[ no need to answer those first few questions because, well, they’re fucked up. that’s the long and short of it. it’s a stiff contest as to whether the commune or the pound — or the pool sleepwalking incident — or the boxing day near-cataclysm are more fucked up, so. ]
[ a long, long pause, wherein he considers the right answer to this. which would be to not fucking do this at all. there's no payout for it, no way it helps anyone. bob has already gotten himself demoted and slapped by the house. his stubborn fucking attitude to say no to everything grates against embry's steely determination to say yes and pretend like he has a choice in doing so.
he wavers, his throat tightening when he realizes he has a choice in this. that's it's the only real choice he's had all month. the only thing he can say he walked into willingly. ]
Meet me in the study. Now. I'm not going easy on you.
Choose a safe word. In case you can't snap your fingers.
[ he wonders if embry has thought about what it means for bob to say yes — to touch a stranger and see their first heartbreak, the betrayal that lives in their skin, the agony that they’ve buried deep. live on camera, reality tv at its finest.
he doesn’t want to bring it up, when embry might not be thinking of his own hurt at bob’s hands for the first time in weeks. ]
okay
[ mind already reeling, electricity sparking down his spine. if he can’t snap, if embry binds his hands again and gifts him goodpain in place of the bad — ]
sentry
[ value neutral this time, when embry hated his last pick. ]
[ sentry. embry doesn't know which of bob's personalities is worse. the quick answer — the void. endless haunted rooms, endless pain, the danger of never finding his way back to the light. the not so quick answer is that the sentry might scare him even more, when he can't tell if he's looking at bob or someone else. when one or the other or both are capable of cutting him open with the truth. ]
No. Not that. Use the other one.
[ sunset, the quiet fantasy that sits unspoken between them. he's still processing that bob wants this at all. it's not like the commune, where embry was bound by the same rules, the same set of urges that kept bob on his knees. there's nothing calculated about this, no thought or plan beyond a desire to possess something. to seize control. a desperate grab at righting his equilibrium when every day, every moment has been a loop of opening his eyes to abilene's naked body and the slow realization of what she'd taken from him. should i kneel? saying yes would mean embry has thought about what would happen after. ]
You're going to kneel whether you want to or not. Last chance to back out. If you show up, you're mine.
Edited (forgotted my problematic cws) 2026-02-26 00:53 (UTC)
[ the one that always makes him think of embry now. that he thought embry hated. ]
late on the warning there, embry
[ intentionally ambiguous, already on his way to the study, already embry’s at least in part since the commune —
for want of specific instruction, bob perches on the desk while he waits , slouchy as ever in his hoodie, long legs stretched so his heels touch the floor. he wraps the toggles of the hood around a fingertip and releases it, not quite nervous. unsure what to expect with embry in general and this month in particular. wanting whatever pieces of him he’s allowed, anyway. ]
[ he almost doesn't come. it's a pattern now, with bob — he thinks about if he should really be doing this, the answer comes out to be a glaringly obvious no, and then he swears to himself that he's going to be a better man this time. he knows better than anyone that these games of make-believe always bleed into reality. that they've been real to him from the start.
but he's not a better man. he's not a man that anyone would be proud to know, especially not now, with all the things he's done to get through this month. the things he still wants to do — specifically to bob, to feed the awful, churning dark inside of him.
he finds bob sitting on the desk, his wide eyes rising to meet embry when he walks in. sitting there, just waiting, like any of this is purposeful. waiting like an offering, a sacrificial lamb. so fucking pretty. embry isn't religious, but his partners are, and so the passover lamb comes to mind, without blemish, a male a year old. two weeks, and then you kill your lamb in the evening.
it occurs to him that he's never, ever done this the right way. not the way ash was taught at lyonesse by mark, with embry absorbing information only in how he thrilled at being ash's practice toy. there are certain things he should know about bob before diving in. things bob may not have ever thought about or even know himself. he comes close, forcing bob to scoot back onto the table when he pushes his legs open and crowds into his space. ]
I can hurt you now. What are your limits? [ such a vast question. if embry was presented with it, he doesn't know how he would respond. more than likely, he would say nothing. literally, nothing. nothing too painful or depraved for a man who needs something mythological and unholy to feel a moment of peace. his hand trails along the nape of bob's neck, caressing softly. all his pent-up aggression burns to the surface, a mad grasp for control. ] Tell me your safe word.
[ his fingers slide into the dark tousle of his hair, fisting a handful, and then he's pulling with sharp intention, hard enough to straighten bob's spine and have him squirming to stay at the right height. he keeps bob's face tilted toward his, watching him, heat flooding him at the sight of him struggling. no sentry, no void, no power beyond the hard muscle quivering beneath his clothes. ]
[ he wonders, sometimes, if embry knows how this is supposed to go. less on a technical level and more in the sense of, like, if you don’t care about what happens to yourself, if there’s no line for you — it gets harder to see where that is for other people. it makes you careless. it takes you down terrible, winding paths with no end, whatever foul thing embry cultivates with danny (as if it ought to be nurtured, not cut out at the root) is a symptom of it. and maybe bob benefits from it, too, when embry can’t want him for any good reason. maybe bob reflects it, when he risks himself just as easily, as carelessly. when they’re together, bob suspects that embry half-hopes for the agony of the void or command of the sentry (before they become tangible threats, bob did, too).
— except that’s not an option tonight. except nobody’s tuning in from the start or paying out at the finish. the only reason to do this is old-fashioned desire, without prompt or audience to encourage it.
bob doesn’t know what to do with that. i can hurt you now drags a gulp from his throat, adam’s apple bobbing. couldn’t he always? hasn’t he? a wound that flows both ways. bob figures he got under embry’s skin just the same without his powers as with them.
when embry pushes between his thighs, nudging him back enough that his shoes no longer rest on solid ground (that bob’s hips tilt up and his head tips back to hold embry’s attention). breath already caught with embry’s hand on his nape, pupils dilating (a blue that’s almost black, no liquid gold to poison the well). he keeps looking apart from the rapid blinks, permanently startled, recalculating the parameters of their intimacy — experiencing everything in real time, not the slowed-down perception that comes with his power. ]
The other one. [ pushing back, just a touch. ] Sunset. [ quicker to mind than any sort of limit, even though he’s untangled some with corry in recent months. embry is — different. high risk, high reward. he presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, the back of his teeth. ] Nothing to the face. [ even a light slap could draw him back to the house in the suburbs. the dark door with the chipped paint. ] I can take anything else.
[ a burst of static electricity where embry touches him, arcing down the heightened bend of his spine. one hand skids over the hard wood, nails scraping the surfaces where they might have clawed or broken it mere days earlier. unbalanced, when he hasn’t been in months, when he shouldn’t be, dizzy from the strangeness of it.
he lifts the baggy fabric of his hoodie with his other hand, exposing different impressions than yelena and ani’s bite-kisses. the kind only strong hands make at your hip when a grip turns bruising, the action lasting or repetitive enough to leave a mark. and bob, who so often looks away or at least slightly to the left, finds his focus locked on embry’s face, tracking the way his eyes shift in the light. ]
[ he remembers that. nothing to the face. a pang in his chest at the implication, eyes dropping down to the lifted hoodie and imagining all the hurt that his body once hid. it isn't abilene's hand in his now, but galahad's tiny one, holding on warm and tight. he can't imagine not wanting to give him the whole world. can't imagine anyone harming him that he wouldn't kill with his own hands.
no void to feed on his memories. his fingertips have somehow ended up on bob's cheek, stroking gentle lines down his face, in opposition to how his other hand still mercilessly fists bob's hair. his gaze drops down again, sharpening at the sight of the marks at his hips. not kisses or bites. a possessive hold.
he wrenches at bob's hair, pulling his head back to expose his throat, and then his mouth is on him, all teeth and hard kisses atop every bruise, every bite, traveling down his body to follow the path mapped out across his skin. every mark reddens and darkens beneath his attention, a new claim staked on his already tenderly abused flesh. ]
Tell me each one as I go. Tell me who.
[ ani. yelena. armand. corry. he wants to hear it, wants bob to confess like he's a cheating lover, like an adulterous fucking whore come to beg at his feet. he pops the buttons on bob's jeans and unzips his fly, yanking the denim off so he can expose his most hidden bruises, digging his thumb into the blue-black at his hips. finally relinquishing his hold on his hair, he hooks bob by the thighs, pulling his hips off the table and lifting them toward him. intentionally rough, a stir of desire when bob's back hits the wood. laid out with his hoodie still rucked up around him, his bruises wet with spit. ]
And who has you here? [ his teeth sink into unmarked flesh, a groan in his throat as he licks and sucks and kisses the softness of his inner thighs. ] Here? [ another kiss. another bite. he trails marks all around, leaving bob's cock untouched where it strains in his briefs. his eyes flicker up, glittering. ] Show me you can snap your fingers.
[ he waits to see it, then he's pulling bob off the table and pushing him down to his knees. embry pulls his belt off and tosses it to the table with a clatter, then he's gripping bob's hair again, his cock already in hand as he shoves it roughly into bob's mouth, so hard it drives bob back into the heavy wooden desk drawers. it veers on impersonal, like bob is just a thing to fuck, a hole to stick his dick in, like he could be any warm body against him right now, save for the small tells — embry's hand cradling his skull so his knuckles crack against the drawers instead of bob's head, the way his entire body strains to fuck bob's mouth but he holds still so he won't choke (as much) on his dick. ]
I'm gonna put bruises on you that no one can see. So every time you swallow you can remember that you're fucking mine. [ he pushes all the way in, so far that he can feel bob's rigid breath against him, that he can feel the tight constriction of his throat. ] Open up all the way for me, Bobby.
[ for the boy who has never belonged anywhere, who only recently found people and relationships that might hold steady, embry’s jealousy (armand’s questioning, ani’s upset) had intiitally been an unfamiliar, uncertain thing. like trying to toe a line you can’t see, never quite sure if you stepped out-of-bounds. now, he wonders if the shape isn’t more familiar — just another form of wanting. another of embry’s paradoxes, too. the kind of man who says don’t want you to think of anybody else, don’t want you to go to them and then asks that the spectre of bob’s other lovers be made real, name by name.
he sucks in a breath when embry first laves over another bite, when his teeth scrape someone else’s bruise and reclaim it, newly tender. hands tented on the wood, hips rolling into embry’s thigh. those fingers in his hair are like a puppeteer’s on his strings, pulling him taut.
despite the command, bob answers on a delay, still unsure whether this will function as bloodletting and release or self-harm, but wanting to give embry what he asks, anyway (and wanting to be wanted enough to warrant his jealousy). twin coils burn hot, shame and a smug satisfaction. it’s as though he fucked up and needs to beg embry’s forgiveness, detritus from the commune still lodged in his skull, but a contrarian undercurrent has his jaw tilting up in defiance because there are people who want me even when you don’t — ]
Yelena. [ guttered out, with embry’s tongue in the dip of his collar. it feels dirty to invoke anyone else when he’s with somebody. it feels risky. it feels — like his heart juddering in his chest and cock twitching in his trousers. yelena, ani, armand. embry knocks the last name from his chest, along with his breath, on yanking him hard enough that he lets his back hit the desk: ] Corry —
[ from fucking him, obviously, which embry has only just decided he’s interested in (when he regretted it before bob could come down from the high of it happening at all). no time to think of that, of anybody else, when embry has him now. wants him again, however briefly. his back bows as embry bites him. ]
You. You — [ legs trembling and chest bare, cock standing at attention. the winter air chills his damp skin. he shivers through it. ] You, Embry
[ even though it’s easier than ever to let embry take charge and manhandle him, bob could still resist. could give more push and pull, not immovable and untouchable but difficult, sure. instead, his hands trace the corded muscle in embry’s arms where they hold him in place. too reverent, when embry has drawn his hands back from touching him before, afraid of what might slip through their haptic link.
with a snap of his fingers, he signs over his mouth to embry’s worship, too. half-expecting what comes, surprised only by the abrupt roughness of it, the sudden, strange sensation of helplessness: boxed in by embry’s hand and the desk behind it, so there is no pulling back. just an initial instinctive struggle, shifting his weight on his shaky knees. a barely there tilt, tongue sliding against the undersides of embry’s cock, thick and filling his mouth, already nudging too deep. he gags and whines, immediately aware of the stretch in his jaw. but where that might make someone else panic, he gives in to the familiar draw of an eddy. blinks his lashes wet, looking up at embry through the thicket.
bob fumbles for the root of his cock and splays a hand on his thigh, a near-tender circle of his thumb over the drawn muscle. an eager, aching sound answers the filth in embry’s mouth, and he pushes for more, jaw slackening, throat opening. it feels like being a thing, yes, a toy — but a well-loved one, worn with the repetitive strain of affection. it’s the closest he’s come to the glorious headfuck of the commune, embry in his head, his dreams, leaving phantom and real bruises in his wake. now, the whole of his world narrows to embry’s cock, nails digging into his thigh, squeezing his shaft until he swallows that too. bob’s throat spasms, but he holds, determined, before trying to edge back. no snap of his fingers, however, even while wet-eyed and ruddy-cheeked. so enamoured with embry that he appears dazed. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Jesus Christ, stop talking. It helps? The most fucked up thing I ever did to you helps?
[ only — hadn't he meant it to? hadn't it been the whole point to show bob he could rewrite pain to be something luminous and bright, like the sun?
he drags his hand down his face at the threat, knowing he's lost. knowing he never even had a chance of winning whatever fight he decided to pick. ]
I don't want you to ask anyone else.
I want it to be me. I want
Fuck, you have no idea the things I want to do to you.
no subject
so show me
you don’t have to be careful for once
[ with the void on lockdown. ]
no subject
he wavers, his throat tightening when he realizes he has a choice in this. that's it's the only real choice he's had all month. the only thing he can say he walked into willingly. ]
Meet me in the study. Now.
I'm not going easy on you.
Choose a safe word. In case you can't snap your fingers.
no subject
he doesn’t want to bring it up, when embry might not be thinking of his own hurt at bob’s hands for the first time in weeks. ]
okay
[ mind already reeling, electricity sparking down his spine. if he can’t snap, if embry binds his hands again and gifts him goodpain in place of the bad — ]
sentry
[ value neutral this time, when embry hated his last pick. ]
should i kneel?
[ everything started that way at the commune. ]
cw refs to assault etc
No. Not that.
Use the other one.
[ sunset, the quiet fantasy that sits unspoken between them. he's still processing that bob wants this at all. it's not like the commune, where embry was bound by the same rules, the same set of urges that kept bob on his knees. there's nothing calculated about this, no thought or plan beyond a desire to possess something. to seize control. a desperate grab at righting his equilibrium when every day, every moment has been a loop of opening his eyes to abilene's naked body and the slow realization of what she'd taken from him. should i kneel? saying yes would mean embry has thought about what would happen after. ]
You're going to kneel whether you want to or not.
Last chance to back out. If you show up, you're mine.
no subject
okay
the other one
[ the one that always makes him think of embry now. that he thought embry hated. ]
late on the warning there, embry
[ intentionally ambiguous, already on his way to the study, already embry’s at least in part since the commune —
for want of specific instruction, bob perches on the desk while he waits , slouchy as ever in his hoodie, long legs stretched so his heels touch the floor. he wraps the toggles of the hood around a fingertip and releases it, not quite nervous. unsure what to expect with embry in general and this month in particular. wanting whatever pieces of him he’s allowed, anyway. ]
no subject
but he's not a better man. he's not a man that anyone would be proud to know, especially not now, with all the things he's done to get through this month. the things he still wants to do — specifically to bob, to feed the awful, churning dark inside of him.
he finds bob sitting on the desk, his wide eyes rising to meet embry when he walks in. sitting there, just waiting, like any of this is purposeful. waiting like an offering, a sacrificial lamb. so fucking pretty. embry isn't religious, but his partners are, and so the passover lamb comes to mind, without blemish, a male a year old. two weeks, and then you kill your lamb in the evening.
it occurs to him that he's never, ever done this the right way. not the way ash was taught at lyonesse by mark, with embry absorbing information only in how he thrilled at being ash's practice toy. there are certain things he should know about bob before diving in. things bob may not have ever thought about or even know himself. he comes close, forcing bob to scoot back onto the table when he pushes his legs open and crowds into his space. ]
I can hurt you now. What are your limits? [ such a vast question. if embry was presented with it, he doesn't know how he would respond. more than likely, he would say nothing. literally, nothing. nothing too painful or depraved for a man who needs something mythological and unholy to feel a moment of peace. his hand trails along the nape of bob's neck, caressing softly. all his pent-up aggression burns to the surface, a mad grasp for control. ] Tell me your safe word.
[ his fingers slide into the dark tousle of his hair, fisting a handful, and then he's pulling with sharp intention, hard enough to straighten bob's spine and have him squirming to stay at the right height. he keeps bob's face tilted toward his, watching him, heat flooding him at the sight of him struggling. no sentry, no void, no power beyond the hard muscle quivering beneath his clothes. ]
Show me the bruises.
no subject
— except that’s not an option tonight. except nobody’s tuning in from the start or paying out at the finish. the only reason to do this is old-fashioned desire, without prompt or audience to encourage it.
bob doesn’t know what to do with that. i can hurt you now drags a gulp from his throat, adam’s apple bobbing. couldn’t he always? hasn’t he? a wound that flows both ways. bob figures he got under embry’s skin just the same without his powers as with them.
when embry pushes between his thighs, nudging him back enough that his shoes no longer rest on solid ground (that bob’s hips tilt up and his head tips back to hold embry’s attention). breath already caught with embry’s hand on his nape, pupils dilating (a blue that’s almost black, no liquid gold to poison the well). he keeps looking apart from the rapid blinks, permanently startled, recalculating the parameters of their intimacy — experiencing everything in real time, not the slowed-down perception that comes with his power. ]
The other one. [ pushing back, just a touch. ] Sunset. [ quicker to mind than any sort of limit, even though he’s untangled some with corry in recent months. embry is — different. high risk, high reward. he presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, the back of his teeth. ] Nothing to the face. [ even a light slap could draw him back to the house in the suburbs. the dark door with the chipped paint. ] I can take anything else.
[ a burst of static electricity where embry touches him, arcing down the heightened bend of his spine. one hand skids over the hard wood, nails scraping the surfaces where they might have clawed or broken it mere days earlier. unbalanced, when he hasn’t been in months, when he shouldn’t be, dizzy from the strangeness of it.
he lifts the baggy fabric of his hoodie with his other hand, exposing different impressions than yelena and ani’s bite-kisses. the kind only strong hands make at your hip when a grip turns bruising, the action lasting or repetitive enough to leave a mark. and bob, who so often looks away or at least slightly to the left, finds his focus locked on embry’s face, tracking the way his eyes shift in the light. ]
no subject
no void to feed on his memories. his fingertips have somehow ended up on bob's cheek, stroking gentle lines down his face, in opposition to how his other hand still mercilessly fists bob's hair. his gaze drops down again, sharpening at the sight of the marks at his hips. not kisses or bites. a possessive hold.
he wrenches at bob's hair, pulling his head back to expose his throat, and then his mouth is on him, all teeth and hard kisses atop every bruise, every bite, traveling down his body to follow the path mapped out across his skin. every mark reddens and darkens beneath his attention, a new claim staked on his already tenderly abused flesh. ]
Tell me each one as I go. Tell me who.
[ ani. yelena. armand. corry. he wants to hear it, wants bob to confess like he's a cheating lover, like an adulterous fucking whore come to beg at his feet. he pops the buttons on bob's jeans and unzips his fly, yanking the denim off so he can expose his most hidden bruises, digging his thumb into the blue-black at his hips. finally relinquishing his hold on his hair, he hooks bob by the thighs, pulling his hips off the table and lifting them toward him. intentionally rough, a stir of desire when bob's back hits the wood. laid out with his hoodie still rucked up around him, his bruises wet with spit. ]
And who has you here? [ his teeth sink into unmarked flesh, a groan in his throat as he licks and sucks and kisses the softness of his inner thighs. ] Here? [ another kiss. another bite. he trails marks all around, leaving bob's cock untouched where it strains in his briefs. his eyes flicker up, glittering. ] Show me you can snap your fingers.
[ he waits to see it, then he's pulling bob off the table and pushing him down to his knees. embry pulls his belt off and tosses it to the table with a clatter, then he's gripping bob's hair again, his cock already in hand as he shoves it roughly into bob's mouth, so hard it drives bob back into the heavy wooden desk drawers. it veers on impersonal, like bob is just a thing to fuck, a hole to stick his dick in, like he could be any warm body against him right now, save for the small tells — embry's hand cradling his skull so his knuckles crack against the drawers instead of bob's head, the way his entire body strains to fuck bob's mouth but he holds still so he won't choke (as much) on his dick. ]
I'm gonna put bruises on you that no one can see. So every time you swallow you can remember that you're fucking mine. [ he pushes all the way in, so far that he can feel bob's rigid breath against him, that he can feel the tight constriction of his throat. ] Open up all the way for me, Bobby.
no subject
he sucks in a breath when embry first laves over another bite, when his teeth scrape someone else’s bruise and reclaim it, newly tender. hands tented on the wood, hips rolling into embry’s thigh. those fingers in his hair are like a puppeteer’s on his strings, pulling him taut.
despite the command, bob answers on a delay, still unsure whether this will function as bloodletting and release or self-harm, but wanting to give embry what he asks, anyway (and wanting to be wanted enough to warrant his jealousy). twin coils burn hot, shame and a smug satisfaction. it’s as though he fucked up and needs to beg embry’s forgiveness, detritus from the commune still lodged in his skull, but a contrarian undercurrent has his jaw tilting up in defiance because there are people who want me even when you don’t — ]
Yelena. [ guttered out, with embry’s tongue in the dip of his collar. it feels dirty to invoke anyone else when he’s with somebody. it feels risky. it feels — like his heart juddering in his chest and cock twitching in his trousers. yelena, ani, armand. embry knocks the last name from his chest, along with his breath, on yanking him hard enough that he lets his back hit the desk: ] Corry —
[ from fucking him, obviously, which embry has only just decided he’s interested in (when he regretted it before bob could come down from the high of it happening at all). no time to think of that, of anybody else, when embry has him now. wants him again, however briefly. his back bows as embry bites him. ]
You. You — [ legs trembling and chest bare, cock standing at attention. the winter air chills his damp skin. he shivers through it. ] You, Embry
[ even though it’s easier than ever to let embry take charge and manhandle him, bob could still resist. could give more push and pull, not immovable and untouchable but difficult, sure. instead, his hands trace the corded muscle in embry’s arms where they hold him in place. too reverent, when embry has drawn his hands back from touching him before, afraid of what might slip through their haptic link.
with a snap of his fingers, he signs over his mouth to embry’s worship, too. half-expecting what comes, surprised only by the abrupt roughness of it, the sudden, strange sensation of helplessness: boxed in by embry’s hand and the desk behind it, so there is no pulling back. just an initial instinctive struggle, shifting his weight on his shaky knees. a barely there tilt, tongue sliding against the undersides of embry’s cock, thick and filling his mouth, already nudging too deep. he gags and whines, immediately aware of the stretch in his jaw. but where that might make someone else panic, he gives in to the familiar draw of an eddy. blinks his lashes wet, looking up at embry through the thicket.
bob fumbles for the root of his cock and splays a hand on his thigh, a near-tender circle of his thumb over the drawn muscle. an eager, aching sound answers the filth in embry’s mouth, and he pushes for more, jaw slackening, throat opening. it feels like being a thing, yes, a toy — but a well-loved one, worn with the repetitive strain of affection. it’s the closest he’s come to the glorious headfuck of the commune, embry in his head, his dreams, leaving phantom and real bruises in his wake. now, the whole of his world narrows to embry’s cock, nails digging into his thigh, squeezing his shaft until he swallows that too. bob’s throat spasms, but he holds, determined, before trying to edge back. no snap of his fingers, however, even while wet-eyed and ruddy-cheeked. so enamoured with embry that he appears dazed. ]