Richard Merrill - A northern mechanical of surpassing skill, set to secretary work
Signore Solace King - A New York patrician of mercurial temperament
Connor Campbell - A roguish traveling veterinarian of stalwart cheer
Liam Beaker - A scientist of fierce disposition, seldom to be seen
Android “Andy” Strega - A fine chef afflicted with dolorous melancholy
Cmdr. Arthur Carraway - An aging and hungry war-wolf
Sgt. Major William Sandgren - A disciplinary officer suited far too well to his role
Mx Shay Sayegh - A coldly professional quartermaster
Pvt. Nitro Goresmith - A household soldier of some sympathy
Sam - An extinguished light of hope
Gabe & Sofia - Twins, long-lost
Angela & Athena - Distant sisters
Basil & Mitch - Hapless lovers
Trimmer - A comrade in arms, deeply missed
Act 1: Wherefore Art Thou
Scene 1: Kentucky Territory, October. Military compound interior bedroom.
Rafael has been lying on his bed for hours, staring out the window into the dark rose garden, when a familiar chime rings through the air, loud and close.
It’s been an age since he’s heard that sound from his own wrist cuffs, and Rafael sits bolt upright, eyes wide and heart abruptly racing.
There’s nothing like the adrenaline rush of sudden panic to burn through the fog of depression, and an unexpected summons to Carraway’s suite is good cause for panic. Rafael gets himself cleaned up, wiped down, sweet-scented and appropriately-dressed in less than ten minutes. It’s a miracle his makeup isn’t dust for how long it’s been since he last touched it, but he gets it on, and then he’s hurrying up to the door of Carraway’s private suite—a well-appointed toy, cuffed and collared and as pretty as he knows how to be. There’s a churning storm in the pit of his stomach: he’s dreading why he’s been summoned so late in the evening, sickened by the prospect of being toyed with and humiliated, but his whole body already aches with anticipation, longing to be touched. God, it’s been so long.
Carraway opens the door after the first knock, looming in the doorway, smiling sharp-toothed and satiated. Rafael gives him a sweet, meaningless mask of a smile in return, and then glances past him at the sound of a faint, gasping whimper.
For a split second Rafael freezes. The man in Carraway’s suite with him is no slightly-built beauty, but a massive Hastings soldier, head low and milky-white skin flushed red, shoulders heaving—with a familiar and unmistakable band of flat, seamless black material collaring his thick neck like any other pretty, kept pet. He’s seated on the edge of a heavy oaken pool table, back to the door. He half-turns as Rafael comes in, and Rafael catches a momentary glimpse of a broad, flushed face and startled eyes before Carraway steps forward between them.
Rafael heard some mention of a captive Hastings, some scandal and whispering around the mansion, and hadn’t paid nearly the attention he apparently should have. Not that all the gossip in the world would have prepared him to walk into the room and see the man looming like a mountain with Carraway’s collar around his neck. Still, at the very least Rafael might have some idea of what to expect.
Only one thing is clear; this summons doesn’t signal some renewed interest on Carraway’s part. Rafael has been called as a tool, a means for Carraway to play with toys he enjoys better. The best outcome Rafael can hope for is the bleak possibility of not being touched or attended to at all—the worst, he doesn’t care to imagine. He doesn’t know how long exactly Carraway has had this Hastings, how broken the man is to the whip, what might drive him to snap and who he would aim his rage toward if he did. Carraway has proven himself entirely bored of Rafael in the years since his capture, and likely wouldn’t care if the Hastings broke his nose, or his arm. Or his neck.
Rafael looks up at Carraway’s genial, expectant face, bites the fear off behind his teeth like a mouthful of molten metal, and shows the mask of a perfectly winsome smile. “Sir?” he says. “What can I do for you?”
“My boy here needs a little assistance,” says Carraway, which answers exactly nothing. He reaches out, and Rafael holds perfectly still as the man’s fingers trace his jaw. Even so small of a touch is more than he’s felt in… days, weeks maybe. The pads of the man’s fingers are warm and rough, halfway to a wolf’s pawpads at the tips, and he’s wearing his claws tonight even in the privacy of his own room: jointed, flexing silver armor from the knuckles to the fingertips, where they end in plain, brutal curves as sharp as knives. The blades are icy as the man’s fingers trace Rafael’s cheek and then take hold of his jaw to turn his face like a doll’s, examining him proprietarily.
“Hm,” says Carraway, in absent judgment. “Well, at least you’ve kept your looks, sugar. Come on in.”
“Yes, sir,” Rafael says, and obediently follows Carraway’s gesture to approach the captive Hastings.
Rafael has seen Hastings before, if not at such close quarters. They’re the very image of a modern war machine, genes trimmed and tuned to the singular fell purpose of death. They tower above a normal man, sleekly-tapered waists and sharply defined muscle under paper-white skin, hair the unnatural deep red of blood. This man, wherever Carraway found him, carries the same war-banner colors as the rest, but otherwise bears very little resemblance to the statuesque monsters Rafael has seen, with their rust-red eyes. He’s thickset, a crudely formed workman’s build but scaled to approximately the size of an elephant, bull-necked, soft across the stomach but with arms and shoulders constructed like heavy machinery.
His face is far from the hard-cut beauty of a Hastings, either: his harsh, heavy angles have been carved by a rough and indifferent hand. Thickly pronounced brows, an outsized, crooked beak of a nose, blunt square jaw, broad thin-lipped mouth, and a pair of shockingly green eyes looking back at Rafael.
When the compound’s Hastings soldiers deign to notice anyone else outside their murderous cadre, it’s usually with a contemptuous stare. But this one just watches him, his green eyes wide and fearful, pink cheeks streaked with lines of sweat and tears. He’s utterly naked below a viciously tight gym shirt that’s been rucked up above his pierced nipples, and—oh. God, there’s no way Rafael can take a dick that size. Although that’s not necessarily what Carraway had in mind, if Rafael is lucky: his master has never cared to provide condoms, and there’s a thick sounding plug in the tip of the Hastings’ urgently flushed dick. Carraway likes his boys clean and sweet and convenient for use, not laid up with infections because they took someone while unprotected and stretched open by toys.
The Hastings shifts when he sees where Rafael’s looking, enormous white hands working against the dark rim of the pool table. His nails are a bright sky blue, with white-petaled flowers painted on the fingers and strawberries on the thumbs. Circling his right wrist, above and beyond the featureless black strip of polymer cuffing his wrist, is an elaborately tattooed bracelet of blackberry brambles, with dark berries and bright starlike blossoms among the verdant thorns.
When Rafael drags his gaze up to his face again, he’s struck by how keen the man’s green eyes are, the desperate attention of his stare.
For all his massive bulk and heavy features, he seems younger and more vulnerable than any Hastings Rafael has seen. Carraway employs plenty of Hastings—he prefers the famously obedient and rule-bound soldiers for home security over members of his own temperamental Lykoi gene mod—but they all wear the costume and dignity of a soldier, not a boytoy’s collar and cuffs.
“Hello,” Rafael says as gently as he can through the haze of anticipation and fear.
“Hey there,” says the Hastings with a sickly, crooked smile. “…I’m Rich.” The smile falls off his face and he adds, soft and urgent, “I’m not gonna hurt you, I swear, okay? I know I’m—”
“Oh, sugar, nothin’ wrong with gettin’ a little rough,” Carraway says over him, and Rafael stands motionless and doesn’t shudder or pull away or bite as a broad, warm palm pats his head with a condescending approximation of affection. “I know Will’s wound you up just about too tight to behave yourself, and this little old starling here knows how to take whatever he’s given. Why do you think I called him up for you?”
Rafael keeps his face blank and sweet and mild. William Sandgren is Carraway’s “disciplinary officer,” his old war companion and hired sadist, and he isn’t technically allowed to lay hands on Carraway’s boys unless he’s delivering that discipline. But Carraway has always found it amusing to pass along an intermittent supply of sexual novelties and let him put them on or in whatever unfortunate boytoy gives Sandgren an excuse.
By the look of the wild-eyed, shaky misery this young man is showing, as well as the painfully overstimulated red gleam of that monumental erection, he was caught, or forced into, coming to climax without Carraway’s express permission. Rafael is hard-pressed to imagine what Sandgren is doing playing his cruel games with a soldier mod, though, when he usually picks his targets with a keen eye for vulnerability.
“As for you, you pretty little thing, just you go and give my boy here anything he asks for,” Carraway says, and pats Rafael again, shaking him from his distant contemplation of the Hastings’ erection. “If you two play together nice enough for a spell, I don’t see why you can’t both enjoy yourselves in the end. How’s that sound, darlin’?”
“That sounds very generous of you, sir,” Rafael says, and hates that he doesn’t have to fake his tone of startled hope. “Thank you.”
Rich’s eyes flick from Rafael’s face, then up to Carraway’s hand on his head, and his broad mouth twists in distaste. Then he shifts on the edge of the pool table, chokes on a breath and makes a terrifyingly deep growling noise in his chest.
“Sir,” he says shakily, his thick accent roughened further with an inhuman saw-edged rumble. “Can he take these things out, maybe? It hurts, I can’t—” he swallows hard, like he’s struggling to tame the monstrous snarl in his voice. “I was good, wasn’t I? I’m being good. Aren’t I?”
“I suppose you’ve been putting the work in tonight,” Carraway sighs, and there’s a familiar moment of thoughtful quiet while the bastard considers if he feels like having mercy. Finally he sighs again, steps forward past Rafael and undoes the plug, pulling it out fast enough that Rich shudders all over and gives that awful growl again.
“There’s a little reminder to stay good, darling,” Carraway laughs indulgently, pats his thigh, and steps away across the den to put the little device away in a low cabinet. Then he goes puttering around serving himself a drink at the den’s mini bar, content to leave them alone together.
Rich stares after him with wide, betrayed eyes, looks back down at his dick, then squeezes his eyes shut and takes a heavy, rasping breath. These things, he said, and Carraway only took the plug out, so there's probably a sounding rod still in there.
Rich opens his green eyes again, meets Rafael’s gaze with surprising wariness, and licks his lips. “Uh,” he says, in that deep, soft, uncertain voice. “Y’wanna, um, kiss?” and then he blushes at himself, ducking his head.
“I do, yes,” Rafael says, smiling, and adjusts his estimate of the Hastings’ age down to his mid-twenties, maybe younger, wide-eyed and clumsy-tongued despite his appearance. An odd accent, as well, thick enough to have been shaped somewhere very remote—Carraway collects men from all over, but Rafael can’t place where this one’s from. With broad vowels and soft consonants, half-swallowed, it’s close cousin to a Chicago accent but even thicker, more indistinct. Further north, perhaps, some isolated rural community that turns out boys who don’t know their own power. No Chicago-born Hastings would submit to this kind of abuse, Rafael would bet his own neck on it. As Carraway has.
Leaning up, Rafael kisses Rich slow and firm. When his hand finds Rich’s chest to thumb at the stud in one nipple, Rich moans softly into the kiss and hesitantly touches Rafael’s face, strokes his cheekbone. Far from being rough or demanding, his touch is delicate, as though Rafael’s flesh might be as fragile as eggshell. It’s a startling contrast, as his shoulders rise and fall in panting, hungry desperation and his hips shift to glance the weight of that terrifying arousal against Rafael’s stomach.
By the time Rafael pulls back, Rich is breathing even harder, eyes heavy-lidded and glassy with need. He glances briefly over at Carraway, then back at Rafael. He’s probably not aware how lost and helpless he looks, one big hand still lingering feather-light over most of Rafael’s upper arm, but it makes something dangerously close to pity give a waking throb in Rafael’s chest.
“You wanna, uh,” Rich says again, and pats the pool table’s felt next to his hip uncertainly.
It isn't a bad instinct, but Rafael knows what Carraway likes, and how to put on a show he’ll enjoy better. Getting a knee on the raised edge of the pool table, he takes hold of those ridiculously broad shoulders and lifts himself up into Rich’s lap, holding himself there. It’s a strain, a hot burn in his unfit arms and shoulders, but no worse than running through one of his long-neglected routines again, the controlled stretch of a handstand into a walkover, the bitter complaint of muscles too used to idleness.
“Hey,” Rich breathes, and steadies Rafael with one hand. With the other, in the small cupped space between them, he makes a quick, subtle gesture that could almost be “friend” in a sign language no one with his warlike coloration should know. There’s a little white mouse with pink eyes among the blackberry vines, sheltered on the tender underside of his massive wrist. Drawn lifesize, for a mouse, but so small against the blackberries, and the vast expanse of pale flesh and hard muscle that Rafael has found himself fetched up against.
Rafael pauses. Stares. The soldier mod makes the gesture again, then the one that would mean “help,” then touches over Rafael’s heart, very gently, hiding the little white mouse against Rafael’s chest.
“I’ll help you. If you’ll help me. I’m your friend, if you'll be mine.”
A language of silent, subtle touches, of sideways glances and casual gestures. Not a language for soldiers, for fearless fighting men, for the brave and the bold. A language for mice only, beneath the notice of wolves.
Rafael runs his thumb along the band on Rich’s neck, a narrow black line against all that deadly pale muscle, and then returns the gesture, small and simple in the shelter of their bodies.
“If.”
Rich goes still under him, obviously unsure of his next move; but they’ve already been still and silent long enough. On with the show… Rafael leans in and kisses the side of his neck, up to his ear.
“Order me to take it out,” he whispers between kisses, so softly even Carraway shouldn’t be able to hear. Carraway said “give him whatever he asks for,” which means that tonight he’s not in the mood to manage things himself, and would rather sit back and watch his boys determine their torments themselves. He wouldn’t have handed that authority to Rich if he didn’t want the man to direct this absolute farce of a love scene.
Rich twitches and groans a faint curse, hesitating, then takes a deep breath and looks up to meet Rafael’s eyes. Rafael holds his gaze steadily, willing him to listen.
“Get this thing outta my dick,” Rich says, firm and authoritative and only barely trembling. He flushes again afterward, and his eyes dart to Carraway, but Carraway doesn’t say a word, just watches.
“Of course,” Rafael says from a mask of obedient eagerness, and leans up to kiss Rich firmly, rewarding and reassuring, before sliding down off him again. He’s seen Sandgren use a sounding rod on people before—not often, and it’s been a while, after a brutal misuse of the tool laid a boy up longer than Carraway found convenient, but Rafael’s at least aware of what to do with one.
Rich is already tense as Rafael kneels in front of him, and he only tenses more as Rafael slicks his hands and reaches up to take hold of him. He tries to keep his touch brief and gentle, but when he finds the end of the sound beneath Rich’s heated skin and presses it gently, coaxing it to slide, Rich shudders and grips the edge of the pool table so hard the heavy oak creaks. Rafael glances up at him and Rich’s eyes are round, whites showing all the way around. He’s staring down like he doesn’t understand what’s happening, massive chest heaving as he gasps; he looks desperately aroused, halfway terrified.
Rafael resists for all of a second, and then reaches forward under the pool table, where Carraway can’t see, and gives the tree-trunk curve of Rich’s leg a comforting pat, holding him still. Keep doing what I tell you, he tries to say with a brief look and another pat, like he might soothe a spooked horse—or in this case, more of a bull elephant. Keep doing what I tell you and maybe we’ll both get out of this alright.
“Don’t forget to thank Mr Carraway,” is what he actually says, and Rich blinks at him and then looks up at Carraway, eyes wide and unfocused.
“Thank you, sir,” he says, slurring a little, and then hitches all over as Rafael squeezes his knee again and leans in, sucking very gently at the tip of his dick. “Ah—”
“You’re welcome,” Carraway says, “just remember to take it slow and easy, sugar,” somewhere overhead, but Rafael can’t pay too much attention to him because he’s occupied, teasing the sound upward with gentle strokes and then catching the tip of the metal rod in his teeth. It’s much thicker than he was expecting, and longer and heavier too—not the usual steel toy. Tungsten, perhaps. Something rare and dangerous. That would suit both Carraway and Sandgren’s sensibilities, especially to torment as deadly a specimen as this fresh young bull of a Hastings.
Rich’s hips shiver but don’t thrust up into his mouth, and he holds still and just moans as Rafael draws the rod almost all the way out, then slides it back in, feeling Carraway’s eyes on him. Those huge hands work on the edge of the pool table, twitch like Rich wants to reach for him, then grip again. Rafael keeps hold of his leg, good, hold still, be good, and fucks the heavy rod gently in and out, hoping it’s not uncomfortable anymore as he puts on the requisite show.
Fortunately it doesn’t seem to be. From Rich’s rough breathing, he likes it enough that it's taking the poor man apart at the seams, but Rafael still isn’t expecting it when Rich goes abruptly still and whimpers, shivering.
“Sir, please,” he gasps, “please sir can I come?”
Rafael tries to slow down without obviously making it easier on him, waiting, heart pounding in his chest. This is always a terrible time, the moments when Carraway knows his boys are desperately struggling, are waiting in an agony of suspense to find out if he’ll take mercy on them or not—
“I think,” Carraway says deliberately, “you can be good a little longer than that.”
Rich gives a terrible, strangled whimper, shuddering all over, and a thick line of precome drips from his twitching, swollen dick, running hotly down Rafael’s jaw. He smells good like this, some helpless animal part of Rafael notes. He doesn’t have to move a muscle to know that behind him Carraway is watching them with that poisonously satisfied smile, scenting the air, reveling in the thick tang of Rich’s desperate arousal.
“Okay,” Rich says, his deep voice cracked all to pieces. “Okay, I. I’ll be. Hhah. Good. Just… slow. You can…” One massive, trembling hand strokes Rafael’s neck, his shoulder, with startling gentleness. “Let it… back in. Then, nnh, just. Fuck me slow. We’re being… good.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Rafael releases the rod between his teeth, and kisses the taut satin crown of Rich’s dick in full-mouthed apology as the thick, heavy rod sinks swiftly back down his shaft.
“Good,” Carraway repeats, low and hungry, and chuckles when Rich only gives another strangled, miserable little noise. “You’re learning, doll. I do like a quick study. Not too quick, mind…”
“Th—thank,” Rich gasps out, and writhes when Rafael’s fingers find the rod again, already sunk to the base of his shaft, and begins pressing it upwards once more. The oak pool table creaks under the shift of the soldier mod’s titanic weight, and another thick spurt of precome spills over Rafael’s lips. He tastes good, though, it’s been too long since Rafael’s had the raw living taste of another human being in his mouth, the slick press of someone’s sweat against his body… He has been made into a lonely, helpless, wanting thing, and he wants that writhe again. He lets the rod sink back down a third time, and thrills anew when Rich cries out in desperate need and twists his massive frame all around Rafael.
“Please—!”
“Patience,” Carraway growls from behind him, so satisfied. Rafael just wants more, though. He brings the heavy rod up to the tip of Rich’s dripping crown, catches it in his teeth once more, draws it back and forth steadily and feels something very much like glory when the great construction of muscle and bone before him gasps in perfect rhythm. When Rafael slants a look up through his eyelashes he finds Rich staring down at him wild-eyed, open mouthed, utterly transfixed.
God, it feels good. By design, of course. It delights Carraway to see men tormented by conscience and desperation, helpless not to enjoy themselves: all of his games, no matter how cruel, contain this inescapable, toxic throughline of pleasure. Rafael could torture this hulking wreck of a boy all night and it would feel so damningly good.
Rich holds out longer than Rafael feared he might, but less time than Rafael would really have liked, before he again breaks and writhes and begs, “Please, sir, please, I can’t, I’m so close, please, I need—I’m trying—”
“Well alright, sweetheart,” says Carraway, indulgent. “I think that’s good enough for tonight, then. Go on, tell him.”
Rich doesn’t need prompting this time to seize the authority Carraway’s granting him. He gasps in a final sobbing breath and blurts out, “Make me come!” so fast the words run together, and Rafael pulls the sound all the way out and goes down on him fast and hard, lining his throat up with the massive shaft with a hot and familiar strain. It’s been truly a while since he had opportunity to use his mouth this thoroughly, and never somebody Rich’s size, but he works a slick hand over all the length he can’t fit in his mouth and does his best to take Rich over the edge as quickly as he can, teasing the tip of his tongue over the abused slit of his dick every time he’s got to pull back for another quick breath and then sinking down mercilessly fast to swallow around him once more.
Rich trembles and gasps, and then Rafael looks up and meets those wide, wet, green eyes and Rich holds his gaze, rapturous, even as Rafael swallows again, even as Rich starts to shake apart and doesn’t stop. Rafael keeps working him over as he comes, sobbing gracelessly, the entire titanic mass of his body shaking and weak.
Rafael draws away a moment or two early, plays a gasping breath and feels come streak his cheek and drip down one cheekbone. Carraway likes his boys to come to him pretty and clean and well put together, but only so that he can see them destroyed and debauched. He’s more likely to indulge a boy who’s raw-throated and breathless with come on his face.
Rich isn’t nearly as pleased when he finally opens his eyes and sees what he’s done. First he gives Rafael a dazed smile, grateful and relieved, and then his eyes go to Rafael’s cheek and he looks utterly dismayed. He opens his mouth as though he intends to apologize, and Rafael pats his knee firmly and looks past him to Carraway, angling his cheek just so as he settles back to kneel. Used and complacent and ready for more.
“Thank you, sir,” Rafael says politely, and hears Rich echo him a second later, voice shattered but sincere. A quick study indeed. “What else can I do for you?”
Carraway taps his claws, golden wolf’s eyes wandering up and down their bodies like he’s considering his choice of places to bite. The endless, brief moment as he decides what course to take is an opening.
It’s not a cue Carraway intends to give, but Rafael’s learned to anticipate it by now. There’s a possibility, not inevitable but high enough to be terrifying, that Carraway’s disinterest in his wellbeing extends to forcing this enormous Hastings to fuck him, regardless of the damage it would do to him. If nothing else, Rafael can remove that option from consideration.
Glancing over, he lets his gaze linger between Rich’s legs long enough for Carraway to catch it, and then looks away again quickly, as though remembering himself. The fear lives behind his eyes, under his tongue, a bed of red-hot coals where his heart should be, but the role of the boringly obedient boytoy doesn’t call for fear yet, only meek, hungry eagerness.
His tone is pitch-perfect when he says, “Sir, if… if you have time, he could fuck me for you.”
Rich makes a choked little noise. “Sir!” he says in alarm. “He’s, I don’t wanna hurt him—” Carraway gives a soft growl at his raised voice at the same moment that Rafael squeezes his knee hard where Carraway can’t see. Rich’s eyes dart down to him, then back to Carraway. He swallows hard and doesn’t object any further.
“I’m sure he’d prepare me as quickly as he could, if you wanted to see,” Rafael says, keeping his voice sweet and light and calm. Leaning on the tone of uncertain hope, a shy and blushing subordinate meaning to please. On the inconvenience it would be, so much time spent watching a plaything Carraway’s long since lost interest in.
“Now, that’s bold,” says Carraway, idly thoughtful. His eyes are on both of them, Rafael’s quiet, earnest mask and the slow gathering of tension in Rich’s shoulders, the way his hands are working on the edge of the pool table again. “You really feel up to taking him, sweet thing? You’re the first one of my boys who hasn’t looked at it like they thought it was about to explode.”
“I…” Rafael starts, and crafts a hesitation, another glance over, a flash of his fear on his face. Not the flushed and reluctant lust despite oneself that Carraway so carefully cultivates, but a wretched and cringing thing that Rafael knows is not to the man’s taste. It’s an unfortunate side effect that Rich very obviously sees it too—the naked dismay and regret on his big, craggy face is as unguarded as a neck laid on an executioner’s block. Verisimilitude, Rafael has to suppose. At the very least, it lends the tremor of his voice a little credence when he says, “I thought you might enjoy watching me again, sir.”
Carraway makes a soft noise, a scoff or a laugh, it’s hard to tell. Considering, still. He hasn’t decided against it. Another push, more desperate, plaintive, pathetic.
“It would be…I could try, sir,” Rafael says, and meets the man’s lazy, predatory stare with a look of nervous hope.
Carraway considers him for one more long breath, and then the moment breaks. He chuckles ruefully, shakes his head, and Rafael’s heart thunders in his ears as relief pours through him. A strange exhilaration, an echo of every time he ever heard the first sob at a tragedy, the first laugh at a comedy, the moment of becoming a role and feeling his audience pulled along with him, magnified by a thousand. It’s fortunate he’s already kneeling, because his legs wouldn’t carry him just now.
“I think I have to turn that one down,” Carraway says. “You two are quite a sight together, but I’ve a mind to get to bed sooner rather’n later. If you’re really feeling so needy, sweetpea, I wouldn’t mind letting him get a few fingers into you, and maybe you can give him some more sugar at the same time. I know my latest treasure likes gettin’ kissed. Call it a reward for such good behavior.”
Treasure. Damn his hide, damn his eyes and damn his poison tongue. Rafael shudders involuntarily, trying to shake off the painful, poisonous ache of inadequacy as it sinks fangs into his bones. It would hurt less to think Carraway decided to call Rich that as a jab at Rafael, an intentional attack—Rafael knows better. Carraway wasn’t trying to hurt him. Rafael never even crossed his mind.
There’s no point lingering on that futile pain. This is a victory, after all. Even Rich’s fingers are intimidatingly large, but there are worse uses Carraway could order his boys put to, and Rich has proven disarmingly willing to follow direction. This could be good. This will be good, as long as Rafael can direct it.
…Rich hasn’t had time to grow tired of Rafael yet, and he seems like he might need someone with him, in the aftermath of a punishment like this. They could talk. Rafael could find out where a boy like this learned signs like those. It might be nice.
Rafael pushes himself up, snags the lube off of the pool table and heads toward one of the plush couches against the den’s wall, positioned right where the man can easily watch them from the stately wingback armchairs by the minibar. Rich follows willingly, when Rafael tugs at the front of his gym shirt in passing, and Carraway chuckles at them again as they pass.
“Thank you so much, sir,” Rafael says. He doesn’t have to fake his gratitude, and the sincerity burns in his mouth, but he hates the way Carraway smiles at him even more. It’s that look, like Rafael’s some pretty show Carraway used to enjoy, an act he liked once but has seen a hundred times. Indulgent. Bored.
Rafael puts his head down, swallowing the jagged edge of humiliation and hurt, and keeps moving.
Rich is already on the couch, shirt pulled neatly back into place, hands turning uncertainly over each other: not merely wringing together, Rafael realizes, with another confused start. There are matte, china-white data rings on his thumbs and index fingers, almost invisible against his deathly-pale skin. Pieces of sophisticated technology that Rafael has never witnessed in person, let alone had access to. Of use to the wealthy and powerful, managing their financial empires or running the great machines of science and industry.
The Hastings tugs them off absentmindedly and sets them on the floor by the couch in a heap, as though they were worth no more than a cheap tablet, and then draws himself back in to watch Rafael strip off his clothes with an intensity that says he’s the much more interesting prospect. The vivid flush that was beginning to fade from his pale cheeks comes flooding back.
The strangeness of this evening continues to deepen. Rafael allows no sign of his confusion on his face, just plays to the only audience that’s watching him, setting his clothes on the ground and coming to settle on his heels on the cushions by Rich, poised and posed, the way he looks most appealing.
Rich, at least, appears diverted by the presentation. His miserable and hunching posture softens, and his eyes wander hungrily across Rafael’s body and back up to his face. His tongue flicks out across his lips, as though he finds his mouth dry. Then he remembers himself, swallows nervously and makes a poor and obvious effort not to glance over at where Carraway’s back is turned, bottles and glasses clinking at his liquor cabinet.
It’s an understandable anxiety, but not one that Rafael can afford to entertain at the moment, since if Rich loses focus now, after he’s gleaned his own pleasure, he won’t be the one who’s carelessly left unsatisfied. There’s no reason for him to keep following Rafael’s lead, and Rafael can only pray that he doesn’t realize it.
He doesn’t seem to. He still looks shy, uncertain, especially when Rafael produces the lube and promptingly spreads his legs a little. Shyness is fine, but hesitation isn’t: Carraway tires quickly of Rafael as it is, and making him wait will only compound the issue. Rafael gives Rich a meaningful look, a peremptory lift of his jaw, and Rich finally moves, turning sideways on the couch and reaching out to—oh. To lift Rafael gently, like he weighs nothing, pulling him forward and settling him down straddling Rich’s huge thighs.
“Okay?” he murmurs, and Rafael hears a soft, slick sound behind him as Rich grabs some lube and gets it on his fingers.
Rafael is not okay, actually, but he might get to come at the end of this, if Rich will just stop hesitating every step of the way and put on a good show. Rafael leans up and wraps his arms around Rich’s shoulders to kiss him thoroughly, slow and deep and authoritative, finally outright taking charge. Rich lets him, puts one arm around Rafael’s back and slowly slides a finger into him, oh, it’s been a while. It doesn’t hurt, but Rich’s fingers are as big as the rest of him and it’s already an aching stretch.
It’s not as bad as Rafael was worried it would be, though. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly and feels Rich falter again, making an inaudible, questioning little noise against his lips. He doesn’t stop though, he seems to know that’s not a good idea at least. He nuzzles at Rafael’s jaw instead, lets go of him so he can get a hand on Rafael’s dick and—oh, that does feel nice, uncomplicated and familiar and long-missed and good. Rafael twitches into the touch, then twitches again, harder, as Rich begins cautiously working his way deeper.
Even after months and years of dwindling attention, the lasting effects of Carraway’s toys and pills and potions will reduce a man to less than the gasping, shaking sum of his parts. Rich steadies Rafael through the spasming shudder that wracks him, as the broad pad of one finger strokes unerringly at his prostate, and works diligently away at him with a well-accustomed coordination.
The steadiness of the man is a boon, making it easier to lean into the sensation and let the pleasure overtake the discomfort. Relaxing with the deliberate ease of experience, trying not to founder in his nerves over how slowly they’re moving, how boring the show must be.
When he glances up and meets Rich’s eyes, Rich is watching him intently. Rafael holds his eyes meaningfully and rocks his hips, prompting, and Rich works with him in rhythm, going smoother and faster as he gets the hang of it. Rafael closes his eyes, breathes, relaxes, takes all of one finger, all of another, a fiercely aching stretch that’s softened and tempered by the way they rub slow and practiced patterns inside him.
Carraway isn’t even watching him when he opens his eyes again, but Rich is, looking at him with the faintest hint of a smile on his lips, a focused crease between his brows. He slicks up his free hand and this time when he takes hold of Rafael’s dick it’s dizzying, a smooth, hot slide, a hand big enough to be terrifying and gentle enough to be thrilling.
“There we go,” the huge man underneath Rafael murmurs. “Lemme help you out. That's gorgeous.”
The role calls for pleasure, but the first moan comes out without any effort from Rafael, on the back of a startled gasp. He focuses again, still reeling, obscurely startled to be praised for doing nothing at all and too shaken to re-center himself. It’s alright. It’s just as well. He needs to make a show of his pleasure anyway, and—and, god, what pleasure.
He would lean into the act even if Rich did a poor job of it, clumsy or faltering or too rough, but he isn’t forced to improvise. The man’s strange green eyes are on him in an instant whenever they part to breathe, and his attention, his notice, are both intimidating and intoxicating. He notices when his grip becomes too firm and fast and Rafael twitches and nips at his lower lip, and he notices when he finds a good pressure and rhythm and Rafael goes dumb with true pleasure, sucking mutely at the spot he bit, pleading for more as best he can without words.
It’s been a long, long time, and it doesn’t take too long before Rich has Rafael falling absolutely to pieces, rocking into the hands toying with him. The rising flood of pleasure drowns his voice into the barest shaking breaths, too faint to be called moans. It’s not enough of a show, he’s never loud enough or good enough for Carraway, but when Rafael used to try for a louder performance it never came out right, no matter how hard he tried. Carraway liked that even less. Frowned at him, snapped at him, punished him for the dishonesty. If there’s one thing the man knows fully and well it’s the desperation of a man racked by torturous pleasure, and Rafael could never—he can’t—
Rafael knows what Carraway likes to see, and it’s not him. It’s Rich, and people like him, reactive and loud and easy to embarrass. Carraway likes playing with them and touching them and doting on them and only now, when Rafael bends down to nip and suck at one of Rich’s nipples through his taut gym shirt, tugging gently at the piercing there, only now does Carraway sit up, watching with a vague and indolent hunger.
It’s painful, the yearning that strikes when those vicious eyes turn on him and stay. It sickens him, it electrifies him, it feels blasphemous and obscene, finding any pleasure in the interest of the hungry monster who stole his life away. Any man in the mansion would be happy to be overlooked and ignored by the bastard, and Rafael has had that privilege for months at a time. He knows he should be nothing but grateful for it, but there’s nothing else to hang his worth on, here. He’s here to be a toy and he’s not even good for that.
He’s distracted from that thought when Rich gently eases him away, murmuring, “Hey, it’s okay, hon, easy. This’s for you,” and sets to fucking those massive fingers up into him with a will. He’s setting a fast, almost rough pace now, and Rafael jerks all over as the pleasure snaps through him like the crack of lightning. He’s moaning again, barely a breath of a sound, not enough, not—oh that’s so nice.
He has to let Rich know that’s good, he can’t—won’t be able to tell, Rafael’s too quiet, not enough, he won’t be able to tell. Rafael sways forward once more, kissing Rich’s neck, up his jaw, lightheaded and throat aching and eyes burning and hips rolling into the pleasure in desperate, needy shudders. It’s so much, he’s—
“Sir,” Rafael manages, breaking away from Rich’s mouth, and whimpers as Rich’s grip on his dick hitches, tightening for a second. “Sir, ah, please, I—Let him make me come, please.”
“Mm,” says Carraway, and Rafael sucks in a breath through a throat that’s tied in a knot, shaking, waiting. “…You never quite do manage to convince me you need it, sweetheart.”
Rafael twitches, hurt and humiliation and despair overtaking him like a drowning wave. He should have known better, he should have known. He shouldn’t even have let himself hope. He’s not enough, not good enough, and he’s not going to be allowed.
“I do nnh—need it, sir, please,” he gets out, makes himself say it above a shaking whisper, forces the plea out one breathless shred at a time. “I—” he chokes on the words as his hips shift, pressing into Rich’s fingers, a jolt of pleasure that almost tips him over the edge—he can’t, he can’t, he can’t, he’d be hurt so badly. “Please, sir, mercy,” he repeats, desperate, the only words he can remember.
“Sir, please?” says another voice, and Rafael twitches, startled, blinking burning eyes back open again. He didn’t realize he closed them. Rich is holding onto him, hands moving slower and gentler now, trying not to drive him over the edge. His eyes are wide and worried all over again. “He’s shaking. He’s maybe the quiet type but I can tell how bad he needs it, seriously. And he’s been so good for you, better’n I was even…”
It’s stupid, the way Rafael has to bite back a sob at that. It’s more kindness than he could have asked for, any help at all, any glimpse of kindness. There’s no reason for Rich to put himself out there, to beg on Rafael’s behalf. Rafael clings desperately, trembling, torn between misery and pleasure and disbelieving gratitude.
“Please, sir,” Rich says again. “Can’t I make him come? It wouldn' be fair if I left him hanging, he did so, so good…”
Carraway sighs. “You’d think after so long, you’d be a little more enthusiastic,” he says, and Rafael flinches again, another jolt of that awful shame. Carraway is quiet for a second, watching, and then he says, “You haven’t been breaking any rules, have you, sweet thing?”
Rafael bolts upright as horror and panic overwhelm everything else. If Carraway thinks he’s been touching himself without permission, not getting to come will be the least of his worries, and he hasn’t, he wouldn’t, never. “No, sir!” he says, sharp and loud, and feels one of the strong arms around him tighten a little, the massive body he’s perched on curling in around him as though in protection. It does very little good for the panic choking him: if Carraway decides that he’s been disobedient there will be nothing at all for either of them to do about it. “I wouldn’t, I swear, I, hha, nnh—” he shudders, struggling between the relentless arousal and the fear, trapped. “I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I would never, please, hha, sir, please!”
“No, you’re well-broken to the bridle by now, aren’t you?” Carraway says, and the rush of relief that washes over Rafael is only barely stronger than the furious shame that follows it. “Well, alright. Finish him up, treasure.”
Rafael barely has time to register the words before Rich is pulling him in closer, kissing him, kissing his neck, stroking his dick and working over his prostate and Rafael is gasping, falling apart on Carraway’s whim and knowing the man doesn’t care enough to watch.
Even through the cold and shameful hurt, the pleasure is so much better than he remembered. Rafael clings to the warm, solid body wrapped around him, struggles to breathe and feels himself make silent little noises into Rich’s shoulder as he falls apart, spirals down, loses himself. Rich keeps touching him, too, doesn’t pull his hands away like Rafael was a job he finally finished with. The pleasure ebbs and shocks up, ebbs again, until Rafael is slumped on Rich’s chest, panting, his heartbeat slowly winding down from a frantic hum.
“Th—hha—thank you, sir,” he manages after a long second, and shudders again, shoulders heaving. “Is—should—” He stops, catching his breath, and then manages, “Is there anything else—I can do for you, sir?”
“I’ll send off for one of the others,” Carraway says absently, and waves a hand again, dismissive. “I think…”
He stops there, trailing off, and then looks them over thoughtfully, smoothing a thumb along the line of his beard.
“You like him, treasure?” he says.
Rich tenses under Rafael—Rafael doesn’t even do that. Just goes very still, confused and dreading.
“Yes, sir?” Rich says, very carefully, like he has no fucking idea what’s going on either. “He’s— beautiful, sir, and very good, he’s been so good. Sir. Better than me. We did good together. I thought. This was great.” One of his hands, huge and hot, comes up to cup Rafael’s back, pets up and down briefly. Rafael goes still under the heavy touch, confused and alarmed.
“Well then,” Carraway says, and considers them for a second before leaning back in his chair and smiling that wide, magnanimous smile at both of them. “He’s yours. I know how you've been angling for one of your little friends to keep you company—you know I can't just go moving them, but no one's going to miss this little old doll.”
Rafael’s chest does something awful, falling and burning and turning inside-out all at the same time. Rich stares at Carraway, incomprehension written across his face, and Rafael is very nearly as uncertain. After such a long, dark, stagnant time, this is new. This is something new. He doesn't know what to do.
Rich says, with cautious politeness, “Oh, well, uh. Thanks. Sir. That's real nice of you. Is he, uh, just company for the night, sir?”
“Oh, for as long as you want him,” Carraway smiles. “Consider it a pet project. I got told all about how you went poking around my kitchens, fixing up dishwashers and who knows what else—I’m curious what else around here you might take a shine to fixing up.”
“Huh,” Rich says, with astonishing artlessness, and gives Rafael a frank, speculative once-over that freezes him to the core. “Well, alright then. I’ll see what I can do, sir.”
Carraway laughs, one of his most terrible laughs, a rolling chuckle of genuine amusement.
“You and that attitude of yours, sugar. You really are one of a kind.” He turns away, shaking his head, chuckling still. All paternal indulgence. All gilt and honey. Rafael sits frozen in Rich’s heavy arms and with the last burnt-out stub of his temper he hates every single laugh line on that smiling face.
“Run along now, sweet thing,” Carraway says, pouring himself another drink. “You’ve got tonight to get acquainted however you see fit, as long as I’ve got you back in the office bright and early.”
“Always, sir,” Rich says. “And—thanks, again.”
Rich scoops up his data rings from the floor and fits them back on, then grabs up a stray black bedsheet from the floor beneath the pool table and slings it around his hips like a towel as he leads the way out of Carraway's wing. Rafael follows numbly, eyes on the floor, clothes bundled up in his arms. Rich makes sure the last door is closed behind them, then gives an enormous sigh of relief before busying himself with the bedsheet. This time his motions are precise, even graceful, as he fits the fabric neatly to his hips and fixes it in place with a few deft folds. The total effect is something like a beach sarong and something like a kilt, surprisingly dignified and masculine. Though any garment might seem so, draped across such an architectural frame…
“Fucking hell,” the young Hastings finally says, wearily, and glances over at Rafael. “You wanna get your pants on, buddy?”
Rich looks much, much bigger now that he doesn't have Carraway's looming, watchful figure to delimit the boundaries of his massive strength. Rafael looks away as soon as their eyes meet, dropping his own gaze to the floor, heart pounding in his throat.
“Yes, sir,” he murmurs, the meek deference rolling ready-made from his well-trained mouth, and busies himself pulling his clothes on, staring blankly at the ground.
He's sickeningly aware of how lost at sea he is here; he was falling to pieces under Carraway's malign neglect, but at least he knew how to please the man when called. He has no idea how to placate Rich, what might set him off, what would calm him down. If he has to go through another adjustment period like the one after Carraway first caught him… god, it wouldn’t just break him this time to be reworked by another set of unmerciful hands, it would grind the shards of his soul to dust, he can't do that again.
“Okay,” Rich says overhead. “Let's get somewhere quiet where we can talk things out.”
“As you like, sir,” Rafael manages, and lengthens his stride in a hurry to match Rich’s unsurprisingly ground-eating pace.
Rich glances back, slowing his stride, and says, “Yeah, no, that’s something we can get clear right now, actually.”
Rafael slows down as well, staying respectfully a step behind.
“Sir?”
Rich only grimaces, a striking expression on those features, and makes a graceful but utterly arcane gesture with one massive hand. “Don’t call me sir, this isn’t a sir situation, I’m not a sir kinda guy. I’m just Rich, and I don’t care what kind of shit Carraway thinks he’s pulling, handing you off to me like this, because as far as I’m concerned all of us unlucky fuckers in cuffs are conscript crew on this insane trash fire of a ship. You can call me Merrill if you wanna keep things formal but I’d just as soon be, y’know. Friends. And my friends call me Rich.”
It sounds like he expects an answer—Rafael glances up, uncertain, and then hazards, “…That’s very gracious of you.” And then, because some things are universally mannerly no matter who you're talking to, “…Thank you, Rich.”
“Oh,” says Rich, looking startled. He gestures again, another fluidly incomprehensible sign. “I mean, sure, no problem.”
He considers Rafael's face for another long minute, frowning faintly, still signing from that unfamiliar lexicon. For such a huge man with such expressive features, he's surprisingly graceful with his hands. Rafael watches him anxiously, until finally he signs something very much like Together and it's such an utter relief to understand something that Rafael’s signing it back before he can think twice.
“Yes, together.”
Rich beams at him and actually bounces once on his massive heels. There's a lot of him to bounce. His joy is every bit as imposing as his distress, and Rafael can't help but retreat a few paces in the face of it.
“How do you know this language?” he signs, just a tilt of his head in the direction of a question and then touching, glancingly, at one of his cuffs. Rich’s smile goes rueful. He signs only a self-deprecating negative, then touches his own cuff.
“I’m not fluent yet.
“But I’m here, so.”
He signs together again, then turns away and says, “Well, let's get going,” and leads Rafael further into the compound.