[ it’s everything and nothing at all, to finally see all of embry. as beautiful as he expected, built like he rowed crew or played lacrosse or any number of rich guy sports available to him. in the army, once, where he met ash, and still keeping himself in shape. he assumes the gunshot is from that time before, like the bullet wounds that litter yelena and bucky’s forms. a part of their lives bob has yet to understand — always a loner, never a soldier — but that he might, in time. the neck scar, he glimpsed at the commune in their second tryst, no ties or collars to hide behind in the woods. the memory of embry explaining it, after the fact, still makes his gut twist unpleasantly. heat of another kind, molten and dangerous. it would take one, long look to turn the force of a million suns on another person and ensure there was no body to resurrect.
(nevermind that the A stirs something curious and uneasy within him, when bob hated the marks he bore for so long. how they told nurses and teachers and particularly clever classmates exactly what had happened to him. it seems ten times more fucked in the head than it is romantic, but that tracks pretty neatly, for embry. more relevantly, the brand and the ring serve as reminders there’s somebody else involved here, who somehow knows less about what’s happened than his own teammate-turned-question-mark and that’s — old bob reynolds messy. risky stuff, too, for someone whose emotional state can impact the entire house.)
all secondary to the fact that bob thinks he would be enamoured with embry regardless of whether he looked like that. it helps that embry knows what do with someone who can’t ask for anything he needs, let alone what he wants (maybe because they share that struggle). being a tender had cut him open and made those things bleed out of him. easier then, with a need so great and all-consuming it physically pained him to deny it. now, he slows only because embry does. ever reactive and reflective, trying and failing not to rock into embry’s hand. with a palm cupping the pulse in his throat (safe, alive, here) and fingers tentative on his bare hip, skimming his thigh. wanting to feel the places he’s yet to touch before embry tells him where to put his hands. ]
You are really overestimating my religious experiences.
[ chuckle low, as he stands. his family was a classic, agonistic suburban situation. he can’t even imagine reynolds senior in the confessional booth.
a roll of his shoulders before he passes embry, a parting squeeze to the swell of his hip. hands up, then. no touching, got it. unfortunately, kneeling for embry is as hot as it was last time. no additives fucking required. he positions himself just so, upright, hands behind his back, glancing over his shoulder — ]
Down?
[ maybe not quite so pliable as he was at the commune, with the amused glint in his eye. ]
[ he almost wishes he could see the inner workings of bob’s mind as he looks him over, not for reasons as vain as wondering at the level of attraction he feels — a lot, if he’s here — but because he wants to know everything else bob thinks about him. if he’s been forgiven, for the last time they were together. if there was anyone else he could have called on or if it had to be embry. if it’s strange, looking at the ring he spent almost twenty years wishing and wishing and wishing for. the brand at his hip brings him no joy whatsoever, although it’s at least easy to allow the obvious assumption to stand as the truth. the real truth is that it happened during that terrible month that none of them were themselves, after he tried to kill ani, after ash had hauled him away, bloody and sobbing, and branded his punishment onto his skin. a for ash. a for anora. he never told him which.
if bob really looked, really fucking saw him down to his marrow — he wouldn’t stay. he wouldn’t be here at all. ]
Ash is religious. I’m not. [ his mouth curls upwards, turning to open a drawer. ] I just went because his ass looks good when he kneels in tight pants.
[ with a dark length of satiny fabric tucked into one hand, he walks over to the bed to admire bob’s (absolutely fucking perfect) naked body. propped up on his knees. hands obediently behind his back, which embry doesn’t touch. there would be no point in restraints, not now. but embry always found it far worse to be told keep your hands still and then be responsible for doing it. ropes were preferable to exhibiting self control, which he admittedly has very little of.
he doesn’t bother telling bob the rules. truthfully, he’s making up the game as he goes, because he doesn’t know what might feel good and what might feel like nothing to bob’s science experiment body. ]
No. Stay up. [ he smiles again, leaning down to run his hand through bob’s hair, curling his fingers at his nape. ] Now look at where you are. Door’s there. You’re here. Your clothes are on the floor. There’s a book on the nightstand. I’m reading Of Mice and Men, because Greer allegedly hates Steinbeck. Beyond the bathroom is Parisa’s room. Okay? But you’re here, with me.
[ stated firmly, a fact. some people lose themselves, when they lose their sense of sight — disoriented, unmoored, panicking the longer it goes on. bob, he thinks, has enough reasons lurking in the dark to be afraid to lose anything. and yet he’s here, after everything.
the bed dips as embry presses one knee behind bob, unfurling the blindfold. he brings it neatly over his eyes, tugging his hair out of the way for a neat fit, before he knots it behind his head. ]
No cheating. [ embry’s mouth touches the shell of his ear, his breath warm. he presses against him from behind, bob’s hands pinned between them, and reaches around to take his cock in hand for several rough strokes. ] I can’t see your eyes. So if you want to do anything freaky, then you have to tell me.
[ he presses a kiss to his jaw, then withdraws, climbing off the bed and leaving bob there. opens another drawer to pick out some things — lube, some choice toys — all the while keeping one eye on bob, to gauge his reaction. good or bad. if he wants this or not. if it’s bad and he still wants it. ]
[ bob is quietly observant, in his way. and more motivated than ever to look, catching whatever interested-complicated-curious expression flits across embry’s features. swiftly replaced by that golden smile, the shape of ash’s name in his mouth (and maybe bob is overthinking it, maybe he just isn’t worth mentioning to the others the way bucky is; that tracks, too). he watches the dip in embry’s back as he bends, the ripple of the muscles that he hasn’t touched but wants to. his mouth feels dry. anticipation skids down his spine. swallowing, he adjusts the lay of his hands behind his back, one hand clasping the opposite wrist. self-control is the name of the game, he figures, when no restraint could bind him. a small price to pay for embry to smile again, like the sun on the horizon.
that slip of fabric in his hand is known but unknown. and so bob follows embry’s words with his gaze, lingering on each point in the room. always flicking back to his hand. his head and heart on a string. he doesn’t know where this is going, beyond the obvious, with the soft fabric tickling his lashes, nestled so carefully in his hair by embry’s attentive hands. he doesn’t think to ask. happy to follow embry where he leads, as long as it means hewing close behind him. ]
Oh. [ in acknowledgement of the dark before him, endless as the void. (thick as the shadow that dripped from adam in the woods.) the illusion broken only by embry pushing close enough that bob can feel his cock nudge the cleft of his ass. caught between the desire to lean back into embry’s arms, so impossibly warm and bare against him for the first time, and to rock into his jerking hand. breath catching, ] I think you’re the freaky one.
[ emphasis in all the wrong places, keenly aware of his lashes brushing the silk when they stutter, the creak and give beneath his knees, embry’s cologne and heartbeat and hands. the well of his power, lapping at his insides. he could look too long and burn a hole through the blindfold into the nearest wall. embry, as he points out, won’t see the change. the warning glow of a nuclear reaction. because he's decided to trust bob the way bob trusts him. bad idea.
he likes it less when embry goes. when he’s alone in the dark (like always). a shivery sensation starts at his pelvis and radiates outward. the line of his shoulders and arms pulls taut. it occurs to him that now is the time to say, i’m not sure about this. but it’s so early to disappoint, isn’t it? and he can — he can hear embry, not just the rustling in the drawer. if he concentrates, he can pick out the faint shifts in the air. a strand of falling into his face. you can feel him, too, if he reaches through the dark with intent, gauging the molecular difference where air meets solid matter. but you shouldn’t be doing that.
so he heaves a sigh, like a disappointed dog. unable to slump as he usually would, with nerves straightening his back. aware that every part of him is just there — visible, available, vulnerable. not vulnerable, now that he’s — but it feels like it, with the cooler air nipping at his skin, goosebumps climbing his arms. ]
[ it takes no time at all to observe the way the blindfold affects him, embry pouring himself a drink while he watches bob with keen interest. the nerves pulling him taut. the way he’s gone silent despite embry never saying he couldn’t speak. the barely perceptible shivers ghosting over his skin. ice clinks in embry’s glass as he returns to the bedside, a low thump as he sets it down. ]
Relax.
[ back on the bed, he touches two fingers to bob’s mouth, featherlight over the seam of his lips, lingering. letting him acclimate to the sharpness of every touch when it’s unexpected. then it’s gone again, embry leaning over to sip his gin, slipping a cube of ice into his mouth. briefly, he considers that this is too much, too soon. it’s just a blindfold, knowing full well it’s never just anything when playing games like this. the real and the make-believe blur and tangle, suggestion pressing into his most vulnerable places, catching onto his most sinful needs. he and ash have had years to get it wrong, get it right, get it wrong again and stop giving a fuck about right at all. bob isn’t like that. he’s not like them. and yet he’d bloomed beneath the strike of embry’s hand, opening up to him like a flower with the more he gave.
what else does he need? the question preys at the edges of embry’s mind, in charge but always the same — wanting to serve. what could he possibly do for a man with the power of a thousand suns?
the next thing bob feels: embry’s mouth pressing a kiss to his chest, moving down his body as he sears a wet trail of cold down his perfect skin. he doesn’t touch him anywhere else, no steadying hands to keep him still. the ice melts slowly in the heat of his mouth, droplets sliding down the sharp lines of his body. embry moves lower, lower, lower, stopping just above his cock, swirling the ice with his tongue against bob’s taut abdomen. a slow drip cuts a path down to the base of his presently untouched cock, embry’s hungry gaze flickering over it, his hair brushing bob’s stomach. ]
Do you want my mouth somewhere else? [ he comes back up, lips to bob’s again as he transfers the sliver of ice to his mouth. one hand snakes up, teasing bob’s nipple before he pinches sharply. ] I have a lot of questions for you, Bobby. Starting with how does that feel?
[ it’s like — every movement, however near or far, disturbs the waters of his perception. a flutter of the breeze across the surface, when he hears embry pour his drink. bob wonders, briefly, at the appeal of all this for him. embry was right when he said bob couldn’t conceptualise pain as anything but punishment before him. and now, he only has the frame of reference to consider control. desire. something embry wants to do and have done to him, for reasons bob still hasn’t fully parsed.
embry’s touch is like an eddy, then, drawing him forward. breath caught by the fingers on his lips. gone before he can open his mouth for them. surely he ought be doing something more — ]
Easy for you to say. [ though he tries, knees shifting and widening on bedspread. another flex and curl of his fist. once, twice, three times; as though the repetitive motion will burn off the excess energy responsible for his rigidity. wasn’t he so pliable the last time, at the commune, with every strike flowing into him? or, no, it’s more that he was eventually, after he stopped viewing every blow as a frightful thing and instead as part of a rhythm. a reward.
now, it should be easier because it’s gentle, right? but it isn’t at all. the application of embry’s tongue makes him inhale, sudden and sharp. confusion as to how a chill can be drawn along the place he runs most hot, as if his power shines from a furnace, heat spilling out from between his ribs. with time, with embry’s dedication, the cold softens, but his hips still twitch. his breath still falters. half-held and heightening the defined lines of him until the kiss, when he finally lets go. even better, with embry’s hand on him. too slow to answer, tongue melting the last of the ice against the roof of his mouth. oh. ]
I — [ answer promptly derailed by embry tweaking his nipple, a soft noise of surprise slipping past his parted mouth. i think i’m more sensitive now wouldn’t have satisfied the question and probably just would have made embry tease him more. his brows knit above the silk. it’s too much to explain, anyhow, that his flesh can’t be cut yet everything he sees, hears, feels is somehow sharper. touch and pressure affective as they’ve ever been, if not more so, right up until the line of damage is crossed. ]
Okay. [ he’ll answer them, as if that was the first question, and not something about where he wants embry’s mouth.
(which is on his mouth, then everywhere, in that order, and as a rule; except at this particular moment, with the lingering droplets charting a path to his cock. in that case, there seems preferable, thanks.) ]
Um. Good? Doesn’t hurt, it’s just — there. Very there. A little — I think this. It might feel a little intense for me, like this.
[ more than it does for other people, or the same, only his new baseline is too hinky to tell. ]
[ embry is used to his lovers being the unashamedly filthy kind, all groping hands and biting teeth, no room for anything but urgent need. certainly no room for thought of any kind, no examination of mental states and capacities. he prefers it that way — dirty and unattached. and yet he’s attuned to everything bob says, his eyes searching the half-hidden planes of his face (easier to take his fill of looking, with bob blindfolded), listening carefully to the starts and stops of his breath. he pinches down again on the reddening bud between his fingertips, this time holding it. ]
Do you have a safe word? [ a perfectly reasonable question (or not, considering he already has him blindfolded and on edge), and still the moment the words are out, jealousy shears him. what if he does? the implication that bob has shared this with someone else before him makes sparks of aggression dance over his skin, possessive. his fingers abandon their work to reach down for bob’s straining dick, his thumb rubbing compulsively at his wet, pearly tip. ] If you don’t, choose one. Something you can still remember when you’re overwhelmed, but not so common that you might accidentally say it without meaning to. So, not my name.
[ it might feel a little intense. is it a warning? will the sentry come out to play if he feels too much? and what about the thing bob keeps hinting at that’s worse?
the sound of a cap opening. something wet. he captures bob’s mouth in a deep kiss, long and lingering. orienting him back to himself. ]
Relax. [ a quiet rumble into his mouth, while his hand moves down between his legs. ] I can’t mark you up anymore, which is a shame because I really liked how you looked with me all over you. I have to find other ways to make you mine now.
[ no preamble, before two lube-slick fingers push into him, the heady intoxication of something claimed. (something given. i wanted to be yours.) he starts a filthy rhythm, his wrist flexing while his fingers bury deeply, searchingly, inside of him. ]
A word, Bobby. [ his mouth strays, his tongue tracing bob’s jaw, struck with a perverse need to unearth every rock in front of him. ] Something special to you. Or important. Or just memorable.
[ what lives in your head? he wants to know — all of it, everything. his fingers move with expert precision, finding that taut little bundle inside of him and pressing down. ]
Not — [ stuttery with embry’s touch, dick already hard beyond belief, balls aching. his hands slip behind his back but he corrects them, not wanting to forget himself and reach out. his features stretch where tension knit them moments earlier. ] Not really. You know.
[ you know what i mean. you know how it is. you know i just go along with whatever, written in the lift and release of his shoulders. always tripping into this world rather than entering it with purpose. the few times he thought to seek relief from a person over a substance (rather than as a byproduct of the places he visited or state he was in), he just — figured it out. said i’m okay, when asked. never quite sober. rarely in the headspace to demarcate between what was acceptable and unacceptable, particularly in the matter of himself. still not versed in it, except for when something truly hurts.
he doubts embry could cross that line. certainly not when he tends him so well, grip firm and mouth hot. he leans up as much as he can without threatening his balance, into embry’s wandering hand like it’s the only thing keeping him in place or upright. at once performing the delicate work of reassembly and dismantlement.
all child’s play compared to the gift that makes everything click. i have to find other ways to make you mine. the real thing embry wants to give him (and does). bob gasp-groans, as embry claims him. a sudden, aching stretch. fullness and pressure, incapable of verging on pain. mine not as a hypothetical, qualified thing, but with a totality that eclipses all else.
still no answer, only staccato breaths and round, soft sounds excavated by every thrust of embry’s long fingers. urlrinately dragged out him by embry’s insistence. ]
Sunset? [ reedy, when his voice is normally so full. because he’s thinking about embry more than he is himself. about being embry’s, in the context of this. the very thing he couldn’t puzzle out, which makes the experience work, for him. all in between tilting his hips to take more, better, and keenly aware this position affords him little capacity to do so (which is — hot. and presumably also why embry chose it, which circles back around to the first point). while none of his muscles strain, his thighs tremble. as if he can rattle apart with need alone. there, there, there, the place that ruins him. he chokes on a moan. ]
Sunset. [ lips glancing off embry’s brow, exhale uneven in his hair. ] That, that is not me using it.
[ he completely loses his train of thought, seeing bob like this. unraveling right in his hands. softly aching sounds and the weight of his breath. it’s never been quite like this between them, always been rough, too rough, bob down on the ground with his boot between his legs, never like — this, with hard, unhurried strokes, the sweet tremble of bob’s body against him. he could do this all fucking day, test out this tireless marvel of a body and how many times he can come, a science experiment of his own. he licks at his collar, sucking a kiss to skin that refuses to bruise, feeling bob’s lips in his hair. then, one word, framed like a question. sunset.
something hooks in his chest, very narrowly missing puncturing his lung. his eyes flutter open, lashes sweeping along bob’s skin. he says it again, like embry didn’t hear it the first time. like maybe he didn’t get all the implications of the word hitting him in the face hard enough.
for one terrible moment, he wants to say choose a different word. wants to say i know what you’re doing. wants to say fuck you, bobby, for no particular reason other than he feels blindsided, his skittish animal heart suddenly kicking in his chest.
the one where you hold his hand and kiss beneath a muggy florida sunset.
he works his fingers in harder, shoving in to the knuckle, destabilized by the moan he draws out from bob’s lips. bob’s cock, so fucking hard, curves and flushes between them, and embry’s fares no better, wanting his mouth. wanting more than just his mouth. ]
Fine. [ his voice quiet, with a softly sharpened edge. ] Sunset.
[ then his hand is gone, bob untouched again. it could feel like a punishment — and maybe it is, a little, embry’s thorny, tender heart full of bitterness and unspoken desires, withholding as always. he sweeps a hand across the wrinkled covers, searching for the little silicone plug, drenching it in lube before climbing off the bed. ]
I want you to do something for me.
[ his fingers curl firmly around the back of bob’s neck, a light squeeze, before he pushes him forward, bowing him down as if he’s meant to be on all fours. in the place still wet from embry’s fingers, he eases in the plug, deep enough that he can feel it with every movement, tight enough that it stays wedged in when he lets go. taking a step back, he picks up his drink again, touching a slim remote sitting on the nightstand. a low buzzing fills the quiet room, the plug whirring to life in bob’s perfectly rounded ass.
he walks in a half circle around the bed, taking in bob’s bowed, shivering form. his own dick aches to be touched, but he can stay the course, if the course is carnal and depraved — as long as bob doesn’t keep saying things like sunset. what next? will he confess he actually thinks it’s great if embry shoots his dad in the head?
he takes quiet steps backwards, his bare feet silent on the soft carpet, the ice in his glass tinkling softly. with his back to the wall opposite the door, he stops. ]
[ for a little while, it’s so good, better, the best because even though bob can’t touch embry the way he wants to — the way embry can touch bob, the way he was meant to be touched — bob can still feel him. everywhere. both a comfort and the source of his mounting overwhelm: with his hair tickling sweaty skin, his mouth on bob’s chest, his pulse the only soundtrack apart from the slick, filthy sounds of his fingers inside bob, relentless. he could come like this. he’s going to, if embry lets him.
there’s no stoppage that would make bob question if he misstepped. no immediate withdrawal. it’s only that fine, paired with the judder of embry’s heart, that has him trying to think on it for any length on time. he adjusts his grip again because he has to, missing the first attempt at doing so when embry works him a little meaner. whimpering into embry’s hair because there’s nowhere else to hide in the dark.
(the counter to i know what you’re doing would have been obvious: i’m thinking about you. embry, as something special, important, safe, despite what happened at the pound. as the thing he’ll remember when little else makes sense.) ]
Embry. [ as the word he says aloud now, plaintive, when he’s left untouched and empty. fine. maybe he did fuck up or misunderstand, like always. his stomach flips, and it would sink, too, if he couldn’t hear embry moving nearby, pulse evening where bob’s goes wild. ] Anything.
[ for him. to make it up to him. damp at the nape of his neck, the base of his spine. he doesn’t have to go with embry’s touch — with anyone’s — but he does, of course, vulnerable in a way he hadn’t thought possible. made even more pliable by the blindfold, with his hands splayed against the bedspread. eyes closed, regardless, features crumpling with the surprise-pleasure-ache of the plug. the way his body parts for it and swallows it, more obscene to imagine than it is to see, maybe, when embry is fine, like he said. his face burns. ]
Fuck — [ he’s going to fucking die or cum or beg without knowing what he’s asking for. crawl. his skin tingles with the humiliation of it. he pushes himself up on shaky arms — funny, because they don’t shake when adrian’s on his back, counting reps and losing track the second another idea enters his head; when bucky’s leaning on the barbell to apply every ounce of his strength, and the barest strain sets in. he thinks, good thing i have superpowers, because someone normal might eat shit instead of sliding off the bed and back onto all fours with inhuman balance. even then, even knowing exactly where embry is in the room, he’s tender. like the commune. like an impossible bruise on his impenetrable skin. embry knows exactly where to press to make him ache.
like now, with the act of obedience running heat trails down his back — with the plug’s vibrations, felt keenly from his taint to his cock — it’s difficult to focus on the shape of embry in the dark. the fact of him, now amorphous to his senses. his heartbeat seems faint, with the other stimuli in play, and the journey to him painfully far, but he makes it, anyway. ]
Embry, can I — [ strained as he tips back on his knees, accidentally fucking the plug in deeper, the subsequent sound punched out of him. bob ducks his head, the romantic sweep of his hair cresting his brow, and returns his hands to his back. ] Can I cum? Please.
[ he takes a step forward when he thinks bob might falter from the bed, suddenly wondering if this is too much, too rough like always. he’s seen it happen often at lyonesse, the headrush of falling too far into yourself, the space where thought and choice and sanctions end, where a good partner, a good dom would step in and stop the crash straight to the bottom. but bob isn’t his submissive and he’s certainly not a dominant, so none of that applies here — even if he is keenly aware that they’re playing with all the pieces here, only with none of the safe guards in place. just one single word that embry probably won’t listen to because bob had the audacity to choose it.
but he listens. he crawls, and the sight is mesmerizing, well aware that there’s something deeply fucked up in him that gets off on bob picking his way across the floor to him, uncertainty in every unseen step. embry’s breath is ragged by the time he makes it to his feet, watching bob sit back, the light catching the gleam of sweat on his skin, drinking in the way his muscles flex as his hands lock behind his back once more. no, it wasn’t the commune at all, wasn’t the role forced upon him that had him at embry’s feet in the first place — and that thought comes with implications of its own, ones that set embry’s heart racing once more, ones that he manifestly does not want to think about.
his hands cradle bob’s cheeks, tilting his face up as if he can see him. he can feel every bit of his tension like this, the desire thrumming through him that he wears so fucking well, anything anything anything on a loop in his head. ]
You’re so good, Bobby. [ at this. to me. his fingers curl through his hair, tightening into a fist to pull him back, one hand tracing the damp line of his throat. ] You’re so fucking good.
[ he drags him up to his feet, giving him no room to protest, his hand on his cock while the other stays fisted in his hair. bob’s hips buck easily into his hand, stroking him fast, then slow, squeezing him tight to stave off his orgasm before starting again. it’s biting, desperate, needy when he kisses him — he needs this, him, his for now while he has him, for as little time as that may be. ]
Do you forgive me? [ with his hand rough on his cock, mouth hot on his skin. unfair to ask this now, while he pushes bob toward orgasm, but his guilt wells up out of nowhere, shivers skittering over him as he remembers the thrall of bob’s hold, how much he can want something that he wants to run from at the same time. ] For before? For what I said. For how I am. Say you forgive me.
[ you said anything. doesn’t even have to mean it, when he only wants to hear it. ]
[ it’s only on that aching crawl, the hard floor, that bob loses himself a little. unmoored in space and time, adrift in his own head without the anchor of sight or touch until embry takes him in hand again. pries him open, staring into the gulch of his longing. bob can tell, even with the wet of his lashes sticking to the blindfold, because embry maps the planes of his face under his hands and must feel the contours of his need with it.
you’re so good makes him suck in a breath. makes it worth the flare of embarrassment — the tangled snarl of supplication when there’s a bright, brilliant part of him that rejects the premise of kneeling entirelt. the praise loosens those knots and tangles. and embry doesn’t give him any time to twist himself up further, instead unravelling him with relentless precision. he’s lightheaded from being dragged to his feet, dizzy with desire. and he’s forgotten how to use his hands. that he has hands at all. ]
Embry — [ the thought broken by embry working him up, up, up and cutting him off. hole squeezing around the plug to try and get himself over the edge. hips fucking into embry’s hand. shoulders shaking from holding back. unstable on his feet, stumbling now where he hadn’t on the bed. the plug keeps sending static shocks of pleasure through him, even when embry stills. and he doesn’t for long. held upright not by enhanced strength or balance but by embry’s grip. knowing that without the hand in his hair pulling his spine straight, the lean of his not-insignificant weight against embry’s shoulder — mouth seeking his resolute jaw, blindfold soft against embry’s cheek — he’d be back on his knees, a coltish collapse. ]
[ whimpered in his ear, ] I like how you are. [ the only part of what embry asks for that he half-understands. mercurial and evasive and fucking endearing with his roundabout affections. ] Embry, please. [ he’s so hard it hurts, teetering on a jagged ledge. ] I — I forgive you, okay?
[ bob means it, is the thing. voice gravelly, every word excavated from deep within. he doesn’t know what he’s forgiving embry for, only exactly how embry’s going to make it up to him. whether or not he can forget, he can forgive anything. allow anything. if it means he gets to have this. if it makes him good and better and more. ]
I forgive you. [ he’s a goner. words sticking in his throat and teeth scraping embry’s collar, that’s all the acknowledgement he can manage before he’s coming with a full-body shudder. ]
[ i forgive you. he wants to say do you really? wants to pick it apart until those words are shredded and destroyed in his hands, so he can point at bob and say see? you are a liar, and you don’t actually want to be here. but nothing that’s happening now supports his argument, because there’s only bob and the bowstring tension of his body, his weight against him because he somehow trusts embry not to let him fall, the soft, soft cadence of his begging. blindfold and hands still in place, even though he could’ve changed that anytime.
he wants to go to his knees and catch every drop of bob on his tongue, but he lets him spill all over his hand instead so he doesn’t have to let him go, waiting barely a moment before walking him backwards until he hits the bed. he tumbles him down onto the mattress and splays a hand against his collarbone, embry rutting like a schoolboy against the muscled curve of bob’s thigh before he’s coming with a groan, burying his face into bob’s cheek, flattened by the force of his orgasm when bob’s mouth and hands and ass remain completely unused.
well, not his ass. the faint buzzing reaches his ears, bob pinned to the bed with the plug still wedged in him, and he takes the smallest amount of pity, reaching down to nudge it in further for just a few more seconds, kissing along the damp line of bob’s jaw, before he finally flicks it off and eases it out. bob makes a devastating silhouette in the dark, tousled and gleaming, and embry takes a moment to stare, his cheeks simmering with heat, before he pulls at the blindfold, tugging it over bob’s head. guilt and worry and arousal clench like a fist in him at the sight of the tears wetting bob’s eyes. blue, still blue. ]
Hey. [ his hand nestles in bob’s hair, throat tight as he swallows. ] Are you okay? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have — I should have asked.
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(nevermind that the A stirs something curious and uneasy within him, when bob hated the marks he bore for so long. how they told nurses and teachers and particularly clever classmates exactly what had happened to him. it seems ten times more fucked in the head than it is romantic, but that tracks pretty neatly, for embry. more relevantly, the brand and the ring serve as reminders there’s somebody else involved here, who somehow knows less about what’s happened than his own teammate-turned-question-mark and that’s — old bob reynolds messy. risky stuff, too, for someone whose emotional state can impact the entire house.)
all secondary to the fact that bob thinks he would be enamoured with embry regardless of whether he looked like that. it helps that embry knows what do with someone who can’t ask for anything he needs, let alone what he wants (maybe because they share that struggle). being a tender had cut him open and made those things bleed out of him. easier then, with a need so great and all-consuming it physically pained him to deny it. now, he slows only because embry does. ever reactive and reflective, trying and failing not to rock into embry’s hand. with a palm cupping the pulse in his throat (safe, alive, here) and fingers tentative on his bare hip, skimming his thigh. wanting to feel the places he’s yet to touch before embry tells him where to put his hands. ]
You are really overestimating my religious experiences.
[ chuckle low, as he stands. his family was a classic, agonistic suburban situation. he can’t even imagine reynolds senior in the confessional booth.
a roll of his shoulders before he passes embry, a parting squeeze to the swell of his hip. hands up, then. no touching, got it. unfortunately, kneeling for embry is as hot as it was last time. no additives fucking required. he positions himself just so, upright, hands behind his back, glancing over his shoulder — ]
Down?
[ maybe not quite so pliable as he was at the commune, with the amused glint in his eye. ]
cw mentions of assault
if bob really looked, really fucking saw him down to his marrow — he wouldn’t stay. he wouldn’t be here at all. ]
Ash is religious. I’m not. [ his mouth curls upwards, turning to open a drawer. ] I just went because his ass looks good when he kneels in tight pants.
[ with a dark length of satiny fabric tucked into one hand, he walks over to the bed to admire bob’s (absolutely fucking perfect) naked body. propped up on his knees. hands obediently behind his back, which embry doesn’t touch. there would be no point in restraints, not now. but embry always found it far worse to be told keep your hands still and then be responsible for doing it. ropes were preferable to exhibiting self control, which he admittedly has very little of.
he doesn’t bother telling bob the rules. truthfully, he’s making up the game as he goes, because he doesn’t know what might feel good and what might feel like nothing to bob’s science experiment body. ]
No. Stay up. [ he smiles again, leaning down to run his hand through bob’s hair, curling his fingers at his nape. ] Now look at where you are. Door’s there. You’re here. Your clothes are on the floor. There’s a book on the nightstand. I’m reading Of Mice and Men, because Greer allegedly hates Steinbeck. Beyond the bathroom is Parisa’s room. Okay? But you’re here, with me.
[ stated firmly, a fact. some people lose themselves, when they lose their sense of sight — disoriented, unmoored, panicking the longer it goes on. bob, he thinks, has enough reasons lurking in the dark to be afraid to lose anything. and yet he’s here, after everything.
the bed dips as embry presses one knee behind bob, unfurling the blindfold. he brings it neatly over his eyes, tugging his hair out of the way for a neat fit, before he knots it behind his head. ]
No cheating. [ embry’s mouth touches the shell of his ear, his breath warm. he presses against him from behind, bob’s hands pinned between them, and reaches around to take his cock in hand for several rough strokes. ] I can’t see your eyes. So if you want to do anything freaky, then you have to tell me.
[ he presses a kiss to his jaw, then withdraws, climbing off the bed and leaving bob there. opens another drawer to pick out some things — lube, some choice toys — all the while keeping one eye on bob, to gauge his reaction. good or bad. if he wants this or not. if it’s bad and he still wants it. ]
nsfw (lol)
that slip of fabric in his hand is known but unknown. and so bob follows embry’s words with his gaze, lingering on each point in the room. always flicking back to his hand. his head and heart on a string. he doesn’t know where this is going, beyond the obvious, with the soft fabric tickling his lashes, nestled so carefully in his hair by embry’s attentive hands. he doesn’t think to ask. happy to follow embry where he leads, as long as it means hewing close behind him. ]
Oh. [ in acknowledgement of the dark before him, endless as the void. (thick as the shadow that dripped from adam in the woods.) the illusion broken only by embry pushing close enough that bob can feel his cock nudge the cleft of his ass. caught between the desire to lean back into embry’s arms, so impossibly warm and bare against him for the first time, and to rock into his jerking hand. breath catching, ] I think you’re the freaky one.
[ emphasis in all the wrong places, keenly aware of his lashes brushing the silk when they stutter, the creak and give beneath his knees, embry’s cologne and heartbeat and hands. the well of his power, lapping at his insides. he could look too long and burn a hole through the blindfold into the nearest wall. embry, as he points out, won’t see the change. the warning glow of a nuclear reaction. because he's decided to trust bob the way bob trusts him. bad idea.
he likes it less when embry goes. when he’s alone in the dark (like always). a shivery sensation starts at his pelvis and radiates outward. the line of his shoulders and arms pulls taut. it occurs to him that now is the time to say, i’m not sure about this. but it’s so early to disappoint, isn’t it? and he can — he can hear embry, not just the rustling in the drawer. if he concentrates, he can pick out the faint shifts in the air. a strand of falling into his face. you can feel him, too, if he reaches through the dark with intent, gauging the molecular difference where air meets solid matter. but you shouldn’t be doing that.
so he heaves a sigh, like a disappointed dog. unable to slump as he usually would, with nerves straightening his back. aware that every part of him is just there — visible, available, vulnerable. not vulnerable, now that he’s — but it feels like it, with the cooler air nipping at his skin, goosebumps climbing his arms. ]
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Relax.
[ back on the bed, he touches two fingers to bob’s mouth, featherlight over the seam of his lips, lingering. letting him acclimate to the sharpness of every touch when it’s unexpected. then it’s gone again, embry leaning over to sip his gin, slipping a cube of ice into his mouth. briefly, he considers that this is too much, too soon. it’s just a blindfold, knowing full well it’s never just anything when playing games like this. the real and the make-believe blur and tangle, suggestion pressing into his most vulnerable places, catching onto his most sinful needs. he and ash have had years to get it wrong, get it right, get it wrong again and stop giving a fuck about right at all. bob isn’t like that. he’s not like them. and yet he’d bloomed beneath the strike of embry’s hand, opening up to him like a flower with the more he gave.
what else does he need? the question preys at the edges of embry’s mind, in charge but always the same — wanting to serve. what could he possibly do for a man with the power of a thousand suns?
the next thing bob feels: embry’s mouth pressing a kiss to his chest, moving down his body as he sears a wet trail of cold down his perfect skin. he doesn’t touch him anywhere else, no steadying hands to keep him still. the ice melts slowly in the heat of his mouth, droplets sliding down the sharp lines of his body. embry moves lower, lower, lower, stopping just above his cock, swirling the ice with his tongue against bob’s taut abdomen. a slow drip cuts a path down to the base of his presently untouched cock, embry’s hungry gaze flickering over it, his hair brushing bob’s stomach. ]
Do you want my mouth somewhere else? [ he comes back up, lips to bob’s again as he transfers the sliver of ice to his mouth. one hand snakes up, teasing bob’s nipple before he pinches sharply. ] I have a lot of questions for you, Bobby. Starting with how does that feel?
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embry’s touch is like an eddy, then, drawing him forward. breath caught by the fingers on his lips. gone before he can open his mouth for them. surely he ought be doing something more — ]
Easy for you to say. [ though he tries, knees shifting and widening on bedspread. another flex and curl of his fist. once, twice, three times; as though the repetitive motion will burn off the excess energy responsible for his rigidity. wasn’t he so pliable the last time, at the commune, with every strike flowing into him? or, no, it’s more that he was eventually, after he stopped viewing every blow as a frightful thing and instead as part of a rhythm. a reward.
now, it should be easier because it’s gentle, right? but it isn’t at all. the application of embry’s tongue makes him inhale, sudden and sharp. confusion as to how a chill can be drawn along the place he runs most hot, as if his power shines from a furnace, heat spilling out from between his ribs. with time, with embry’s dedication, the cold softens, but his hips still twitch. his breath still falters. half-held and heightening the defined lines of him until the kiss, when he finally lets go. even better, with embry’s hand on him. too slow to answer, tongue melting the last of the ice against the roof of his mouth. oh. ]
I — [ answer promptly derailed by embry tweaking his nipple, a soft noise of surprise slipping past his parted mouth. i think i’m more sensitive now wouldn’t have satisfied the question and probably just would have made embry tease him more. his brows knit above the silk. it’s too much to explain, anyhow, that his flesh can’t be cut yet everything he sees, hears, feels is somehow sharper. touch and pressure affective as they’ve ever been, if not more so, right up until the line of damage is crossed. ]
Okay. [ he’ll answer them, as if that was the first question, and not something about where he wants embry’s mouth.
(which is on his mouth, then everywhere, in that order, and as a rule; except at this particular moment, with the lingering droplets charting a path to his cock. in that case, there seems preferable, thanks.) ]
Um. Good? Doesn’t hurt, it’s just — there. Very there. A little — I think this. It might feel a little intense for me, like this.
[ more than it does for other people, or the same, only his new baseline is too hinky to tell. ]
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Do you have a safe word? [ a perfectly reasonable question (or not, considering he already has him blindfolded and on edge), and still the moment the words are out, jealousy shears him. what if he does? the implication that bob has shared this with someone else before him makes sparks of aggression dance over his skin, possessive. his fingers abandon their work to reach down for bob’s straining dick, his thumb rubbing compulsively at his wet, pearly tip. ] If you don’t, choose one. Something you can still remember when you’re overwhelmed, but not so common that you might accidentally say it without meaning to. So, not my name.
[ it might feel a little intense. is it a warning? will the sentry come out to play if he feels too much? and what about the thing bob keeps hinting at that’s worse?
the sound of a cap opening. something wet. he captures bob’s mouth in a deep kiss, long and lingering. orienting him back to himself. ]
Relax. [ a quiet rumble into his mouth, while his hand moves down between his legs. ] I can’t mark you up anymore, which is a shame because I really liked how you looked with me all over you. I have to find other ways to make you mine now.
[ no preamble, before two lube-slick fingers push into him, the heady intoxication of something claimed. (something given. i wanted to be yours.) he starts a filthy rhythm, his wrist flexing while his fingers bury deeply, searchingly, inside of him. ]
A word, Bobby. [ his mouth strays, his tongue tracing bob’s jaw, struck with a perverse need to unearth every rock in front of him. ] Something special to you. Or important. Or just memorable.
[ what lives in your head? he wants to know — all of it, everything. his fingers move with expert precision, finding that taut little bundle inside of him and pressing down. ]
cw refs to drug abuse, sex under the influence
[ you know what i mean. you know how it is. you know i just go along with whatever, written in the lift and release of his shoulders. always tripping into this world rather than entering it with purpose. the few times he thought to seek relief from a person over a substance (rather than as a byproduct of the places he visited or state he was in), he just — figured it out. said i’m okay, when asked. never quite sober. rarely in the headspace to demarcate between what was acceptable and unacceptable, particularly in the matter of himself. still not versed in it, except for when something truly hurts.
he doubts embry could cross that line. certainly not when he tends him so well, grip firm and mouth hot. he leans up as much as he can without threatening his balance, into embry’s wandering hand like it’s the only thing keeping him in place or upright. at once performing the delicate work of reassembly and dismantlement.
all child’s play compared to the gift that makes everything click. i have to find other ways to make you mine. the real thing embry wants to give him (and does). bob gasp-groans, as embry claims him. a sudden, aching stretch. fullness and pressure, incapable of verging on pain. mine not as a hypothetical, qualified thing, but with a totality that eclipses all else.
still no answer, only staccato breaths and round, soft sounds excavated by every thrust of embry’s long fingers. urlrinately dragged out him by embry’s insistence. ]
Sunset? [ reedy, when his voice is normally so full. because he’s thinking about embry more than he is himself. about being embry’s, in the context of this. the very thing he couldn’t puzzle out, which makes the experience work, for him. all in between tilting his hips to take more, better, and keenly aware this position affords him little capacity to do so (which is — hot. and presumably also why embry chose it, which circles back around to the first point). while none of his muscles strain, his thighs tremble. as if he can rattle apart with need alone. there, there, there, the place that ruins him. he chokes on a moan. ]
Sunset. [ lips glancing off embry’s brow, exhale uneven in his hair. ] That, that is not me using it.
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something hooks in his chest, very narrowly missing puncturing his lung. his eyes flutter open, lashes sweeping along bob’s skin. he says it again, like embry didn’t hear it the first time. like maybe he didn’t get all the implications of the word hitting him in the face hard enough.
for one terrible moment, he wants to say choose a different word. wants to say i know what you’re doing. wants to say fuck you, bobby, for no particular reason other than he feels blindsided, his skittish animal heart suddenly kicking in his chest.
the one where you hold his hand and kiss beneath a muggy florida sunset.
he works his fingers in harder, shoving in to the knuckle, destabilized by the moan he draws out from bob’s lips. bob’s cock, so fucking hard, curves and flushes between them, and embry’s fares no better, wanting his mouth. wanting more than just his mouth. ]
Fine. [ his voice quiet, with a softly sharpened edge. ] Sunset.
[ then his hand is gone, bob untouched again. it could feel like a punishment — and maybe it is, a little, embry’s thorny, tender heart full of bitterness and unspoken desires, withholding as always. he sweeps a hand across the wrinkled covers, searching for the little silicone plug, drenching it in lube before climbing off the bed. ]
I want you to do something for me.
[ his fingers curl firmly around the back of bob’s neck, a light squeeze, before he pushes him forward, bowing him down as if he’s meant to be on all fours. in the place still wet from embry’s fingers, he eases in the plug, deep enough that he can feel it with every movement, tight enough that it stays wedged in when he lets go. taking a step back, he picks up his drink again, touching a slim remote sitting on the nightstand. a low buzzing fills the quiet room, the plug whirring to life in bob’s perfectly rounded ass.
he walks in a half circle around the bed, taking in bob’s bowed, shivering form. his own dick aches to be touched, but he can stay the course, if the course is carnal and depraved — as long as bob doesn’t keep saying things like sunset. what next? will he confess he actually thinks it’s great if embry shoots his dad in the head?
he takes quiet steps backwards, his bare feet silent on the soft carpet, the ice in his glass tinkling softly. with his back to the wall opposite the door, he stops. ]
Crawl.
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there’s no stoppage that would make bob question if he misstepped. no immediate withdrawal. it’s only that fine, paired with the judder of embry’s heart, that has him trying to think on it for any length on time. he adjusts his grip again because he has to, missing the first attempt at doing so when embry works him a little meaner. whimpering into embry’s hair because there’s nowhere else to hide in the dark.
(the counter to i know what you’re doing would have been obvious: i’m thinking about you. embry, as something special, important, safe, despite what happened at the pound. as the thing he’ll remember when little else makes sense.) ]
Embry. [ as the word he says aloud now, plaintive, when he’s left untouched and empty. fine. maybe he did fuck up or misunderstand, like always. his stomach flips, and it would sink, too, if he couldn’t hear embry moving nearby, pulse evening where bob’s goes wild. ] Anything.
[ for him. to make it up to him. damp at the nape of his neck, the base of his spine. he doesn’t have to go with embry’s touch — with anyone’s — but he does, of course, vulnerable in a way he hadn’t thought possible. made even more pliable by the blindfold, with his hands splayed against the bedspread. eyes closed, regardless, features crumpling with the surprise-pleasure-ache of the plug. the way his body parts for it and swallows it, more obscene to imagine than it is to see, maybe, when embry is fine, like he said. his face burns. ]
Fuck — [ he’s going to fucking die or cum or beg without knowing what he’s asking for. crawl. his skin tingles with the humiliation of it. he pushes himself up on shaky arms — funny, because they don’t shake when adrian’s on his back, counting reps and losing track the second another idea enters his head; when bucky’s leaning on the barbell to apply every ounce of his strength, and the barest strain sets in. he thinks, good thing i have superpowers, because someone normal might eat shit instead of sliding off the bed and back onto all fours with inhuman balance. even then, even knowing exactly where embry is in the room, he’s tender. like the commune. like an impossible bruise on his impenetrable skin. embry knows exactly where to press to make him ache.
like now, with the act of obedience running heat trails down his back — with the plug’s vibrations, felt keenly from his taint to his cock — it’s difficult to focus on the shape of embry in the dark. the fact of him, now amorphous to his senses. his heartbeat seems faint, with the other stimuli in play, and the journey to him painfully far, but he makes it, anyway. ]
Embry, can I — [ strained as he tips back on his knees, accidentally fucking the plug in deeper, the subsequent sound punched out of him. bob ducks his head, the romantic sweep of his hair cresting his brow, and returns his hands to his back. ] Can I cum? Please.
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but he listens. he crawls, and the sight is mesmerizing, well aware that there’s something deeply fucked up in him that gets off on bob picking his way across the floor to him, uncertainty in every unseen step. embry’s breath is ragged by the time he makes it to his feet, watching bob sit back, the light catching the gleam of sweat on his skin, drinking in the way his muscles flex as his hands lock behind his back once more. no, it wasn’t the commune at all, wasn’t the role forced upon him that had him at embry’s feet in the first place — and that thought comes with implications of its own, ones that set embry’s heart racing once more, ones that he manifestly does not want to think about.
his hands cradle bob’s cheeks, tilting his face up as if he can see him. he can feel every bit of his tension like this, the desire thrumming through him that he wears so fucking well, anything anything anything on a loop in his head. ]
You’re so good, Bobby. [ at this. to me. his fingers curl through his hair, tightening into a fist to pull him back, one hand tracing the damp line of his throat. ] You’re so fucking good.
[ he drags him up to his feet, giving him no room to protest, his hand on his cock while the other stays fisted in his hair. bob’s hips buck easily into his hand, stroking him fast, then slow, squeezing him tight to stave off his orgasm before starting again. it’s biting, desperate, needy when he kisses him — he needs this, him, his for now while he has him, for as little time as that may be. ]
Do you forgive me? [ with his hand rough on his cock, mouth hot on his skin. unfair to ask this now, while he pushes bob toward orgasm, but his guilt wells up out of nowhere, shivers skittering over him as he remembers the thrall of bob’s hold, how much he can want something that he wants to run from at the same time. ] For before? For what I said. For how I am. Say you forgive me.
[ you said anything. doesn’t even have to mean it, when he only wants to hear it. ]
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you’re so good makes him suck in a breath. makes it worth the flare of embarrassment — the tangled snarl of supplication when there’s a bright, brilliant part of him that rejects the premise of kneeling entirelt. the praise loosens those knots and tangles. and embry doesn’t give him any time to twist himself up further, instead unravelling him with relentless precision. he’s lightheaded from being dragged to his feet, dizzy with desire. and he’s forgotten how to use his hands. that he has hands at all. ]
Embry — [ the thought broken by embry working him up, up, up and cutting him off. hole squeezing around the plug to try and get himself over the edge. hips fucking into embry’s hand. shoulders shaking from holding back. unstable on his feet, stumbling now where he hadn’t on the bed. the plug keeps sending static shocks of pleasure through him, even when embry stills. and he doesn’t for long. held upright not by enhanced strength or balance but by embry’s grip. knowing that without the hand in his hair pulling his spine straight, the lean of his not-insignificant weight against embry’s shoulder — mouth seeking his resolute jaw, blindfold soft against embry’s cheek — he’d be back on his knees, a coltish collapse. ]
[ whimpered in his ear, ] I like how you are. [ the only part of what embry asks for that he half-understands. mercurial and evasive and fucking endearing with his roundabout affections. ] Embry, please. [ he’s so hard it hurts, teetering on a jagged ledge. ] I — I forgive you, okay?
[ bob means it, is the thing. voice gravelly, every word excavated from deep within. he doesn’t know what he’s forgiving embry for, only exactly how embry’s going to make it up to him. whether or not he can forget, he can forgive anything. allow anything. if it means he gets to have this. if it makes him good and better and more. ]
I forgive you. [ he’s a goner. words sticking in his throat and teeth scraping embry’s collar, that’s all the acknowledgement he can manage before he’s coming with a full-body shudder. ]
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he wants to go to his knees and catch every drop of bob on his tongue, but he lets him spill all over his hand instead so he doesn’t have to let him go, waiting barely a moment before walking him backwards until he hits the bed. he tumbles him down onto the mattress and splays a hand against his collarbone, embry rutting like a schoolboy against the muscled curve of bob’s thigh before he’s coming with a groan, burying his face into bob’s cheek, flattened by the force of his orgasm when bob’s mouth and hands and ass remain completely unused.
well, not his ass. the faint buzzing reaches his ears, bob pinned to the bed with the plug still wedged in him, and he takes the smallest amount of pity, reaching down to nudge it in further for just a few more seconds, kissing along the damp line of bob’s jaw, before he finally flicks it off and eases it out. bob makes a devastating silhouette in the dark, tousled and gleaming, and embry takes a moment to stare, his cheeks simmering with heat, before he pulls at the blindfold, tugging it over bob’s head. guilt and worry and arousal clench like a fist in him at the sight of the tears wetting bob’s eyes. blue, still blue. ]
Hey. [ his hand nestles in bob’s hair, throat tight as he swallows. ] Are you okay? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have — I should have asked.