Synopsis: <Beta chapter> Laurence loses his temper and there’s only one person who can bring him down from that high.
Word count: <total on AO3 12,500 as of now - 3 chapters>
Warning: heavy smut/little comfort, the entirety is not like chapter one
a/n: this was written when I first thought this was going to be a one shot, much has changed since. This is also me getting back into writing after so long - I swear I used to be cool.
“Let us through!” Aphmau demanded. It got them nowhere, though, as a large man pushed her back.
A crowd had gathered thickly in the street, creating a ring around two men viciously fighting in the center. One of the men was a giant. He was thick with muscle and he must have been well over six feet. He was towering over the other man who just so happened to be Laurence.
“She said move!” Garroth shouted, but he was just as easily ignored. They were helpless to watch the fight unfold before them. But it didn’t seem to have just started. Both men were already bloodied and neither appeared to be slowing.
“My money is on the big one, little man has no chance,” someone from the crowed jeered.
“I’d put money on that! He’ll die in this street,” another added. Soon, the heckling began, but Garroth’s attention was firmly on the fight.
Laurence lunged forwards, his fist connecting solidly with the man’s jaw. He stumbled back from the blow but regained his balance; he was a solid brute of a man. Laurence laughter rang out in the circle. It was giddy, as if he were playing a game. Garroth had never heard him laugh like that. Such a manic unleash of joy. Something wasn’t right.
“Think it’s so funny, pretty boy? Have I take out any of those teeth yet?”
Laurence’s only reaction to that was bearing his teeth in a mocking grin, leaning towards the man. He tapped them with a finger. “Not yet, would you like a chance?”
The brute swung a meaty fist out with a vengeful strength. Laurence side-stepped with impossible speed and grabbed the man’s wrist where it landed right by his cheek.
“Just a little too far,” Laurence cackled, almost doubling over from the fit of laughter. He swung at the man and blow after blow connected right where he planned it. It felt like pure ecstasy. He didn’t feel the sting of his knuckles, or the throbbing from his nose and jaw. All Laurence could think about was the pleasure he got from watching each new splotch of red blooming over the man’s swelling face.
He grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and flung him to the ground with a solid shove. The man struggled to stand again, but Laurence had already landed on top of him, pummeling his face without tiring.
“Holy shit he’s going to kill Sal!” A voice cried out. More voices began to join in the shouting and the crowd seemed to pulse forwards - forwards and closer to grabbing Laurence.
The man swung a lazy arm up and slammed it into Laurence’s jaw, but it was much too weak to do any damage. Laurence tilted his head back, pausing from his barrage of punches, and licked his teeth. His eyes were a fiery red color, as if the blood vessels in both has burst.
Urgency flooded Garroth’s senses as he realized what was happening. He shoved through the surging crowd with a new found strength and grabbed Laurence violently off of the man. Pulling him back from under his arms. Laurence fought against him, growling savagely as he pulled forwards, desperate to return to the pulp he had made of the man’s - Sal’s - face.
Garroth drove his knee into the back of Laurence’s, dropping him to the ground. He grabbed his face and forced him to look up at him.
“Laurence, we are leaving now!” He leaned over, shouting at him. Blurry recognition flashed in Laurence’s burning eyes but it didn’t do much for his cognition.
After a lot of wrestling and fighting, Garroth managed to get him back to the place they had been staying in during their to this city. Laurence flopped back onto the bed and spread his legs, sprawling his arms out around him. He groaned with unrestrained pleasure and then laughed softly.
He was a sight to behold. His hair was disheveled and his face was bloodied, his knuckles were busted and his bare arms were coated with both his and that guy Sal’s blood. Garroth wondered for the faintest moment if he should go back and apologize on Laurence’s behalf, but the thought was fleeting. It would cause so many more problems.
“You can… go, Aphmau…” Garroth sighed, dragging a hand down his face. He was immediately overwhelmed with the scent of Laurence’s sweat. It was… intoxicating.
“But what if he hurts you?” She asked him. Garroth barely registered her, though, with Laurence completely filling his field of vision.
“It’s okay, Aph, I can handle him.”
“Yeah, you can,” Laurence chuckled, darkly.
Garroth distantly heard the door shut as Aphmau left the room, but he didn’t look up.
“Laurence, what in Irene’s name were you thinking?” Garroth demanded, angrily.
“Oh, Garroth you can’t even begin to imaging what it felt like,” Laurence rumbled, raising his hips slightly. The little move wasn’t missed by Garroth.
“This could cause us so many problems,” Garroth said, “did you even think first? And… are you hard?!”
“Go on, Garroth, hit me,” Laurence’s eyes fluttered shut and he turned his head, pointing at his cheek, “balance me out, won’t you?”
“I will not hit you!” Garroth drew closer so that he was standing over Laurence’s lewdly sprawled body.
“Oh, sweet Garroth,” Laurence purred, casting his eyes slyly up. Garroth could see that they were still red in the dim candle light.
In a swift moment, Laurence was standing. Their bodies were pressed so tightly together that Garroth could no longer tell where his body ended and Laurence’s began. He could feel Laurence’s heart pounding hard and fast in his chest, the adrenaline still coursing through him. Laurence ground his hips firmly against Garroth’s and then kissed him, hard.
His lips were hot and bloody against Garroth’s, drowning him immediately. Garroth pulled back, stumbling, and took a deep gasp of air. Laurence chased him, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him back towards him.
“Don’t run from me, Garroth,” he growled against his lips.
“Don’t fight me, Garroth, I know how badly you want this,” Laurence said. His voice was a sultry purr; low and rumbling.
“Not after what you just did,” Garroth argued, weakly. His composure was faltering. He could tell what little authority he had had over Laurence had fallen.
Laurence maneuvered Garroth so that he could push him down onto the bed. Garroth sat, heavily, feeling the heat pooling in his hips, his pants growing tighter against him. Laurence sat beside him and stared at him with an unfaltering glare.
“Humor me, then, Garroth. Why do you stare at me the way you do?”
Garroth had no way of responding. No words came to him. He opened his mouth, but only a small croak came out. Laurence scoffed, his face twisting into one of patronizing disgust.
“That’s exactly what I thought,” he murmured, crawling over to straddle Garroth’s lap. He sat on his thighs and leaned forward. He dragged his tongue from Garroth’s jaw up over the shell of his ear before whispering “then take me.”
Garroth gulped, his breathing became heavier and he reached up with an uncertain hand. He paused, for a moment, but when Laurence ground his hips deeply against his, Garroth grabbed his neck and shoved him back into the bed. Laurence’s face lit up with excitement, his eyes widening.
Garroth dove for Laurence’s neck, licking up the blood and sweat. He moaned, nuzzling into him and breathing deeply. He felt Laurence’s body underneath him. Not so much smaller, but enough to make him seem so…
“Go on, Garroth. You can’t hurt me, big boy,” Laurence said, raising his knees so that he could clench Garroth’s hips between them.
He grabbed Laurence’s pants and tugged them down, pulling them past his knees and down off his feet, tossing them to the ground. He wouldn’t bother with saying anything back, he was never good with words anyways. Laurence moaned as Garroth grabbed his dick in his hand, rubbing it.
Garroth stopped, suddenly, thinking of something he wanted much more. He crawled up the length of Laurence’s body, pulling his own pants off, until his cock was right in front of Laurence’s face.
“Suck it,” Garroth commanded. Laurence grinned up at him, before opening his mouth and taking Garroth’s dick. His tongue worked around it, stirring up as much spit as he could. Spit and blood. Garroth grunted, planting a hand against the wall behind the bed as he slowly began to fuck into Laurence’s willing mouth. It was so warm and soft. He felt his tongue as it lapped at his tip.
“Mm, shit… sh-shit…” Garroth mumbled, his hips beginning to lose rhythm. He pulled out of Laurence’s mouth with a satisfying pop and lowered himself back down, lining himself up. He looked down at Laurence, at his red eyes, his blood stained face, his busted lip, and drove his dick deep into him.
Laurence threw his head back into the pillows with an animalistic growl - feral enough to remain in his semi-shadowknight self. His hands grabbed Garroth’s hips, sharp fingers digging into his soft skin.
Garroth fell into a steady thrust. His arms were beginning to grown weak from the pleasure, so he dropped down and wrapped them around Laurence, pulling him to his chest. He thrust harder, losing his composure as well. It had been so long. The heat began to gather and he felt dizzy.
“Ah- ah, Garroth… good, that’s s-so good,” Laurence’s moans started getting louder. Garroth didn’t care enough to make him be quiet, the noises were so delicious. With his final thrust, Laurence wrapped his legs tightly around Garroth’s hips, pinning him. Pleasure wracked his body in pulsing waves, one twitch, two twitches, and he finally breathed in.
“O-oh…” Garroth sighed, falling heavily on top of Laurence.
Laurence continued to rock his hips for a few last tantalizing thrusts, feeling Garroth throb inside of him. Garroth whimpered ever so softly in his ear, little whines carried on his breaths. Laurence felt what had become of himself, slowly ebb from his body, leaving behind a dull ache in his muscles. He wondered for a second about the man who he had so very unceremoniously destroyed, but the guilty thought was yanked from him when Garroth slowly pulled himself out. Laurence hadn’t even realized that he himself had come, but he saw it slowly leaking out of his tip.
“Are you… okay?” Garroth asked, shakily, as he slowly pushed himself off of Laurence and into a sitting position - one awkwardly between Laurence’s legs. He noticed Laurence’s eyes were no longer red, though the veins of red that spidered under them were present. He felt a small crawling of anxiety in his chest, chasing away the pleasure he had felt moments before. Was Laurence going to regret that now that he’s… back to normal? He wondered.
He had wanted to be like that with Laurence for… a very long time now. Their silly fights over Aphmau’s hand had led to much much more over time, and the buildup became heavy between them. But they had never… initiated anything before. Not on purpose, at least. But with Laurence in his shadow knight form, taunting and teasing Garroth, he just couldn’t resist.
“I’m perfectly fine, Garroth,” Laurence murmured.
“I regret how ruthlessly I attacked that man, but being with you, Garroth, no. I don’t regret that at all.”
Garroth felt his breathing quicken with relief. “Well… that’s good; I don’t either,” he said, “I think I’ll um… I’ll head back to my room now and leave you be.”
Laurence’s face twisted in one of horrified shock. As if Garroth told him he would leave and never return to him again. As if Garroth had just turned him away in disgust.
“Please, don’t?” He said, urgently. He reached out and grasped Garroth’s forearm in a desperate attempt to keep him on the bed. “Don’t go, okay? I don’t want you to.”
“But the others…” Garroth said, gripping the sheets in his free hand.
“Damn the others, Garroth. When I wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares because of my transformation today, I want you there…” Laurence felt like a little boy needing his teddybear to fend off the terrors of the night. His security blanket. His Garroth. And while they hadn’t ever done anything as far as have sex together, there have been a few nights in the past where Garroth had awoken to Laurence crawling into his bed at night.
“Okay… okay, if that’s what you want - I’ll stay.”
They washed off in a bath - Garroth almost lovingly washed off all of the blood from Laurence’s scarred body. His back had scars from a whip, his arms were burned from red-hot chains that held him to that stone table in the Nether. His face had a scar down his right cheek, though it redacted nothing from his looks. His chest had been tattooed. A series of swirls and lines inked across his broad chest.
Garroth washed it all clean, not staring any longer than necessary. He knew he had his own marks from his terrifying brushes with death. How unwanted they had been, but how inevitable, too. He often wondered what would have happened if he had just stayed in O’khasis; grew up in his rightful royal lineage. He wouldn’t have any of these scars, he would never have had near death experiences, he never would have been covered in dirt, bossed around, sweaty, dirty, bloody. But he never would have met Laurence. He never would have seen Phoenix Drop, never have seen Aphmau or Zoey or Dante or… or Zenix. For the first time in a long time, Zenix burned into his mind. He hustled it out, though, as Laurence pressed closer to him in the bath.
When they made it back to Laurence’s bed, Garroth crawled in beside him, pulling him against his chest. He pet Laurence’s hair softly, humming ever so gently without his voice breaking. Laurence’s breathing began to slow and soon a couple spasms rocked his body off to sleep.
