[ the command has a strange effect on him, where he’d normally laugh and brush it off, but there’s power sitting behind his words now. the reality that he could whisk embry away, if the sudden parting of the crowd is anything to go by. he shivers. actually fucking shivers, and it has nothing to do with the blows he’s taken and everything to do with the sudden cloying heat curling like a leaf set to flame at the very center of him.
it makes him very fucking irritable to have the tables flipped on him, worse because it’s hot and he likes it, and he hates that he likes it because the entire basis of what he has with bob is simple and easy, and examining any part of it is out of the question. they walk as if they’re crossing the red sea, bob sharp-eyed and possessive, and embry deliberately does not disobey despite itching to. they make it out of the dank fighting pits and down the hall, ducking into a parlor done up in cinderella blue, a glistening pumpkin carriage taking up a third of the space.
there, he pushes bob against the wall — or more specifically, he makes a piss poor attempt at it, and bob graciously steps into the right position. he’s vibrating with a version of the same post-battle high he used to get in carpathia, heady with the knowledge that he escaped death, or maybe arrested with the disappointment of it. his hands slide beneath bob’s shirt, never tucked in, leaning in to press his shaking fingers to electric skin. he’s grown somewhat familiar with bob’s body in the last few weeks, the solid flex of his muscles, the specific way his skin flushes in pleasure, but the dangerous magnetism is new. like embry could be a thing crushed in his grip. sharper than any ache in his body, lust lances through him. ]
You chose this? [ his hands still trace the lines of his body, learning a statue by touch. his gaze meets his, abruptly destabilized. ] You interrupted me. If everyone else had to go, then why can’t I?
[ contemptuous. it’s my life, i can waste it if i want to. in a flurry of motion, he yanks at bob’s belt, opening up his fly. sinking to his knees feels like a relief, easier not to stay on two feet. he wastes no time on playing coy or teasing him to breathlessness — just takes him all the way from root to tip, swallowing hard when he pushes closer to shove him down his throat. pain erupts in his face, fresh blood from his lips smearing along bob’s cock, and that has him rock hard in an instant, his muffled keens rumbling up his chest and through his stuffed throat. ]
[ at that faint tug, he lets embry go, hands hovering then resting on his shoulders in case he stumbles. bob doesn’t expect him to attempt to take control, allowing himself to be backed into the wall more out of instinct than due to any power on embry’s part. surprise softens his features, knitting and opening in succession when embry touches him. it’s as if he still doesn’t know why anyone would bother, least of all after that unsettling display.
you chose this? embry rasps, and bob doesn’t know what he means. not with those hands sliding over the hard angles of his torso. is he talking about the body oxe built in a laboratory? frankensteined together with super serums and untested solutions. buffing out any imperfections before he awoke. or is he referring to, well, embry — who hadn’t — who wouldn’t ask to be rescued. a similar split takes place internally, arousal kindled by every touch, the hungry look darkening the horizon of embry’s eyes. nevermind how the adrenaline and attention both brighten the burn of his ego. ]
Embry. [ one hand skids across his shoulder, hesitant to anchor there, let alone somewhere more fragile, more essential, like his neck or hair. his fingers curl into his palm, resting uselessly. bob tips his head back with a groan, and the resultant crack isn’t his skull, but the cobblestone wall. ] Embry, what the fuck —
[ he needs a doctor, or at least someone gentler than bob is in this state, the molten gold of his eyes still swirling. he tries to blink it away, or force himself to focus on anything beyond the tight heat of embry’s mouth. the achy little sounds he hasn’t heard any of the times they’ve fucked around before. he’s already dizzy from the adrenaline high, the carriage in his periphery twinkling like stars.
when he hazards a glance down at embry, a mess of tousled hair and bloodied cheekbones, he hitches his hips on instinct. chokes a whine. regrets everything, when he hears the sputter from below, and it makes his dick twitch. ]
Don’t hurt yourself. [ an order cemented by the firm hand in embry’s hair, guiding him back until he only holds the head of bob’s cock in his mouth, hot against his eager tongue. ] Easy, or we’re done here.
[ a surety in his tone, so unlike the bob that embry has come to know. despite his own flush, the uneven rise and fall of his chest, he’s slow to relax his grip. an exercise in control. fingers tentative in embry’s hair, grazing his bruised temple. in the next breath, he unfurls the hand at embry’s shoulder, thumb pressing above his collarbone. and yet — even like this, he’s easy to read. gears visibly turning in his head. ]
[ don’t hurt yourself feels so strangely, absurdly sweet that embry’s gaze shutters, memories pushing into his already woozy mind. a moonlit carpathian forest, two bullets in embry and morphine swimming through his veins, telling ash to take what he’s owed. it didn’t have to be this way, ash’s near-apologetic claim after, only that wasn’t true. it did have to be that way, bloody and brutal, because he needs it to be. he wants to be hurt, and he needs to be conquered, or else he’s going right back into the pound.
if bob lets him. the threat flickers through his mind, and his natural inclination to disagree weighs against how badly he wants bob’s cock to find the bottom of his throat. he relents, relaxing his tongue, bob’s grip in his hair as carefully measured as when ash wants to be cruel.
unlike ash: he’s bargaining with him instead of dropping demands at his feet. he tenses beneath bob’s touch, suddenly attuned to every word. briefly, he looks up, eyes lingering on the cracked wall behind bob’s head, both unsettled and enthralled by the swirling color of his eyes. if you listen. doesn’t know what to make of the fact that bob doesn’t think to just overpower him into making this go exactly the way he wants. ]
You have to do more than that. You have to give me more. [ voice roughened by the drag of his dick. despite his haughty tone, his eyes betray an aching plea, glinting with sharp points of shattered need. i want you so fucking bad. on him, inside of him, bob taking what he’s owed for dragging him out of the ring even if he won’t thank him for it. no, bob owes him. ] I can take it. You’d have to hurt me a lot worse than this to get me to tap out.
[ arguably, he doesn’t know what the extent of his injuries are, only that they’re secondary to the velvet weight of bob’s cock in his mouth, which he’s more careful with now but no less aggressive, sucking him down like a deep inhale. slowly, he inches forward, lashes fluttering, half expecting bob to drag him back by his hair again. a heady moan sinks out of him, his throat flexing, wetness springing to his eyes at how painfully, erotically drawn out this is, the forced slowness causing a crash of halting thoughts in his head. the warm, salty taste of bob’s leaking head drips down his straining throat, his scraped knuckles curling into bob’s hip as he swallows convulsively around the meager drops, another pleading rumble from his jagged chest. please please please fucking come down my throat, please let me have this, please let me have you. ]
[ and this is, perhaps, one of many ways he’s different from ash. from the others embry associates with. the math changes. the risks multiplied by his powers (by the void, quieted for now, but never truly gone).
with a shake of his head, ]
I don’t want to hurt you. [ bob cards his fingers back through embry’s hair, blunt nails dragging against his scalp. the thought of it only fills him with dread. ] I won’t, Embry.
[ finality in his low tone, pain writ in his twisted features. that’s not what this is. what it can be, with him, no matter how embry cajoles or pleads. because with his terrible strength, hurting embry would be bone-breaking, neck-snapping, head-splitting — the scenario stephen painted for everyone in bleeding watercolour. it would have been easy for bob to remove koby’s head. to force saber’s through the bars of the cage. to bisect homelander with hand or gaze. to kill everyone here, as himself or the sentry or something much worse. each imagined scenario takes his panic up a notch. stomach churning, interest flagging. the same nausea that overtook embry at the party rises in his throat, when all he can think of is the bodies they saw, mutilated by strength like or less than his own. his grip on embry’s hair tightens and relaxes, loose enough to see if embry’s going to give him what he asked for.
luckily, impossibly, embry listens, slows, and it helps. bob tries to focus on the drag of his tongue, the desperate need in his too blue eyes. that purposeful pace, the intentive way embry advances and swallows him down. his mouth parts on a ragged moan. as a reward, he surrounds embry with his hands, fisted in his hair, pinning his shoulder in place. ]
Other people probably have to put you in your place, right? Rough you up. [ a tilt of his head, the gold of his eyes settled and shining. he holds embry perfectly still, drawing back enough to rock into his mouth at his own pace. ] Order you around? [ lighlty mocking, ] Hands behind your back or — [ bob eases him back and then guides him forward again, breath catching. ] They just tie ‘em, maybe, like you did mine? [ a roll of his shoulders as he takes the lead. bob fucks into embry’s mouth languidly, confidently, and all embry can do is take it. ] I don’t have to do any of that. I don’t have to do anything.
[ or listen to anyone, not when he’s like this. embry could come at him with everything he has, and he wouldn't even scuff the paint job on his abs. case in point: he takes embry beyond what he can manage on his own, throat spasming around his cock. no need for a harsh grip to keep him there, plenty capable of it with his thumb sweeping over embry’s temple, his fingers squeezing, then gentling the nape of his neck. no blood, no brutality, just power and control. transfixed by the tears in embry's eyes, streaking his cheeks. (overwhelmed by the fact that he wants this when bob could break him on accident.)
it almost gets him over the line, but bob slides back, steadying embry through the inevitable sputtering breaths by cupping his jaw. and with two fingers on his shoulder, bob keeps him from tipping forward for more until he calms. ]
You can ask me, though, if there's something else you want.
[ as if his voice isn't thick with need. as if his cock isn't leaking. ]
[ the tenderness of his hands through his hair, of the quiet promises he gives when it’s the opposite of the destruction embry asked for — he realizes bob doesn’t have to hurt him with an open palm or hands around his throat. this hurts enough. the denial of a sword to fall on. the refusal of the only way he knows how to repent. nothing worse than the withholding, now used effectively on him. a kind of penance of its own, having to bear the brunt of bob’s kindness when it’s the last thing he wants. (and yet a part of him starves for it, holds onto it with wide open wonder, knowing he doesn’t deserve it after defying every scrap of reason and advice bob has tried to give him over the last month. tries to bury the feeling to unearth after he inevitably loses it.)
the rush of sudden force is unlike anything he’s ever felt before, far beyond the immobilization of ropes or cuffs or leashes. deprivation of a kind he’s never experienced. bob holds him with familiar hands and embry can’t move an inch, his breath rushing out of him, adrenaline spiking through a sticky pool of lust. bob’s ocean eyes are the sun now, heat boring straight into him, and no amount of straining can get him away from this — he tries, out of natural instinct, then stops when bob feeds him his cock and he can’t pull back, focusing completely on not choking in his new predicament. eyes closing, heat flooding his face at being so thoroughly used, like he’s just a hole to be fucked.
the sound he makes, half breath half moan, is a concession or acknowledgement or just wild desperation, bob’s measured movements blocking out all rational thought when there’s only him and his steady hands and how deep embry can take him. he isn’t forceful, isn’t cruel. but he doesn’t have to be. he has embry so completely under his control that he aches with need, the even, deliberate motions so much more torturous than any strike could ever be. bob isn’t like anyone he’s ever met. his crooked smile and sweet eyes. the rough, panicked breaths he’d taken when embry had snapped at him. the soft press of his body when it was just the two of them out in the woods. this same man, with enough power to drive embry to his knees and thank him for it. i don’t have to do anything. it should scare him, but it doesn’t — not in the way fear is supposed to be a deterrent. it draws him in, fills him with intoxicating want.
then he’s gone, leaving embry rasping for breath, wracked with shudders, limited movement flooding back. he looks up, a flash of untamed torment in his eyes that bob would make him ask. his needs, his wants, his life have always come dead fucking last. it doesn’t matter. it’s never mattered. worse, he fucking chose to live this way. worse still is that bob’s gleaming cock is mere inches away and yet completely out of reach. ]
I want. [ voice hoarse, his jaw aching. he blinks away the wetness on his lashes, his chest rising and falling unevenly. ] More. More than just you holding me down. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to hear. I just want to feel. Finish me off with your mouth or your cock, I don’t care. I just — I just want. You.
[ he is thoroughly fucking humiliated at this point, tears and spit and blood on his face, his own cock a damp, twitching mess in his pants. it was never supposed to be like this, the script all wrong, pages exposing his most wretched parts. he sways, a hand reaching out to curl at bob’s knee. ]
Don’t say no. [ since bob has taken a page out of embry’s book and decided he likes the word now. moreover, bob might be the only person who can blanket the noise clattering in his skull. ] Please, Bobby.
[ he can’t do everything embry asks, not literally, even while dipping into the poison well of his powers as the sentry, fearful his fingers will be tipped black on retreat. but maybe he can do enough. be enough. (now why would you think that, bobby?) with embry rattling apart in his hands, pieces shaking, like to shimmer and shatter if he doesn’t act, he has to try. bob slides that restraining hand from his shoulder to his throat, petting embry there like he’s a frightened animal. maybe he is, especially compared to what bob has become. not a wolf in the game, but beyond it.
there it is, then, caught in the slim space between them, gleaming in the dark: i just want you. the thing embry has avoided saying enough that bob assumed it wasn’t felt, at least not to the same degree. now it forces its way beneath peeling skin, sunburned by embry’s attention. something knocks loose in his chest. it's just what you say, when you're fucking somebody. when you want them to fuck you. it only feels like more 'cause embry's so wrecked. ]
Hey, easy, Embry. [ cradling his wounded cheek, thumb tugging at the red of his lip before something shifts. just bob, in that moment, and so everything softens. ] I want you, too. I’m gonna take care of you.
[ said as he hooks his fingers on embry’s tongue, his jaw, an immediate warning and promise that he’s going to finish what he started. he feeds embry his cock in the next moment, so embry doesn’t have to stutter through his wants any longer. whining himself as he pushes and pushes and pushes.
(nevermind that it’s a bad idea. the new worst idea embry has ever had — after killing a serial killer who’s just gonna resurrect all over again and siccing bob on anyone at full power. he’s already gone too far, see. there’ll be a toll, a visitor at the stroke of midnight come to collect. bob can already hear its warning. he won’t want to go anywhere near you after this. he’ll finally see you as you are.) ]
You’re doing good, Embry. It’s just you and me, me and you.
[ you’re not just you right now, but it’s too late, he’s coming down embry’s throat, holding him there until he’s red-faced and sputtering, then hauling him up like a ragdoll for a desperate kiss after. intoxicated by the taste of himself and embry’s blood on his tongue — when nothing else has affected him since his powers returned.
bob pins him against the wall with a hand cradling his skull, hard line still in place. i’m not hurting you, echoey in embry’s head, instead of his ears. i like you too much already replayed from the lawn. the crossed wires of his powers send everything direct to embry’s mind, or they pluck it from his memory in turn. how good he’d felt with embry’s cock in his mouth the first time. how dirty, afterwards. how he came back to embry in every dream, or embry came to find him. how badly he’d wanted embry to fuck him then, running parallel to how much he’d like to fuck embry now. not an option, so he shoves his hand down embry’s pants, fists his filthy cock and bite-kisses his throat, ruined by his pushing and now marked by his teeth. bob presses against embry’s fragile frame, inside his head so whatever he might see, hear, recall comes back to this. the haptic feedback loop of bob jerking him hard and fast, the sense-memory of their every real and imagined encounter to date. ]
[ relief and dread flood him in equal parts, mouth parting eagerly to swallow bob down as if he can outrun his own thoughts, his own bad decisions. because that’s what this has to be, right? no matter how good his intentions, how iron-clad his resolve, he always ends up walking down the wrong path, deviating from ash and greer’s light into his own thorny darkness. i’m gonna take care of you. you’re doing good. only a matter of time before bob realizes his mistakes.
but he’s so good in the here and now, choking him with his cock until embry is a gasping mess, then bringing him up for a kiss like he doesn’t care how wretched and pathetic he is right now. he kisses him like he really wants him, and embry devours the feeling, bob’s mouth so hot and sweet and earnest, so unlike his own bitterness and lies. his hand scrabbles for bob’s hip, trying to pull him closer, searching for any bit of friction before — a sudden veil drops, the sound echoing further and further away until it’s just bob’s voice. he sucks in a breath, trying to orient himself, his fingers curling roughly into the fabric of bob’s shirt. getting away feels futile, when he can’t move. when he doesn’t want to be anywhere but here.
panic needles at him, abruptly eclipsed by pleasure when bob takes him in hand, his hips rocking forward to chase the feeling. a crash of memories, winding back to the first time he laid eyes on bob, needy and pliant, kneeling at his feet. so different from the man before him now. no — not different, really. the same bob who won’t hurt him. who cares when his mind turns traitor, when it would be so much easier to let him drown. sharp heat at his throat, his hand coming up to thrust fingers into bob’s hair, holding tight. his head would knock back against the wall if not for the way bob holds him, thoughtful and tender even while jerking him off.
his rough movements sharpen, pleasure intensifying. i like you too much already., an echo, all consuming. panic eases back in, mingling with scorching lust. did he say it back? couldn’t have. not even if he wanted to. he wouldn’t have, because what would be the point in dragging bob into his misery? an awful realization: he wants to anyway, still. doesn’t want to see the end to this, when he knows with crystalline clarity that there will be an end. that whatever infatuation he has with bob will lead nowhere good. and still — he can’t think beyond wanting this. beyond bob’s mouth and hands and i like you too much already and the shimmering fury he feels at the thought of anyone putting their hands on him in a way that doesn’t bring the sting of transcendent pleasure to his eyes.
his dread wanes, the moment swaying. his mouth parts but he can’t make words. can’t see a damn thing beyond the slip of memories reeling through his skull. he writhes against the rough pressure of bob’s hand, nearly there. bob on his knees, looking up at him. bob with his teeth clenched around a dripping apple. bob with the bonfire flickering in his deep eyes. his thoughts are a runaway train, pushed forward by whatever dark, wrong thing that lives within him. bob headless in the cage, bob knifed in the gut, bob with an arrow in the heart, bob burning to his death in the wolf’s head.
he erupts with a sob, shuddering in disgust and shock and terrible, sticky desire, whatever cage he’s trapped in swirling with unseen darkness, the brush of something cold. never has he used a safe word with ash, not when he was bound or gagged or fucked to unconsciousness did he ever want to safe out of a bad decision — except now. he wants out of bob’s kingdom of control, primally, like an animal that’s walked into a trap and only just realized it. ]
Get off me. [ he doesn’t realize he’s crying until he forms the words, a ragged, icy command. vertigo slams into him, his fingers absurdly still grasping for bob’s solid warmth. ] Where is he? Where’s Bobby?
[ bob stops immediately, abruptly, pulling back as if embry has any strength at all. strength enough to hurt him, certainly, as he does now. gutting his supposedly impenetrable surface end-to-end, bleeding him out with the sound of his cry and the accusation on his lips. his dark eyes flash with it, confusion and pain and a kind of understanding. he won’t want you like this, won’t want you when you’re done, it’s just you and me, me and you, you you you you you. ]
It’s — it’s just me.
[ it’s all me. the sentry taking him higher, a manic impulse made manifest. the void isn’t here. it hasn’t touched embry — any darkness is entirely in his own mind, his own imagination, his own making. even so, it’s already too much. a mistake. proof of his poor character, ill-equipped for the power of a god.
bob steps back, hands held aloft, and with that, comes a chasm they might not cross again, bridged only by embry’s grip on him. it seems suddenly too great, too deep. his palm hovers above embry’s shoulder, no longer touching him. any instinct to comfort made unwelcome by embry’s command. he only wanted you low and pathetic. right, the same as val, the same as — well, the void. always easier to love a broken thing. always gentler when he’s fresh from the hospital. then it’s right back to square fucking one.
his expression shifts, arranging into something almost functional, unease in every strained line, only there’s a hint of defiance, too, in the set of his jaw. ]
You met the guy who was gonna die.
[ in an alleyway, a club bathroom, the foot of a bridge. at the hands of a pitying wolf, or under the heel of some rich fuck like embry. ]
Now I’m more.
[ than that, than human. ]
Sorry to disappoint.
[ grief dulling a remark he wishes was sharp, even with embry wrecked and vulnerable before him. maybe bobby did die back then, strapped to a table in an oxe laboratory. his pulse must have stopped, and resuscitation must have failed, else they wouldn’t have marked him deceased. ]
[ nearly four decades on this earth and he’s never felt so degraded. no, not even close to the right word, because he likes the degradation. he liked when ash fucked him with two fresh bullet holes in him. liked when greer asked him to act out her worst nightmares and give in to his most depraved thoughts. he never even knew he craved such things until ash brought it out of him, and years later, greer. there’s nothing groundbreaking about asking bob for the same, not when he’s fucked his way up and down entire coastal lines, only — bob isn’t any of those nameless faces anymore. hasn’t been since embry’s bloody fingers slipped into his mouth. maybe he never was.
he’s never felt so poisonous. that’s more fitting for a man who watched ash die, greer die, hawk die. one common denominator between them. bob pulls back like something radioactive has blossomed between them, and still embry won’t let him go, one hand grasping his shirt like the floor will split in two if he doesn’t hold on, his eyes as bright as the bloom of wildflowers. ]
You’re more. [ repeated, like a brick to the head. his breath shivers, tears cooling on his cheeks. ] Yeah, I know you’re fucking more. You’re — [ riotous, cataclysmic, fucking nuclear. all in the eyes, and a little in the way he can make embry stop breathing, too. i’d probably do anything for you. anything, everything, the only way he knows how to devote himself to a person. even if they never know it.
with the way bob looks at him now, as bruised as the night sky, it’s better if he doesn’t know. the best gift he can give is one where he spares bob the disappointment. sacrifice, drilled into his head, pressed upon his heart. let him hate you. it’s better this way.
he forces the tension out of his fingers, his grip on bob slipping away, until they’re no longer touching, embry’s back against the wall, the silence punctuated by the pull of his own breath. ]
Sorry I asked. [ even, biting, before he reins in his frayed composure, reaching for the polished politician, a shiny gloss over his soulless fucking desolation. there’s nothing you can’t sacrifice. ] It was fun, though. While it lasted.
[ pulse rapid, like the whir of helicopter blades, hating every moment his heart keeps beating. he refuses to meet bob’s eyes, his gaze vacant, hollowed out. ]
[ embry, snot nosed and pleading, does not inspire anger. he doesn’t even inspire disappointment, when bob hasn’t had standards for how others treat him in some time. it’s all — hurt, bubbling over, bleeding through any confusion.
but it’s stupid to be hurt, right? when embry did the same thing last time, sick by the bonfire, and lied to his face about it. it wasn’t the kiss. it wasn’t you. only this wouldn’t happen to him on repeat, a record scratch, if he weren’t flawed in some fundamental way. you’re, embry says, and leaves it unfinished ‘cause there’s nothing to add. his strength, his power, is frightening and off-putting. his capacity for violence has snuffed any hope for connection. when embry looks at him or touches him, bob knows what he sees.
it’s the same, when he looks in the mirror. it’s bucky’s arm and koby’s head, ava’s throat in his hand. the sound of people running on the blacktop, screaming until they can’t, silenced by shadow. his expression coalesces, mortally wounded in a way he could never hide, even with years of media training. eyes blinking back sentiment, mouth slack with shock. ]
Wow. [ momentarily stunned into silence by embry’s pivot. ] That’s, I mean — You gave up quick.
[ on the lie, pretending that bob mattered or that embry cared or some combination of the two falsities. all that tracks, when bob’s response has given him the perfect escape route. and he knows it’s for the best, at least for embry, if he lets him take it. the only good thing you can do is leave him be. it still hurts, to think this was embry’s plan since at least the games: ripcord as soon as the opportunity presented itself. ]
I’ll get you out of here. [ looking askance, then squeezing his eyes shut, like that’ll ease the burn. ] You can beg me to let you go fuck yourself, or say something even shittier to me, if it makes you feel better, but I’m not doing that to Ash and Greer.
[ not after watching them suffer in the games. and it wouldn’t even feel good, to know embry was dying here. he’d just feel like even more a piece of shit than he already does, especially when bucky cares so deeply for embry’s partners. ]
I’ll give you thirty seconds to follow. You don’t, I carry you like I should’ve done earlier. [ no breaks for a pity fuck. an adrenaline rush. a tool for embry moore to play with until he cuts himself on a jagged edge. ] You run or fall, I do the same. [ his eyes flash, their dulled dark meeting embry’s, more resigned than confident. stubborn, still. ] You’re benched, Moore.
[ it’s never been more obvious that he could try for a hundred years, could get on his knees and swear his fealty and kiss his fucking feet, and still never be worthy of bob’s goodness. he could never earn his way to something so pure, not with all the power and money and influence in the world. it’s both a miracle and a fucking tragedy that ash and greer have opened their lives, their marriage to the likes of him. wonders like that shouldn’t come around twice, not when embry has to live with the relentless trials of their unholy unity and the terrible part he’s played in their suffering.
bob looks at him like he’s driven a sword through his chest. no mask, no defenses against this. against him.
at least he has definitive fucking proof that god isn’t real, since he or she hasn’t struck him dead yet. he feels like he’s just shot his favorite pony in the head. ]
Well, you know me. Or maybe you don’t. [ his composure holds, in part because he can feel essential parts of himself going numb. ] It’s not personal. I don’t like to stay in one place for too long.
[ because he likes him too much already. because he doesn’t know how to do this because he’s never actually done it — always had ash to guide him and greer to coax him out of running. never reached with both hands for anything himself.
he knows it’s wrong to chase his anger, to follow the winding path of his worst impulses, and still he feels a fiery spark of irritation that bob still cares enough to not let him go fuck himself. that, and a crushing wave of longing. for bob. for death. to be anyone but himself, because then maybe he wouldn’t have to keep enduring the sight of the wound he’s gouged between them.
he pushes off the wall, blinking back the twinge of discomfort that brings him fully to the present, his face suddenly throbbing, feeling filthy in a way that he only wants more of. i just want you. so simple. a death knell. ]
I’ll follow you, Bobby. [ quietly weary. no need to play hide and seek with his demons when he knows they’re waiting for him the second he closes his eyes. bob has already turned away, so he looks at the nape of his neck, warm and sweet beneath the tousle of his hair. ] Just lead the way.
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it makes him very fucking irritable to have the tables flipped on him, worse because it’s hot and he likes it, and he hates that he likes it because the entire basis of what he has with bob is simple and easy, and examining any part of it is out of the question. they walk as if they’re crossing the red sea, bob sharp-eyed and possessive, and embry deliberately does not disobey despite itching to. they make it out of the dank fighting pits and down the hall, ducking into a parlor done up in cinderella blue, a glistening pumpkin carriage taking up a third of the space.
there, he pushes bob against the wall — or more specifically, he makes a piss poor attempt at it, and bob graciously steps into the right position. he’s vibrating with a version of the same post-battle high he used to get in carpathia, heady with the knowledge that he escaped death, or maybe arrested with the disappointment of it. his hands slide beneath bob’s shirt, never tucked in, leaning in to press his shaking fingers to electric skin. he’s grown somewhat familiar with bob’s body in the last few weeks, the solid flex of his muscles, the specific way his skin flushes in pleasure, but the dangerous magnetism is new. like embry could be a thing crushed in his grip. sharper than any ache in his body, lust lances through him. ]
You chose this? [ his hands still trace the lines of his body, learning a statue by touch. his gaze meets his, abruptly destabilized. ] You interrupted me. If everyone else had to go, then why can’t I?
[ contemptuous. it’s my life, i can waste it if i want to. in a flurry of motion, he yanks at bob’s belt, opening up his fly. sinking to his knees feels like a relief, easier not to stay on two feet. he wastes no time on playing coy or teasing him to breathlessness — just takes him all the way from root to tip, swallowing hard when he pushes closer to shove him down his throat. pain erupts in his face, fresh blood from his lips smearing along bob’s cock, and that has him rock hard in an instant, his muffled keens rumbling up his chest and through his stuffed throat. ]
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you chose this? embry rasps, and bob doesn’t know what he means. not with those hands sliding over the hard angles of his torso. is he talking about the body oxe built in a laboratory? frankensteined together with super serums and untested solutions. buffing out any imperfections before he awoke. or is he referring to, well, embry — who hadn’t — who wouldn’t ask to be rescued. a similar split takes place internally, arousal kindled by every touch, the hungry look darkening the horizon of embry’s eyes. nevermind how the adrenaline and attention both brighten the burn of his ego. ]
Embry. [ one hand skids across his shoulder, hesitant to anchor there, let alone somewhere more fragile, more essential, like his neck or hair. his fingers curl into his palm, resting uselessly. bob tips his head back with a groan, and the resultant crack isn’t his skull, but the cobblestone wall. ] Embry, what the fuck —
[ he needs a doctor, or at least someone gentler than bob is in this state, the molten gold of his eyes still swirling. he tries to blink it away, or force himself to focus on anything beyond the tight heat of embry’s mouth. the achy little sounds he hasn’t heard any of the times they’ve fucked around before. he’s already dizzy from the adrenaline high, the carriage in his periphery twinkling like stars.
when he hazards a glance down at embry, a mess of tousled hair and bloodied cheekbones, he hitches his hips on instinct. chokes a whine. regrets everything, when he hears the sputter from below, and it makes his dick twitch. ]
Don’t hurt yourself. [ an order cemented by the firm hand in embry’s hair, guiding him back until he only holds the head of bob’s cock in his mouth, hot against his eager tongue. ] Easy, or we’re done here.
[ a surety in his tone, so unlike the bob that embry has come to know. despite his own flush, the uneven rise and fall of his chest, he’s slow to relax his grip. an exercise in control. fingers tentative in embry’s hair, grazing his bruised temple. in the next breath, he unfurls the hand at embry’s shoulder, thumb pressing above his collarbone. and yet — even like this, he’s easy to read. gears visibly turning in his head. ]
If you listen, I’ll hold you down, okay?
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if bob lets him. the threat flickers through his mind, and his natural inclination to disagree weighs against how badly he wants bob’s cock to find the bottom of his throat. he relents, relaxing his tongue, bob’s grip in his hair as carefully measured as when ash wants to be cruel.
unlike ash: he’s bargaining with him instead of dropping demands at his feet. he tenses beneath bob’s touch, suddenly attuned to every word. briefly, he looks up, eyes lingering on the cracked wall behind bob’s head, both unsettled and enthralled by the swirling color of his eyes. if you listen. doesn’t know what to make of the fact that bob doesn’t think to just overpower him into making this go exactly the way he wants. ]
You have to do more than that. You have to give me more. [ voice roughened by the drag of his dick. despite his haughty tone, his eyes betray an aching plea, glinting with sharp points of shattered need. i want you so fucking bad. on him, inside of him, bob taking what he’s owed for dragging him out of the ring even if he won’t thank him for it. no, bob owes him. ] I can take it. You’d have to hurt me a lot worse than this to get me to tap out.
[ arguably, he doesn’t know what the extent of his injuries are, only that they’re secondary to the velvet weight of bob’s cock in his mouth, which he’s more careful with now but no less aggressive, sucking him down like a deep inhale. slowly, he inches forward, lashes fluttering, half expecting bob to drag him back by his hair again. a heady moan sinks out of him, his throat flexing, wetness springing to his eyes at how painfully, erotically drawn out this is, the forced slowness causing a crash of halting thoughts in his head. the warm, salty taste of bob’s leaking head drips down his straining throat, his scraped knuckles curling into bob’s hip as he swallows convulsively around the meager drops, another pleading rumble from his jagged chest. please please please fucking come down my throat, please let me have this, please let me have you. ]
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with a shake of his head, ]
I don’t want to hurt you. [ bob cards his fingers back through embry’s hair, blunt nails dragging against his scalp. the thought of it only fills him with dread. ] I won’t, Embry.
[ finality in his low tone, pain writ in his twisted features. that’s not what this is. what it can be, with him, no matter how embry cajoles or pleads. because with his terrible strength, hurting embry would be bone-breaking, neck-snapping, head-splitting — the scenario stephen painted for everyone in bleeding watercolour. it would have been easy for bob to remove koby’s head. to force saber’s through the bars of the cage. to bisect homelander with hand or gaze. to kill everyone here, as himself or the sentry or something much worse. each imagined scenario takes his panic up a notch. stomach churning, interest flagging. the same nausea that overtook embry at the party rises in his throat, when all he can think of is the bodies they saw, mutilated by strength like or less than his own. his grip on embry’s hair tightens and relaxes, loose enough to see if embry’s going to give him what he asked for.
luckily, impossibly, embry listens, slows, and it helps. bob tries to focus on the drag of his tongue, the desperate need in his too blue eyes. that purposeful pace, the intentive way embry advances and swallows him down. his mouth parts on a ragged moan. as a reward, he surrounds embry with his hands, fisted in his hair, pinning his shoulder in place. ]
Other people probably have to put you in your place, right? Rough you up. [ a tilt of his head, the gold of his eyes settled and shining. he holds embry perfectly still, drawing back enough to rock into his mouth at his own pace. ] Order you around? [ lighlty mocking, ] Hands behind your back or — [ bob eases him back and then guides him forward again, breath catching. ] They just tie ‘em, maybe, like you did mine? [ a roll of his shoulders as he takes the lead. bob fucks into embry’s mouth languidly, confidently, and all embry can do is take it. ] I don’t have to do any of that. I don’t have to do anything.
[ or listen to anyone, not when he’s like this. embry could come at him with everything he has, and he wouldn't even scuff the paint job on his abs. case in point: he takes embry beyond what he can manage on his own, throat spasming around his cock. no need for a harsh grip to keep him there, plenty capable of it with his thumb sweeping over embry’s temple, his fingers squeezing, then gentling the nape of his neck. no blood, no brutality, just power and control. transfixed by the tears in embry's eyes, streaking his cheeks. (overwhelmed by the fact that he wants this when bob could break him on accident.)
it almost gets him over the line, but bob slides back, steadying embry through the inevitable sputtering breaths by cupping his jaw. and with two fingers on his shoulder, bob keeps him from tipping forward for more until he calms. ]
You can ask me, though, if there's something else you want.
[ as if his voice isn't thick with need. as if his cock isn't leaking. ]
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the rush of sudden force is unlike anything he’s ever felt before, far beyond the immobilization of ropes or cuffs or leashes. deprivation of a kind he’s never experienced. bob holds him with familiar hands and embry can’t move an inch, his breath rushing out of him, adrenaline spiking through a sticky pool of lust. bob’s ocean eyes are the sun now, heat boring straight into him, and no amount of straining can get him away from this — he tries, out of natural instinct, then stops when bob feeds him his cock and he can’t pull back, focusing completely on not choking in his new predicament. eyes closing, heat flooding his face at being so thoroughly used, like he’s just a hole to be fucked.
the sound he makes, half breath half moan, is a concession or acknowledgement or just wild desperation, bob’s measured movements blocking out all rational thought when there’s only him and his steady hands and how deep embry can take him. he isn’t forceful, isn’t cruel. but he doesn’t have to be. he has embry so completely under his control that he aches with need, the even, deliberate motions so much more torturous than any strike could ever be. bob isn’t like anyone he’s ever met. his crooked smile and sweet eyes. the rough, panicked breaths he’d taken when embry had snapped at him. the soft press of his body when it was just the two of them out in the woods. this same man, with enough power to drive embry to his knees and thank him for it. i don’t have to do anything. it should scare him, but it doesn’t — not in the way fear is supposed to be a deterrent. it draws him in, fills him with intoxicating want.
then he’s gone, leaving embry rasping for breath, wracked with shudders, limited movement flooding back. he looks up, a flash of untamed torment in his eyes that bob would make him ask. his needs, his wants, his life have always come dead fucking last. it doesn’t matter. it’s never mattered. worse, he fucking chose to live this way. worse still is that bob’s gleaming cock is mere inches away and yet completely out of reach. ]
I want. [ voice hoarse, his jaw aching. he blinks away the wetness on his lashes, his chest rising and falling unevenly. ] More. More than just you holding me down. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to hear. I just want to feel. Finish me off with your mouth or your cock, I don’t care. I just — I just want. You.
[ he is thoroughly fucking humiliated at this point, tears and spit and blood on his face, his own cock a damp, twitching mess in his pants. it was never supposed to be like this, the script all wrong, pages exposing his most wretched parts. he sways, a hand reaching out to curl at bob’s knee. ]
Don’t say no. [ since bob has taken a page out of embry’s book and decided he likes the word now. moreover, bob might be the only person who can blanket the noise clattering in his skull. ] Please, Bobby.
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there it is, then, caught in the slim space between them, gleaming in the dark: i just want you. the thing embry has avoided saying enough that bob assumed it wasn’t felt, at least not to the same degree. now it forces its way beneath peeling skin, sunburned by embry’s attention. something knocks loose in his chest. it's just what you say, when you're fucking somebody. when you want them to fuck you. it only feels like more 'cause embry's so wrecked. ]
Hey, easy, Embry. [ cradling his wounded cheek, thumb tugging at the red of his lip before something shifts. just bob, in that moment, and so everything softens. ] I want you, too. I’m gonna take care of you.
[ said as he hooks his fingers on embry’s tongue, his jaw, an immediate warning and promise that he’s going to finish what he started. he feeds embry his cock in the next moment, so embry doesn’t have to stutter through his wants any longer. whining himself as he pushes and pushes and pushes.
(nevermind that it’s a bad idea. the new worst idea embry has ever had — after killing a serial killer who’s just gonna resurrect all over again and siccing bob on anyone at full power. he’s already gone too far, see. there’ll be a toll, a visitor at the stroke of midnight come to collect. bob can already hear its warning. he won’t want to go anywhere near you after this. he’ll finally see you as you are.) ]
You’re doing good, Embry. It’s just you and me, me and you.
[ you’re not just you right now, but it’s too late, he’s coming down embry’s throat, holding him there until he’s red-faced and sputtering, then hauling him up like a ragdoll for a desperate kiss after. intoxicated by the taste of himself and embry’s blood on his tongue — when nothing else has affected him since his powers returned.
bob pins him against the wall with a hand cradling his skull, hard line still in place. i’m not hurting you, echoey in embry’s head, instead of his ears. i like you too much already replayed from the lawn. the crossed wires of his powers send everything direct to embry’s mind, or they pluck it from his memory in turn. how good he’d felt with embry’s cock in his mouth the first time. how dirty, afterwards. how he came back to embry in every dream, or embry came to find him. how badly he’d wanted embry to fuck him then, running parallel to how much he’d like to fuck embry now. not an option, so he shoves his hand down embry’s pants, fists his filthy cock and bite-kisses his throat, ruined by his pushing and now marked by his teeth. bob presses against embry’s fragile frame, inside his head so whatever he might see, hear, recall comes back to this. the haptic feedback loop of bob jerking him hard and fast, the sense-memory of their every real and imagined encounter to date. ]
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but he’s so good in the here and now, choking him with his cock until embry is a gasping mess, then bringing him up for a kiss like he doesn’t care how wretched and pathetic he is right now. he kisses him like he really wants him, and embry devours the feeling, bob’s mouth so hot and sweet and earnest, so unlike his own bitterness and lies. his hand scrabbles for bob’s hip, trying to pull him closer, searching for any bit of friction before — a sudden veil drops, the sound echoing further and further away until it’s just bob’s voice. he sucks in a breath, trying to orient himself, his fingers curling roughly into the fabric of bob’s shirt. getting away feels futile, when he can’t move. when he doesn’t want to be anywhere but here.
panic needles at him, abruptly eclipsed by pleasure when bob takes him in hand, his hips rocking forward to chase the feeling. a crash of memories, winding back to the first time he laid eyes on bob, needy and pliant, kneeling at his feet. so different from the man before him now. no — not different, really. the same bob who won’t hurt him. who cares when his mind turns traitor, when it would be so much easier to let him drown. sharp heat at his throat, his hand coming up to thrust fingers into bob’s hair, holding tight. his head would knock back against the wall if not for the way bob holds him, thoughtful and tender even while jerking him off.
his rough movements sharpen, pleasure intensifying. i like you too much already., an echo, all consuming. panic eases back in, mingling with scorching lust. did he say it back? couldn’t have. not even if he wanted to. he wouldn’t have, because what would be the point in dragging bob into his misery? an awful realization: he wants to anyway, still. doesn’t want to see the end to this, when he knows with crystalline clarity that there will be an end. that whatever infatuation he has with bob will lead nowhere good. and still — he can’t think beyond wanting this. beyond bob’s mouth and hands and i like you too much already and the shimmering fury he feels at the thought of anyone putting their hands on him in a way that doesn’t bring the sting of transcendent pleasure to his eyes.
his dread wanes, the moment swaying. his mouth parts but he can’t make words. can’t see a damn thing beyond the slip of memories reeling through his skull. he writhes against the rough pressure of bob’s hand, nearly there. bob on his knees, looking up at him. bob with his teeth clenched around a dripping apple. bob with the bonfire flickering in his deep eyes. his thoughts are a runaway train, pushed forward by whatever dark, wrong thing that lives within him. bob headless in the cage, bob knifed in the gut, bob with an arrow in the heart, bob burning to his death in the wolf’s head.
he erupts with a sob, shuddering in disgust and shock and terrible, sticky desire, whatever cage he’s trapped in swirling with unseen darkness, the brush of something cold. never has he used a safe word with ash, not when he was bound or gagged or fucked to unconsciousness did he ever want to safe out of a bad decision — except now. he wants out of bob’s kingdom of control, primally, like an animal that’s walked into a trap and only just realized it. ]
Get off me. [ he doesn’t realize he’s crying until he forms the words, a ragged, icy command. vertigo slams into him, his fingers absurdly still grasping for bob’s solid warmth. ] Where is he? Where’s Bobby?
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It’s — it’s just me.
[ it’s all me. the sentry taking him higher, a manic impulse made manifest. the void isn’t here. it hasn’t touched embry — any darkness is entirely in his own mind, his own imagination, his own making. even so, it’s already too much. a mistake. proof of his poor character, ill-equipped for the power of a god.
bob steps back, hands held aloft, and with that, comes a chasm they might not cross again, bridged only by embry’s grip on him. it seems suddenly too great, too deep. his palm hovers above embry’s shoulder, no longer touching him. any instinct to comfort made unwelcome by embry’s command. he only wanted you low and pathetic. right, the same as val, the same as — well, the void. always easier to love a broken thing. always gentler when he’s fresh from the hospital. then it’s right back to square fucking one.
his expression shifts, arranging into something almost functional, unease in every strained line, only there’s a hint of defiance, too, in the set of his jaw. ]
You met the guy who was gonna die.
[ in an alleyway, a club bathroom, the foot of a bridge. at the hands of a pitying wolf, or under the heel of some rich fuck like embry. ]
Now I’m more.
[ than that, than human. ]
Sorry to disappoint.
[ grief dulling a remark he wishes was sharp, even with embry wrecked and vulnerable before him. maybe bobby did die back then, strapped to a table in an oxe laboratory. his pulse must have stopped, and resuscitation must have failed, else they wouldn’t have marked him deceased. ]
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he’s never felt so poisonous. that’s more fitting for a man who watched ash die, greer die, hawk die. one common denominator between them. bob pulls back like something radioactive has blossomed between them, and still embry won’t let him go, one hand grasping his shirt like the floor will split in two if he doesn’t hold on, his eyes as bright as the bloom of wildflowers. ]
You’re more. [ repeated, like a brick to the head. his breath shivers, tears cooling on his cheeks. ] Yeah, I know you’re fucking more. You’re — [ riotous, cataclysmic, fucking nuclear. all in the eyes, and a little in the way he can make embry stop breathing, too. i’d probably do anything for you. anything, everything, the only way he knows how to devote himself to a person. even if they never know it.
with the way bob looks at him now, as bruised as the night sky, it’s better if he doesn’t know. the best gift he can give is one where he spares bob the disappointment. sacrifice, drilled into his head, pressed upon his heart. let him hate you. it’s better this way.
he forces the tension out of his fingers, his grip on bob slipping away, until they’re no longer touching, embry’s back against the wall, the silence punctuated by the pull of his own breath. ]
Sorry I asked. [ even, biting, before he reins in his frayed composure, reaching for the polished politician, a shiny gloss over his soulless fucking desolation. there’s nothing you can’t sacrifice. ] It was fun, though. While it lasted.
[ pulse rapid, like the whir of helicopter blades, hating every moment his heart keeps beating. he refuses to meet bob’s eyes, his gaze vacant, hollowed out. ]
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but it’s stupid to be hurt, right? when embry did the same thing last time, sick by the bonfire, and lied to his face about it. it wasn’t the kiss. it wasn’t you. only this wouldn’t happen to him on repeat, a record scratch, if he weren’t flawed in some fundamental way. you’re, embry says, and leaves it unfinished ‘cause there’s nothing to add. his strength, his power, is frightening and off-putting. his capacity for violence has snuffed any hope for connection. when embry looks at him or touches him, bob knows what he sees.
it’s the same, when he looks in the mirror. it’s bucky’s arm and koby’s head, ava’s throat in his hand. the sound of people running on the blacktop, screaming until they can’t, silenced by shadow. his expression coalesces, mortally wounded in a way he could never hide, even with years of media training. eyes blinking back sentiment, mouth slack with shock. ]
Wow. [ momentarily stunned into silence by embry’s pivot. ] That’s, I mean — You gave up quick.
[ on the lie, pretending that bob mattered or that embry cared or some combination of the two falsities. all that tracks, when bob’s response has given him the perfect escape route. and he knows it’s for the best, at least for embry, if he lets him take it. the only good thing you can do is leave him be. it still hurts, to think this was embry’s plan since at least the games: ripcord as soon as the opportunity presented itself. ]
I’ll get you out of here. [ looking askance, then squeezing his eyes shut, like that’ll ease the burn. ] You can beg me to let you go fuck yourself, or say something even shittier to me, if it makes you feel better, but I’m not doing that to Ash and Greer.
[ not after watching them suffer in the games. and it wouldn’t even feel good, to know embry was dying here. he’d just feel like even more a piece of shit than he already does, especially when bucky cares so deeply for embry’s partners. ]
I’ll give you thirty seconds to follow. You don’t, I carry you like I should’ve done earlier. [ no breaks for a pity fuck. an adrenaline rush. a tool for embry moore to play with until he cuts himself on a jagged edge. ] You run or fall, I do the same. [ his eyes flash, their dulled dark meeting embry’s, more resigned than confident. stubborn, still. ] You’re benched, Moore.
[ and with that, he turns. ]
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bob looks at him like he’s driven a sword through his chest. no mask, no defenses against this. against him.
at least he has definitive fucking proof that god isn’t real, since he or she hasn’t struck him dead yet. he feels like he’s just shot his favorite pony in the head. ]
Well, you know me. Or maybe you don’t. [ his composure holds, in part because he can feel essential parts of himself going numb. ] It’s not personal. I don’t like to stay in one place for too long.
[ because he likes him too much already. because he doesn’t know how to do this because he’s never actually done it — always had ash to guide him and greer to coax him out of running. never reached with both hands for anything himself.
he knows it’s wrong to chase his anger, to follow the winding path of his worst impulses, and still he feels a fiery spark of irritation that bob still cares enough to not let him go fuck himself. that, and a crushing wave of longing. for bob. for death. to be anyone but himself, because then maybe he wouldn’t have to keep enduring the sight of the wound he’s gouged between them.
he pushes off the wall, blinking back the twinge of discomfort that brings him fully to the present, his face suddenly throbbing, feeling filthy in a way that he only wants more of. i just want you. so simple. a death knell. ]
I’ll follow you, Bobby. [ quietly weary. no need to play hide and seek with his demons when he knows they’re waiting for him the second he closes his eyes. bob has already turned away, so he looks at the nape of his neck, warm and sweet beneath the tousle of his hair. ] Just lead the way.