[ 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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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. ]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.