” After kissing him gently, he passed out with his sweetheart in his arms.


On the morning of June tenth, Ash was starting to go a bit insane. Having waited far longer than they thought was necessary, he and Andy had decided to go ahead and get married as soon as they possibly could rather than wait any longer, and their wedding was the following day. He and his lover were separated for today and the majority of tomorrow, as Sammi insisted that they follow the old tradition of the groom not seeing the bride before the wedding…even though they were gay and there wasn’t a thing about them that was even the least bit traditional.

Since Rori was so young, she stayed with her mommy for those too-long hours before the wedding, despite being a major Daddy’s girl. Having the two-year-old around was starting to get to his nerves, which were already strained by the stress of the wedding, but it was nothing new for him. If he wasn’t stressed out for one reason or another, he’d have been asking if he was dead.

And to top all that off, he was still having digestive issues, which was starting to take a toll on him, as well. He’d been having them for about a month, but he hadn’t told Andy that they were still giving him trouble since he didn’t want him to worry. They were all stressed out enough as it was; he didn’t want to add to his lover’s stress by causing him to worry about his health all the time. Other than random shifts between constipation and diarrhea, he was fine.

“Ready for tomorrow, Ash?” Shelby asked. They’d been keeping in touch because not only was she going to join them for Warped Tour as their babysitter again, but they’d all become good friends. That, and she was going to be his Maid of Honor.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he answered nervously. “It’s not every day that a guy gets to marry his long-time boyfriend, but I’m just ready to see him again.”

“I bet. You two are so close you’re what can only be described as inseparable,” the teen agreed.

“Well, we’ve been through a lot since we met,” Ash admitted, reminiscing on the last three and a-half, almost four years.

“It seems like it. And through it all, love has won out,” she said, grinning.

“It was love that brought us together in the first place, despite our fears,” he told her. “We were too scared to admit that we liked each other at first, and because of that, I almost died.”

“What do you mean, Ashley?” She now had a concerned tone to her voice.

“You can’t really tell now because of my sleeves, but I used to have self-harm issues,” he began, grimacing. “I lost my parents when I was eight because they were out getting my birthday present. For years, I blamed myself, thinking that if I hadn’t been born, they wouldn’t have been out that night and hit a patch of black ice. On top of that, I figured out around the time I hit puberty that I was gay, but refused to tell anyone so I wouldn’t get bullied.”

“So how’d Andy find out that you’re gay?” Shelby asked curiously, making it obvious that she was also still concerned.

“The day after we all met Miss Amy for the first time, I went to a cabin that I still own in Ohio after Jake sent me home from school before it even started. He’d figured out that I’d slaughtered my thigh the night before after I got home, and knew I didn’t need to be riding my motorcycle, which I called the Dark Prince, if my leg was bothering me,” Ash explained. “While I was at that cabin in the middle of nowhere, I decided that the pain I was in and most likely caused everyone around me wasn’t worth it anymore. I took a kitchen knife and sliced my arm from wrist to elbow right before Andy and Jake showed up.”

“Holy shit. Everyone who looks up to you guys would never have thought that any of you, especially you, had that kind of past,” she breathed in shock.

“Oh, it gets better. Jake shoved me in his mother’s car, which I’d driven out there, and rushed me to the hospital. Apparently sometime before I regained consciousness, Andy showed up and said that we were dating so he and Jake would be allowed to see me,” he continued, chuckling. “I’ll never forget my reaction when I found out about that…

“Anyway, my vitals apparently started going down while they were sitting there. The doctor who came in to check on me after he paged a nurse said that I’d bled out so much that I didn’t have enough blood in my veins to keep my blood pressure up. He called down to the blood bank to see about a blood transfusion, but was told that they were out of A negative, which is my blood type.” He paused, fighting back tears at this next memory. “Andy, who’s O negative, stuck out his arm and told him he’d be willing to donate to me.”

“So he literally saved your life, then?”

“Mmm hmm. Apparently, he’d fallen in love with me the second he saw me, but like me, was too afraid to admit it for fear of getting bullied and beaten.” He paused. “I was so depressed at the time that I didn’t believe him when he said, and I quote, ‘And before you ask, I decided to donate my blood to you when you almost died because, even if the sentiment is never reciprocated, I love you and I couldn’t watch you die if I knew I could save you’.”

“He really said that?” Shelby was shell-shocked.

“Yes, I did.”

With a gasp, both of them turned to see Andy leaning against their bedroom doorway, a smirk plastered across his kisser.

“What are you doing here, mio profeta?” Ash asked in shocked. “I thought Sammi was keeping us separated until tomorrow.”

“You really think I can’t slip past a deaf-mute, mio deviante?” his lover chuckled. “I’ve lived with one my entire life; I have my ways.”

“So you just couldn’t wait to see me, huh?” he asked.

“Nope. Just like I did when I said that sentence to you almost four years ago, I love you with every fiber of my being,” he said, grabbing him in a bear-hug. “I can’t go a day without seeing you because it feels like my heart’s shattering into a million pieces if I can’t see your smile.”

Grinning, Ash wrapped his arms around his lover’s neck and dragged his head down for a kiss.

“How ’bout we get some sleep before tomorrow?” Andy asked, their lips now parted. “Sammi can try kicking my ass for being here tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan to me, mio profeta,” he agreed. “I’m tired, and tomorrow’s a big day for us.”

“Just keep any sexual antics down, guys,” Shelby giggled as she left, closing their door behind her.

“Ya know, as much fun as that sounds, I’m just too tired, mio deviante,” his lover yawned, flopping down on their bed.

“Same here. I just wanna go sleep cuddled up in your arms.”

“Then c’mere. They’re wide open.”

Grinning, Ash crawled across the bed and cuddled up to his lover, his head resting on his shoulder while he wrapped his arms around him. “Ti amo molto, mio profeta.”

“Anch’io ti amo molto, mio deviante,” Andy yawned, wrapping his arms tightly around him. It wasn’t long afterward that the couple fell into a deep, restful sleep.

Notes