For a brief moment, Rich and Rafael are spared Carraway’s attention. Stefan stands obediently still as his wrists are unbuckled from their cuffs, his sweaty hair set to order, and his tears and streaked makeup condescendingly fussed over. Only then is he cut loose to reluctantly approach Rich at his desk, eyes down.
It’s not only reluctance that slows his steps. His knees are red and his legs seem unsteady beneath him, from nerves or his extended stay under Carraway’s desk or both, and he winces as he works his shoulders and rubs at his wrists. He goes gingerly to his knees a foot or two from Rich’s chair and stalls there with his head hanging, looking from Rich to Rafael and back in furtive, fearful glances. He looks very young, like this, and stripped utterly raw with ill use.
“Sir, please,” Rich says, and Rafael is near enough to see the twist of Stefan’s face as he winces in anticipation before Rich goes on, “Please, he’s scared of me, you don’t gotta make him do this,” in a miserable rumble. Stefan’s head twitches up, startlement softening the creased exhaustion on his face.
Carraway sighs. “Well, get your little shadow there to settle his nerves, then,” he says impatiently. “Really, sugar, I never saw a man so reluctant to take what he’s given.”
Rich and Stefan flinch in unison at the impatient tone—and then turn in concert to look at Rafael with surprisingly similar expressions of entreaty.
“Ah,” Rafael says, taken aback, and then gathers himself behind a mask of pleasant obedience and slips from his seat. “Yes, sir, of course.”
He’s never spoken more than a stray word or two to Stefan: the young man was stolen long after Rafael fell from interest. From Connor’s account of him only this morning, he’s a fellow performer, albeit of classical song rather than the spoken word. The few times Rafael has seen him, he’s haunted the corners of rooms to watch his fellow captives with a furtive, foxlike, narrow-eyed vigilance. Far from the flinching, vulnerable creature that’s been made of him today.
…But here the three of them are. And if nothing else, comforting the man through this farce of a dalliance can only end it faster for the sake of all involved.
“It’s quite alright, I swear to you,” Rafael murmurs through the mask of smooth, practiced seniority, reassuring and authoritative. “He’s entirely harmless, even in his desperation—I’ll show you.”
He goes and nudges Rich’s thighs firmly until Rich pushes his chair back from the desk and gets himself nicely turned around for Carraway to see. Then Rafael leans over and kisses him until Rich’s broad chest is rising and falling in eager huffs and his mouth’s gone deliciously loose and hungry against Rafael’s lips.
“Tell us what you want, Rich,” Rafael says, low and carrying. “Tell us how to please you.”
“Ah, fuck,” Rich gasps, and his hips jerk, one of his hands rubs fast and convulsive over the straining rise of his dick. “You’re gonna—you’ll make sure—”
“Give us an order and we’ll obey,” Rafael tells him pointedly.
“Yeah, right, okay. Ah, fuck, god. Okay, get my dick out already?”
Rafael settles onto the arm of the chair, gives Stefan’s wide-eyed, watchful stare a warm smile, and reaches down to open the cruel constriction of Rich’s jeans. They’re too tight to be easily removed—Rich has to shift, arching his hips restlessly, and then freezes, panting but motionless, when the movement makes Stefan flinch back.
Carraway might find their skittishness amusing for a brief time, especially satisfied as he is at the moment, but his indulgence is unlikely to last long. Rafael reaches down, as brisk and economical as he can be while still attempting some measure of sensuality, and gets the imposing span of Rich’s dick free from the damnable stretch denim on his own, and Rich’s stillness breaks to slack shuddering as he drops back into his chair, head falling back.
“Oh,” he moans. “Yeah, sorry, please?”
Carraway smiles at that, and Rafael notes it, although he makes no sign as he begins mouthing at Rich’s ear and throat again. Rich’s unwillingness struck a sour note, one that Carraway has ever bristled at, that must now be smoothed and sweetened. Weeping and begging delight him only with unwilling desire threaded through them; he boasts his own monstrousness, but scolds and chides any of his captives who dare to show him too clear a reflection of how truly monstrous he is. Far be it from his boys, his toys, his dolls and pretty little things, to sully his games with such ugly words as force and hurt and rape and slave—
Rich gives a sharp, soft whimper as Rafael bites down harder than he means, and Rafael breathes out hard and puts that old and practiced rage away behind his mask, laving his tongue gently over the pink mark of his teeth on Rich’s throat in silent apology.
“Speak,” he signs in a flash of a gesture as he shifts his weight, but Rich only shakes his head in helpless confusion. Damn. So Rich’s grasp of SSL is only as good as the few words he managed when Rafael first met him—of little use here. Rafael covers the moment with a slow, filthy kiss against one earlobe, trailing his lips along the shell, and Rich falls to pieces at his touch, rocking his hips up helplessly into the hand Rafael has laid along his hipbone. When Rafael takes delicate possession of the hot silk-and-steel weight of his arousal, playing with him, teasing a thumb around a slick, shining drop of precome, Rich starts moaning low and helpless on every breath. When Rafael drags his teeth ever so gently over that earlobe, Rich very nearly writhes.
“Someone suck my dick already, fuck!” he blurts out, and clenches his enormous hands on the arms of his chair with such force the wood creaks. “Please! Raf, please.”
Stefan is still watching, round-eyed and confused—he startles at the motion and Rich’s raised voice, but at that he licks his lips and finally shifts forward on his knees, making his way within arm’s reach for the first time. Rich seems all but insensate, but as the man comes closer he jerks one more time and manages to still his hips, blinking watering eyes and watching Stefan approach with equal apprehension.
“You’re gentle with us, aren’t you?” Rafael murmurs, just loud enough for the three of them, and relishes the way Rich’s face turns to him in pink-cheeked, hazy-eyed desperation. He steals a quick kiss, thrilling despite himself at the way Rich shudders and yields, whining softly into his lips, and then goes on, “And Mr Carraway is only right to reward you; you really must trust his judgment,” at a pitch and volume more carrying.
Stefan’s first touch is hesitant, and twitches away at Rich’s moan—when Rich makes no attempt to grab for him and only holds his hips tremblingly still, he essays a slow, testing lick, and then a long kiss that makes Rich curse incoherently.
His throat and jaw must surely be aching after so long under Carraway’s desk, but when he leans down to take the blushing head into his mouth there’s a dreadful familiarity to the way Stefan’s lean body shudders. His sharp cheekbones redden, his eyes darken and unfocus and the glowing spots unfurled across his cheeks give a glimmering flash. Carraway has a sharp eye for any especial pleasure his toys might easily give way for, and all the sensitizers and salves one could ever want: doubtless he would delight in transforming a common, garden-variety oral fixation into something terribly, exquisitely acute…
“Oh, oh, fuck,” Rich pants, and reaches down to the man’s head, flinches back, rests just his fingertips on disheveled brown hair and strokes with phenomenal gentleness. Stefan startles at the touch, then goes still and slowly softens into it. He bobs his head once, twice, as though testing himself, and then takes a long, deep breath and swallows an impossible length of Rich deep into his throat in one shot, with a wet, strangling noise of pleasure almost lost under Rich’s thundering moan.
Rafael can only stand it so long before he leans in again to lick at Rich's earlobe, kiss his neck. Rich twitches and moans for him, and Rafael gives in to impulse and rucks Rich’s shirt up over his chest to play with the shine of his piercings, tugging at them until Rich’s nipples are flushed dark and tight, relishing the way the whole powerful mass of him shudders and yields at his every little touch.
“Close,” Rich gasps. “Oh, god—sir, please, I’m close, I can’t—please, can I come?”
“Soon as you like, treasure,” Carraway says indulgently. “Let’s take that edge off you already.”
“Thank you sir,” Rich manages, and to Stefan, “Good, that's, keep going, fuck, god, your mouth’s, ah shit.” Turning breathlessly to Rafael, “Can, kiss me?”
He's supposed to be commanding, not pleading, but Rafael can't correct him when he looks so desperate. Rich moans hungrily into the deep kiss Rafael gives him, and it doesn't take more than a moment of kissing before he's coming, that huge, powerful body trembling in the throes of pleasure.
“Very nice,” Carraway says as Rich sags in his chair, still breathing hard.
“Thank you, sir,” Rich manages. Stefan draws back gasping and wipes his mouth with the back of a hand, shuddering at the brush of his own wrist past his lips. He doesn't flinch back this time when Rich pets absently over his hair again.
“Mm, yes, very nice indeed,” Carraway says, stretching, and stands up. “You know, sugar, I think I’m done working for the day. Go take these two and take a day easy for once, why don’t you? I expect with the two of them put together even a big workhorse like you can wear yourself out.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” Rich says, and if the tone of his voice didn’t broadcast his discomfort, the way he grimaced at the instruction to take a day easy would speak clearly enough. “Can they… I mean, we’ve all got permission to…?”
“Now, sugar,” Carraway says, and Rich and Stefan both wince in matching dismay at his stern tone. “I don’t give out rewards just any old time, you know that. Keeps you boys from getting lazy, keeps you sweet—”
“But—”
“Don’t interrupt, doll.”
Rich’s broad, expressive mouth twists in discomfort, and he drops his head and hunches, eyes on the ground. Carraway notes the expression—how could he not, when it's emblazoned over Rich’s face and body as plainly as a carved mountainside—and curtails whatever scolding he was preparing to deliver in a condescendingly indulgent sigh.
“I know you’re a working breed,” he says, and Rafael conceals a wince at the casual insult of both the words and tone. Fortunately, Rich doesn’t seem to notice it.
“But I keep you boys around to look pretty,” Carraway goes on, “and I’ve had plenty of years to figure out how to tune you up exactly how I like. Spare the rod…” he cocks a brow, baring a flash of eyeteeth in acknowledgement of the tasteless double entendre. “Besides. Doesn’t suit a strapping young man like you, coddling these useless little things.”
Rich’s grimace deepens, his whole body twisting in his unease. He doesn’t argue the point, though, to Rafael’s surprise and relief. Just says, slowly, “I know you’re… real good at gettin’ what you want, sir. And. If what you want’s me to uh, take a rest day, wear myself out—I can do that, I’m not tryna mutiny. I just…” he hesitates, red sweeping across his cheeks. “I don’t like seein’ the guys wait, and… and hurt, and stuff. I like, uh. I like when guys are all…” he bashfully makes one of his arcane gestures, and Carraway raises his eyebrows in clear interest, expectant.
“…Fucked out,” Rich concludes, in a sheepish mumble.
“Mm.”
Rafael keeps his face mild and blank as he takes in that revelation. He had assumed Rich’s penchant for leaving Rafael sated into insensibility was due to his inherently kind, sweet nature, and felt guilty for not returning the favor—but perhaps his very inability has been more pleasing than he imagined.
“An’ Raf looks real pretty worked down to the waterline,” Rich goes on. “Sir. And I bet, uh… Stefan would too…”
It’s not manipulation in the way that Rafael would manipulate the man; there’s no artifice in Rich’s tone or his meaning. But a manipulation, even so. Rafael holds his breath, doing his best to fade from the scene, to allow Rich’s earnest admission to carry Carraway’s interest. By his side, Stefan is doing much the same, although most likely not for the same reasons.
“Well, I do like a young man who knows what he wants,” Carraway says, and Rafael constrains his disbelieving sigh of relief to a barely-there exhale, keeping his face in a mask of trained neutrality. “Alright then, sweet thing. Have your fun.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rich starts, and then shrinks back a little as Carraway steps to him. When the man touches his jaw, he tilts his face up obediently for a kiss. “I—Ah—!” He gives a startled, pretty gasp when Carraway pinches one of his piercings, and sways wordlessly in place a moment before finishing, “I-I’ll take good, I’ll take care of them,” strained and breathless, a note or two higher than usual.
“I’m sure you will,” Carraway says, and gives one last tweak, then lets go and pats Rich’s heaving chest as he shivers and relaxes. “I expect you looking a lot more cheerful tomorrow.”
There’s a stunned quiet after he leaves. Stefan is still on his knees, slumped against the side of the chair now with his head down. Rafael is running through the conversation again and again in his mind, looking for the loophole, the trick or trap that will justify some later punishment, bewildered to find none. Rich frowns at the door Carraway left through, rubbing his abused nipple absently as his deep flush begins to fade.
“God,” he says finally, and rubs both hands over his face. “Okay. Fuck. Well… orders from the Washington, I guess.” He looks down at Stefan and grimaces uncertainly, then looks to Rafael hopefully.
In their discussion of the harem and its politics, Connor made it clear that Stefan was a treacherous creature, and not to be trusted. That he would run to Sandgren for any infraction to curry the man’s venomous favor. Stripped raw, as Carraway’s captives so often are under his claws, his wariness has the distinct bent of a man used to rough handling and cruel treatment, and determined to avoid more at any cost.
…But there were frantic and fearful men when Rafael arrived here as well. And Sam coaxed them together, and they were all the stronger for it. And Rafael read clear as day the confusion and then hesitant interest in the man’s eye, when Rich cried out and suffered and still forebore to push or force him.
“Stefan, I believe?” Rafael says as gently as he might, and leans down to lay a hand on one bare, glimmering shoulder. “I don’t think we’ve officially met. I’m Rafael. Has he left patches on you?”
Stefan groans, swallows roughly, and lifts his head to squint blearily at Rafael.
“Whh,” he says, a soft and fucked-out rasp. “Wh’s it to you.”
Wary still, snapping his fangs—but Sol has plenty of bite as well. Rafael does not allow his smile to waver.
“I’m sorry you were put to use so callously,” he says instead, and finds that although he certainly doesn’t trust the man, he can mean the words without much effort. “The way he brings one’s body to betray itself… it shakes the nerves in the aftermath. I’ve found.”
Stefan’s pretty lips crimp and twist, and his fingertips rise to brush glancingly past them, self-conscious. His eyes dart away, falling to the floor.
“So?” he says tonelessly, but a moment too late to sell the act.
“So, maybe take a hand up outta the water,” Rich rumbles gently. He’s looking at Rafael with an expression much harder to read than usual—some kindred of pride, mixing uneasily with wary caution.
“We’re not in here to be enemies, man," Rich goes on. "We could all help each other out if—”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Ha,” Stefan croaks, and finds his feet, dragging himself slowly upright on the arm of the chair. There’s the remnant of a smooth, sonorous voice beneath the ruin of his throat; an accent more open and further west in origin than many of the men Rafael has met here, tightened now with suspicion and pain.
“You run with. Crazy Campbell. And that fuckin’ prick, King. You want me to be seen with those lunatics? You think I’m suicidal?”
“I think you’ve caught a tiger by the tail,” Rafael says, his tone crisply unimpressed, and Stefan’s shoulders twitch as though that hits home. “I think you know that by the time Sandgren tires of the services you offer him, you will truly have nowhere to turn, by the work of your own hand.”
“Maybe,” Stefan says sullenly, and his narrow shoulders give one hard shudder as he gets his feet under him, palming helplessly at the front of his flimsy shorts. “Hhn. Hha. But. He won’t have a reason to torture me crazy, or, or broken, or. He sets people up, he fucks people over. He gets guys killed. And he likes it like that.”
“I know,” Rafael says, and hears his voice from far away. Watching his body from afar, a man on a stage, a man who never caught a glimpse of a body dragged slack and shuddering from Sandgren’s work room. “I know.”
“Look,” Stefan says, and glances helplessly from Rich to Rafael and back again, licking his flushed lips. Shivering, still touching himself. “Listen. I’m not a—I’m just not an idiot, okay, I’m not a, a total asshole. I’m just trying to survive this, and half of you guys aren’t. So. I’m not going to go right up against the sergeant major like that crazy hick, but. I can owe you? A favor. Some heads up, or, or something, I don’t know—”
He breaks off, panting, humiliated. Rafael looks at him, the lean and delicate span of his body, the living glitter of his glow-spots against his golden tan, the dripping sweat… the dark, needy frustration in his eyes. The calculating way he looks back at Rafael, even this far gone.
It's the first time Rafael's had time or cause to study him, and to make his own judgments. By the looks of him, Stefan must be Rich's age, or perhaps even a year or two younger, and already worn thin by fear. A man at the raw beginning of his twenties, and his world already so unfairly ended… Rafael recalls well what that felt like.
“One favor for another, then,” Rafael allows, keeping his tone gentle but cool. Stefan knows better by now than to trust himself to tender sweetness. And Rafael in turn knows better than to trust promises given in desperation in this cruel place, especially from a man so well-known for his treachery. If the man won't have alliance, perhaps he will at least agree to armistice.
“Come here. Let’s see to you.”
“Thank you,” Stefan says, a wretched gasp, and falls against him before Rafael’s even met him halfway. Rafael has to scrabble inelegantly at the sparse and sweat-slick breadth of the man’s back before he has a secure enough grip to bear Stefan all the way back against Rich's desk, get his ass braced atop, spread his thighs around Rafael’s waist.
Stefan’s mouth is feverishly hot against Rafael’s, a familiar taste of come and chemicals. But he gives a musical little cry when Rafael bites the swollen, tender curve of his lower lip, and buckles with need. It’s intoxicating, this frenzy, this bitter needy heat, to be magnanimous and giving, to slip his tongue into that desperate mouth and feel Stefan suck on it like his life depends on it.
He sounds so good, too. A singer with a lovely fucked-out rasp to the way he whimpers and moans, and when Rafael pulls back to taste the salt tang of his sweat-slick throat Stefan cries out, “Oh god, please just fuck me already, sir please,” in such perfect tones that he could tempt the very angels to lean over the edges of their clouds.
“Wow,” Rich murmurs from beside them in a nearly subsonic rumble. He’s staring at them both, blushingly intent, one massive hand fisted around his renewed erection.
“Enjoying your show?” Rafael enquires, his own voice choked down to what he can only hope is a sultry murmur. But Rich hears him nonetheless, and just grins.
“Hell yeah,” he says back. “Come on. You know you look good.”
At this carelessly generous praise, Rafael finds himself warmed through. How long since he’s had such a welcome audience? Such kind and appreciative eyes…
Stefan trembles against him, gives voice to another lovely plea, and Rich’s gaze shifts. For a terrible moment Rafael wants to bite the man’s throat out, still that golden voice forever. How dare he still be able to sing like that, like a songbird, on command, when Rafael’s own voice chokes down to nothing—
Jealousy is an ugly thing, and has rarely won back an audience's eye. And right now Rafael would prefer to choose beauty. He climbs atop the desk with careful poise, every limb just so, spilling Stefan back across the polished wood. Underneath him the spangled stars of Stefan’s glowspots flare brilliantly, and when Rafael presses three fingers deep into his mouth the man’s sweet pleading strangles off into a rough, thrillingly obscene slurp. He doesn’t even choke, just swallows, noisy and rough, his slim frame arching up beneath Rafael’s thighs, and sucks at Rafael’s fingers with passionate abandon.
He was made for this, Rafael notes, even as his own body thrills to the slick wet heat, that singer’s mouth, that talented throat. Or rather, he has been made for this. Carraway has a well-honed skill to turn any strength into a weakness, any talent towards the man’s own ends. Rafael can fuck Stefan's throat with a hard, fast brutality and the man only responds with a frantic devouring pleasure, writhing and twisting upwards for it, straining, shining.
By the time Stefan gives a final, airless whine and shakes his way through a shattering climax, spilling into his own fist, Rafael finds himself perilously close to the edge. He withdraws his fingers, and as Stefan twitches and spasms through an aftershock, Rafael pulls the man’s fist away, shoves his own pants hastily down, and skates his hard erection along the slick heat of Stefan's dick, right where he knows a firm pressure will prolong the overstimulated pleasure of climax. One stroke, two, and then Stefan’s hand is against him, curling tight, pumping in counterpoint. Shuddering in silent pleasure, Rafael moves against him, the two of them falling into an easy rhythm, unfamiliar with each other but far too practiced to get the moves wrong at this stage.
He really is a beautiful man, as all of them are. The shining, flaring stars beneath his skin, the dark hazy blue of his eyes, the deep pink flush of his lips as he chases Rafael’s fingertips, still kissing them helplessly. Rafael lets him, presses the deep bruisey pink of his lips to a darker red, runs his thumb over the questing slickness of his tongue, the ridges of his palate, the hungry clutch of his throat. His voice now is an animal’s thing, and yet still lovely; a raw whimper, nearly mindless.
Carraway alone would be more than enough to reduce a man so, to a show, a toy. With Sandgren's attention as well, however favorable, it's little wonder Stefan is so easily undone by even the smallest application of mercy. Even as little mercy as Rafael has to spare for a man so desperate to lick the boot on his throat.
Mercy not for Stefan's sake, then, but for Rich. Who watches with intent and heartbreaking sweetness as Rafael looks up to hold his eyes. The white of his clever fingers against the blushing rose of his arousal, the bitten-pink flush of his lips bent up into a delighted smile as Rafael comes for him.
Afterward some measure of clarity reasserts itself, as it so often does, rising like a chilly and unwelcome dawn. Rafael swings one leg up and over Stefan’s hips to let him roll out from under, and the man does with a rough, wet sniffle and an utter lack of grace or gratitude. Dead-eyed with exhaustion, Stefan limps over to Carraway’s desk and fishes out a paltry excuse for a shirt from under it, then stares down at it as though he’s forgotten what it’s for.
“Here,” Rich says, a low rumble that nonetheless startles Stefan, who whirls with a shocky apprehension, clutching his shirt up to his chest. But Rich has only reached into his own desk and withdrawn a packet of cleaning wipes, holding it out at the full reach of one titanically muscled arm.
Rafael sits up, belatedly aware of his own slick and sticky disrepair, and watches Stefan edge just close enough to pluck the little packet out from between Rich’s fingertips. Rich’s craggy, expressive face shows only a dry, self-aware amusement, perhaps a little bitter.
“Thanks,” Stefan says warily, and moves around to the other side of Carraway’s desk to clean himself up.
Rich turns away himself, opens another packet, cleans his own come off with a fascinating delicacy. When he catches Rafael watching, that silent bitterness cracks into something more visceral, insecure, and Rafael slides in loose-limbed haste off the top of the desk to come and kiss him. Rich relaxes all in a rush, nuzzles and kisses and pets at Rafael in his afterglow, all that pent-up need for affection coming down on him in a warm rain. Rafael soaks it in luxuriously.
“Stefan,” he says finally, as the man edges around the far corner of Carraway’s desk. “I hope we might find other… favorable exchanges, in the future. We truly have no intention of being your enemies.”
“None of you are my enemies,” Stefan says with a tired twist of his flushed lips. “You’re just… lightning rods. For trouble. Rebels with no hope. And I don’t want any part of it. I just get by. You can’t fucking blame a man for getting by.” He sniffs, smooths his hands at his shirt. Hesitates. “Do you—”
There’s a knock, and the door opens at the same moment.
“Arthur!” says Sandgren, and elbows inside, jacket unbuttoned and cheeks and forehead pink with the sun, looking cheerful in a way that makes Rafael’s stomach turn. “Did you still need—”
He pauses at the sight of the gathered men, and the notable lack of a towering lykoi, and his smile undergoes a foul transmutation, cruelty curdling its edges.
“Oh,” he says with vicious good humor. “Arthur left some toys lying around. Don’t you have places to be? Treasure?”
“Hey, boss,” says Stefan, at once drawing up a smile. Limping only prettily as he crosses the room, dabbing at his reddened eyes as though he was just crying, even though his cheeks have been dry for some time. “Mr Carraway left a minute ago.”
“I’ve got eyes, boy,” Sandgren says, but he reaches out and reels Stefan in by a finger hooked through his collar, inspecting him. “Put you through your paces, did he? Must've gone awful easy on you though, I know how you sound when you've really had to work for it…”
Stefan’s hands are folded behind his back, a fragile mockery of a soldier’s parade rest or a captive bound—at that, they clench behind him, working uneasily. All he says, though, is, “Please, sir. He had his pet thug fuck my throat, it—it hurts,” and Sandgren’s smile shows a flash of teeth even as Rich gives a noise of startled protest.
“But,” he starts, and Rafael surreptitiously grabs his wrist, squeezing hard. Rich rumbles, and the little tattooed mouse on his wrist ripples under Rafael’s grip as he clenches a fist and then relaxes it again, distress writ large across his broad, honest face, but… holding his tongue.
“Now that’s a sore waste of your talents, boy, but it’s not my job to tell Arthur what to do with his toys.” Sandgren lets go of Stefan’s collar and even gives a brisk pat to one narrow shoulder. “You go run along to my office, why don’t you. Have a lie down. I’ll see you tonight, if you’re feeling better.”
“Thank you, sir, you’re too kind,” Stefan says, all breathy raw-throated sweetness, and trails his glittering hand in a coy stroke along Sandgren’s belt as he goes. Fingering the stock of a holstered revolver with suggestive delicacy. Then he’s gone with a last, trembling smile, and Sandgren smirks after him.
When he remembers who else is in the room, even that foul scrim of good humor fades as he regards Rich and Rafael. “Well. So. It’s lucky for you and your precious little shadow, you sad fat whore of a Hastings, that I’ve got business with Arthur. But you’ve got no business in his office when he’s not here. Get lost.”
–
It takes a truly heroic amount of carnal distraction to keep Rich from his self-imposed chore list, but Rafael fancies he holds out remarkably well, especially considering how recently he was prised from his idleness. Still, Rich insists on returning every favor Rafael performs for him with an intent and single-minded devotion that is uniquely difficult to deny, and by late afternoon Rafael is well-worn and drifting through a warm, pleasant fog. He puts up little protest when Rich carries him to the parlor he’s often shared with his fellow prisoners and settles him on the couch with an incongruous quilt that must surely have been stashed by a member of the staff.
He wakes to the low light of evening, feeling pleasantly sore and tender. Even more delightful, his feet are pillowed in someone’s lap, being skillfully rubbed, and Rich is talking in a low, soft rumble.
When Rafael pries open an eye, it’s to find the rest of their little enclave of companions gathered around one of the tables quietly playing cards to the low, melodic beeping and trilling of some sort of electronic music on Connor’s little can-speaker. Rich is sitting back on the couch with a thin volume open in his lap and a screen raised, typing something as he reads.
“Mx Sayegh definitely has the glue,” he says. Andy, who’s leaning against his legs largely ignoring the card game, nods slowly. “And Raf’s already pressed most of the wrinkles out of the pages that got ripped—I dunno if they stock wax paper—”
“The kitchens have enough wax paper for a library, kitten,” Andy says, and pats one enormous knee with a fragile hand. “Head Chef Byrd will give you a whole roll if you want, I fuckin’ guarantee.”
“Right, yeah, cool,” Rich says, brightening, and types something out on his screen. “Well, this’ll be pretty easy, then! I bet he'd feel better, with everything fixed up…”
"Uh-huh," says Andy dryly, and Rich makes a worried, questioning noise, hands pausing on Rafael's feet. "Don't look at me like that, big man. A guy with his screws loose is a little more complicated than a broken dishwasher, that's all."
"Raf's working really hard, though," Rich says, and Rafael freezes when he sees Andy looking directly back at him, a sharp, clever, knowing glance. Over their heads, Rich goes on, "I bet he'll want to get things watertight again," with a vast, fragile optimism, and Andy grimaces wryly to Rafael and turns away toward the game again.
"…Don't worry about Shakespeare," he says. "He'll nut up when he's ready. Come play, kid, let him sleep."
“Okay,” Rich says, and dismisses his screen with a heavy sigh, then shifts his weight with the utmost gentleness, lowering Rafael’s feet to a pillow and patting one of his ankles. Tucking his feet under the hem of his blanket.
Perhaps it would be well to sit up, declare himself awake, rejoin the conversation. Rafael closes his eyes again instead, aching gently both in his body and in the clenched fist of his heart. His torn book is—nothing, its disrepair is meaningless to anyone but Rafael, fool as he is—but still Rich persists in caring about it. About Rafael. If he’ll let me…
It seems such folly to care about anything, here—but what else is there, in the end? Each and every man here has had their hearts plucked out, considered with cruel amusement, and turned to a leash that holds them as indelibly as their collars; Stefan by simple fear of pain, Rich by his sense of duty and his terrible thirst. Rafael by his yearning, meant for shining stages and spectacle, crushed and constrained. To care may be folly, but to forswear it entirely is a death sentence…
Rafael isn’t aware of drifting off again, but he’s woken again after sunset, the game concluded, to drift downstairs for dinner. And thus slowly back upstairs, leaning heavily on Rich’s arm.
Rich gets him to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, and then gladly to the bed, before he breaks his attentive silence.
“Hey, so. If you wanted, we could fix your book now.”
Rafael had expected the topic might be raised soon—-tomorrow, perhaps, in the morning, after he'd had some time to find what face he should wear in response. Here and now, exhausted and entirely unprepared, he freezes in place, fingers knotting in the sheets.
He can't put words to what has seized him; he should say yes, of course. Rich wants to, wants to get him fixed up, and he's likely to be as skilled in repairing books as he is at so many other things, and he wants to. So Rafael should wear a smile, and gladly agree. He's already denied the man once before, and Rich would never punish Rafael for the disappointment but he will be disappointed. And Rafael should say 'yes'. He must be the man who says 'yes'—
"Oh, hey," Rich says, and his smile has fallen. "Or not. Okay."
"No, of course, we—" Rafael begins, and tries to remake himself to a man who can stand and take the book and just give it over, just let it be fixed—and can't. He can't. He can only sit on the side of the bed, and grip the fabric beneath him like it's the only solid thing in the world.
"I'm sorry," he says, "I don't know what's—I'll, in a moment, I apologize—"
"Raf," says Rich, so incredibly softly, and lowers himself to a knee without hesitation. "Hey, babe, c'mon. You don't hafta do that. It's okay if it's a 'no'."
"It shouldn't be," Rafael says, despite himself, and it's his own voice, not any worthier character, no mask or pretense. Raw as the taste of blood. "I don't want it to be."
Rich gives a low, rumbling huff, neither a sigh nor a laugh but some measure of both.
"Yeah," he says. "No, yeah, I mean. I get that. I know. But it is what it is, right? Sometimes what it is fuckin' sucks. But you don't hafta tell me what I wanna hear, okay? Not even here. I mean. Especially not here."
A convulsion like a sob tries to seize Rafael's lungs. He swallows it back and nods blindly instead, eyes fixed on the ground.
"Okay," Rich says again, and reaches out to take one of Rafael's hands, untangling it from the sheets with magnificent gentleness and cradling it in his broad palm. "That's okay. You're alright."
It takes a few long minutes for Rafael to master himself and steady the tremor of his breathing, but Rich stays with him, kneeling and holding onto his hand until Rafael finally breathes deeply in and out without a hitch.
"Okay?" Rich says, and when Rafael manages a wan smile Rich smiles back and raises their hands to self-consciously peck the back of his palm: a brief, soft press of lips.
He looks surprised when he makes as if to release his grip and Rafael holds on. When Rafael tugs, Rich allows himself to easily be drawn along, kneeling up with captivating willingness and allowing Rafael to kiss him pink and breathless.
It's been such a long day, and Rafael's all but exhausted, but… this, at least, he can do. Stefan cried out so sweetly, glittering like stars and singing his desperation, but it was Rafael that held Rich's eyes, and Rafael who got to draw him away into the mansion, and Rafael who Rich delights to see wrung out and pliable for him, awash in pleasure. It's Rafael he wanted to kiss, and Rafael who he trusts.
Possessively, Rafael reaches down and palms the length of Rich's arousal through the sheet kilted around his hips, and Rich shudders for him in return.
"Oh, hey, if—fuck, only if you want, if you're up for it," Rich mumbles, even as his massive thighs part and his hips rock forward for more. "I know you’re tired…”
“One more,” Rafael sighs, and rubs at the taut fabric, traces down to the tip and circles delicately. “You like us tired, don’t you? Down to the waterline. You like your men used up and still begging for more of you, you like us undone in your arms…”
Rich shudders and his dick gives an unmistakable twitch upwards against Rafael’s teasing fingertips.
“Fuck,” he gasps, low as earthquakes. “Shit, I—I don’t mean to be a creep or anything, if you’re too tired, if you don’t want—don’t lemme take advantage—”
“I want you to take advantage,” Rafael murmurs, and leans up to bite at Rich’s lip, coaxing. “I want you to drink me right down to the dregs, I want you to have every last drop of me and then upend the cup entirely, I want you to ruin me for anyone else. Please, take me.”
“Oh fuck,” Rich says, and then there’s a huge hand on Rafael’s ribs, and Rich fumbles his wrap open. “Oh fuck, okay, wow. Alright, c’mere, baby, I’ll take care of you, I’ll get you there, it’s okay…”
Rich gets the blushing length of his monumental dick out and raised up between them, and Rafael’s own clothes stripped away entirely, and then there’s just the sweetness of pressure and friction and Rich’s huge chest heaving for breath, his mouth falling open as Rafael trails his own lips past the broad expanse of jaw and kisses wetly along the rim of his ear.
“So flame rises to meet flame, and glories in the leaping dance,” Rafael sighs, letting himself go slack against Rich’s front, luxuriating in the growing heat. Soon enough it’s overwhelming, and he surrenders to it gladly, spilling himself over with a voiceless gasp.
“Are you—can I—”
“Yes, anything,” Rafael breathes, and rests his head on Rich’s broad shoulder. “Anything, everything, a-ah, undo me…” He’s so tender now that every pass of Rich’s dick against his own is an onslaught of sensation, enough to have him convulsing with oversensitive aftershocks, though each convulsion gets weaker and more feeble as he feels sleep rising up in a hot dark flood to carry him away.
Finally Rich comes, and crushes him close, and kisses him deeply and thoroughly. Utterly satisfied, Rafael opens his mouth and leaves his body behind. Rich will take care of it for him as he drops gladly into unconsciousness.
Smashwords as well as your (but not Amazon yet except for After the Storm), under the series title, Stories From The Michigan Fleet. If you missed book one, After the Storm, you can . And check out our !
