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Feb 23

quid pro quo; pt. 2

content warnings: drug use; references to ("off-screen") past instances of: human trafficking & imprisonment, physical & sexual abuse, torture, and murder; drug trafficking; canon-typical discrimination; violence; explicit (consensual) sexual content. ~11,700 words.

part 1

“You still haven’t told me what I should call you.”

Rook muses idly, one hand balancing half a glass of chilled honey wine and the other slung over the back of the sofa where he sits, while the Viera reclines with his head in Rook’s lap. A ceiling fan spins lazily overhead, dispersing smoke from the Viera’s somnus pipe before it filters out through the opened lattice window.

Even before the new contract — the brand new contract of employment Rook had signed with some hotshot adventurer, suspiciously well-funded despite their apparent greenness to the profession, but recommended by the vocate nevertheless — began to actually pay well enough for him to move into a slightly bigger place, the Viera had already begun to spend more time in Rook’s lodgings than not.

Time enough for Rook to have learned quite a few things about him, such as: his preference for Hannish cuisine, and his ability to put away an impressive amount of it in spite of his small frame; the way he claims to take his coffee black, only to pour in enough milk to fill his cup to the brim when he thinks nobody’s looking; how he stomps the ground and kicks his feet when he doesn’t get his way, which is often; how easily his sour moods are soothed by the smallest compliment about his physical appearance, or simply by an offering of food; his absolute insistence on near-constant physical contact, but only ever on his own terms...

But, somehow, this one piece of information — the most critical piece of information possible, one might say — has managed to elude him.

The Viera takes another deep pull from his pipe, unhurriedly exhaling another thick cloud of somnus smoke.

“I know.”

Rook doesn’t exactly frown, but his brow does furrow by the slightest amount.

“Do you plan on ever changing that, or...?”

To that, the Viera snorts.

“Why? Maybe I don’t want you calling me anything at all.” His lip curls into something like a smirk. “You don’t need to be talking about me to other people, anyway.”

Rook thinks.

“Maybe I want to call you by your own name.”

That smirk fades from the Viera’s face.

“Tch.” He taps out ash from his pipe onto the tiled floor. (Evidently, he knows better than to do so on the rug; from the burns that cover his arm, Rook can only wonder if that was a lesson hard learned.) “Why?”

“Why not?”

Silence follows. The look of tense annoyance that had come over the Viera’s face begins to gradually melt into one of impassive resignation.

“It’s not like I really have a name, anyway.” He says it plainly, like there’s nothing remotely unnatural about what he’s just said. “Whatever I was called after I was born... Whatever name it was that the village elders gave me... It doesn’t matter. I don’t even remember it, anyway. And anyone else who might have remembered...”

He takes another pull from the pipe before he continues.

“Even if they weren’t all dead by now... They didn’t care enough about me not to hand me over to those fucking imperials. So, why should I care? About what they called me. About fucking anything that they ever did.”

He pauses again, taking yet another drag. Rook says nothing; all he can do now is sit with the weight of what he’s just been told.

“The decurion... Heh.” The Viera’s lip begins to curl. “He always called me his little Violet... Always little. Always his. Even in front of his men... He just couldn’t help but be so insecure. You know? Always needing to make sure everybody knew that I fucking belonged to him. Only him.”

Rook sits; he considers. He doesn’t look directly downward until the Viera reaches for his free hand with his own, guiding it to the slip of his bare chest below the loose collar of his shirt, manually tracing Rook’s fingers over the fine, faded scars etched into his skin.

“That’s what all of these are for. Did you know that?” He laughs, as though it amuses him that Rook couldn’t have possibly known such a thing. “One for every time he felt like he needed to remind me... Like I could ever fucking forget. Didn’t matter where; didn’t matter when. He could be taking a report from one of his soldiers, or he could be in the middle of fucking me... Shit, he didn’t even wait until I was done healing from that firebomb before he started doing it again. The medicus even told him he should keep his hands off me for a while, but that only made him want to do it even more. Can you believe that?”

As he speaks, he guides Rook’s hand even further along, where the etched scars and his raised burns begin to overlap. Rook does nothing to resist him; he has no idea how the Viera might possibly react if he were to try and draw his hand back now, but he’s certain it wouldn’t be good.

“He wasn’t so into it when I finally got a chance to return the favor, of course.” The Viera pauses just as long as it takes for him to pull from his pipe again; he doesn’t let go of Rook’s hand in the meanwhile. “At least, I don’t think he was... It was a little tough to tell, you know? Since the only parts of him that weren’t paralyzed by then were his eyes.”

The Viera laughs again, sending more somnus smoke drifting upward.

“Stupid man... He really thought he had me so broken that he could trust me to handle his medicine for him. Can you believe that?” Another laugh sounds out from beneath his breath; his grip on Rook’s hand only tightens. “He really didn’t realize it was just making him weaker, instead... He didn’t even think about it — not until his men started dropping dead all around him, and he couldn’t lift a finger to do anything about it. Stupid, stupid man.”

After that, the Viera falls silent for a time — no more words; no more laughter. The smoky haze in the room is only just beginning to clear.

“Anyway.”

At that moment, his movements leisurely yet somehow sudden, the Viera sits upright and turns, swings one leg over Rook’s thigh until he’s straddling his lap, and drapes both arms over Rook’s shoulders. Rook can do nothing but freeze in response.

“I wouldn’t mind it so much,” the Viera says, his voice softening to a degree that Rook doesn’t think he’s ever heard from him before, “if you called me Violet. Not yours; not little. Just Violet... I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

As insistent as he can sometimes be with his demands for physical contact, this is something entirely new. Gears turn rapidly in Rook’s head as he grasps at words, but he can’t manage to come up with a single one before the Viera continues:

“I wouldn’t mind if it was you laying your hands on me.” There’s a look on his face that Rook truly doesn’t think he’s ever seen before, eyes half-lidded and lips curved into a sultry pout. “I know you want to. I’ve seen the way you look at me, you know.”

Rook’s head swims. He has a feeling that what he wants to say, what in hells are you talking about, wouldn’t go over so well; he tries instead for something less combative. “I don’t... That’s not...”

“‘That’s not’...what?” The Viera’s head begins to tilt to one side, and the sultry look on his face is quickly replaced by a more familiar smirk. “Is that not what you’re into? What, would you prefer if I had a real dick instead?”

His head swims.

“What are you—”

“Come on, don’t act stupid now.” The Viera laughs breezily as he rocks his hips down against Rook’s thigh in a slow grind, as if ensuring that Rook can feel every ilm of him, every single degree of his body heat, through the thin fabric of his smallclothes. “I know you’ve seen it. I was practically naked that first night you brought me home, remember? You can’t expect me to believe that you didn’t look.”

“I didn’t—”

“It’s alright.” The Viera’s voice lowers, and he begins to lean in close. “If it’s not what you’re into, it’s alright. You can just do what they did, you know? Take me from behind and pretend—”

“Stop.”

The Viera’s lips are just barely ghosting over his own by the time Rook finally gathers enough of his senses to place both hands on his shoulders and push him back, meeting his sudden look of confusion with a stern gaze.

“I’m not going to do anything that would make you think of anyone who’s ever hurt you. Not if I can help it. Okay?” His sternness softens as he speaks, but his words remain firm. “Not if it’s calling you by that name, or...or anything else.”

“But I just told you—”

“I don’t want to.”

For a moment, the Viera looks at him as though he’s just been struck, and Rook begins to wonder if he hadn’t been a little too harsh in his refusal... But it isn’t long before that expression twists, before his lip curls into the scowling glare he knows so well.

(It’s strange, isn’t it? How this feels more comfortable to him than the alternative.)

“Fine.” The Viera pushes off from Rook’s lap only to flop back down on the sofa, his head now at the opposite end from where Rook still sits. “Have it your way. But you should fucking know better than to treat me like a child.”

Rook had been right in the middle of picking up his glass from where he’d set it on the side table, but the Viera’s words stop him dead in his tracks, except to turn and look directly, quizzically at him.

“How am I treating you like a child?”

“Oh, please.” The Viera scoffs like it’s the most obvious answer in the world. “Ignoring the fact that I’m fucking telling you what I want, like you know what’s fucking best for me. How is that not treating me like a child?”

Rook frowns, his brow furrowing. He wonders.

“So... It doesn’t matter at all what I want, then?”

“Tch.”

The Viera makes that dismissive noise as he looks away, but it doesn’t seem as though he has any actual retort to Rook’s words; he stretches his feet into Rook’s lap instead, his ankles crossing over one another. Absently, without even really thinking about it, Rook takes one of those feet and begins to rub at his callused heel.

“You really shouldn’t be treating me like a child,” the Viera finally huffs, not even deigning to acknowledge the way Rook is massaging his foot — not even deigning to acknowledge Rook’s argument, instead choosing to repeat himself like he’d said nothing at all. “You don’t even know the first thing about Viera, do you? We don’t age like any of the other Spoken races. Did you know that? I could be a hundred years older than you, I could be two hundred years old, and you wouldn’t have any way to tell.”

At that, Rook abruptly stops what he’s doing to give the Viera a flat look, which is what finally catches his attention.

“What?”

“You are not a hundred years old.”

“I could be!” he huffs again, his tone defensive. “How would you know, huh!?”

For once, Rook allows himself the indulgence of snorting through his nose.

“Twenty-five summers. Tops.”

“Wha—”

The Viera jerks upright, mouth already open for an indignant retort, but seems to realize in that very same instant that he’s been caught. He twists his face into a petulant scowl, instead, and drops back down onto the couch with both arms crossed.

“Twenty-six. If you count by the winters instead.”

Rook relishes in his victory for all of a moment before he begins to wonder.

“You say you don’t remember what your name used to be...” He’s musing again, thumb rubbing firm circles into the arch of the Viera’s foot. “But you remember a detail like that, huh.”

Part of him had expected another indignant outburst; instead, the Viera remains quiet, his voice still soft even when he does speak again.

“Is that strange?” He finally reaches for his pipe again, but seems to think better of taking another drag...or perhaps he simply doesn’t care to light it again. “Keeping track of the days keeps you from losing your head... It keeps you alive. If you let all that time just...blur together, then... It’s like nothing ever really ends. You know?”

Rook wonders. But he has nothing to say; not yet.

“So.”

His tone of voice has taken an unexpected turn, which draws Rook to glance back down to the other end of the couch; the Viera, meanwhile, is looking between Rook and his hands with a skeptical, brow-raised stare.

“You won’t fuck me, but you’ll do this?”

He flexes the foot that’s still in Rook’s hands, as if illustrating his point. Rook pauses, blinking down at him for a moment while he considers his reply, only to shrug and move on to the other foot.

“Is that strange?”

Predictably, the Viera huffs; he never does like to have his own words turned back on him.

“You’re strange.”

He’ll take that, Rook thinks, over any other, potentially worse alternatives. For now.

“You know... Speaking of which.”

His idle words draw another downward glance from Rook, but the Viera isn’t looking at him this time; he’s staring up at the ceiling, one arm folded up behind his head.

“I don’t remember you ever telling me what your name is.”

That realization, only just now dawning upon Rook as the Viera speaks it into being, is sufficient to give him pause — but only for a moment, and then he shrugs again.

“Do I need to?” He looks to the Viera from the very corner of his eye. “Considering how often you go through my things, surely you’ve already learned it by now.”

“I don’t... Ugh.” The Viera’s ears swivel back as he picks up his head just far enough to shoot a glare in Rook’s direction. “That’s not the same thing and you know it. And it’s not like I go through all of your stuff, just whatever looks interesting, and whatever papers you might have with your name on it is not that.”

Rook snorts again, and he takes a moment to wonder whether the Viera doesn’t realize his own admission or if he simply doesn’t care. But, regrettably, he does have a point.

“It’s Rook,” he finally says, his voice soft, while he stares back down at his hands and massages the Viera’s foot. “That’s what I’m called.”

From the very corner of his eye, he sees it: the tilt of the Viera’s head to one side, and the confused scrunch that comes over his face.

“Rook?” His tone drips with skepticism. “Really? That doesn’t sound like any Xaelic name I’ve ever heard.”

“I know.”

More silence follows. Rook can feel the Viera’s impatience winding up tighter and tighter with each passing moment.

“So... What, then?” Skepticism and impatience, each coming through his words in equal turns: “You’re not even gonna tell me your real name? Or, what, you don’t remember yours, either?”

“I don’t.”

“Huh?”

His frankness seems to have caught the Viera off-guard. Rook can’t quite see the way his expression turns from where he’s sitting, but...

Terrible wings, impossibly huge, that span across the entire stretch of the sky above; a roar so loud as to shake and shatter the earth below. White light that blazes, casting the entire world into stark silhouette, eating away at the very edges of all that can be seen until nothing remains, no sense, no memory, no darkness or light, searing away every last trace of—

He closes his eyes.

“I don’t remember.” He takes a slow, even breath. “So... It’s just Rook.”

Another silence — longer, heavier, much more palpable in its stillness — is all that follows, for what feels like half an eternity. Then, finally, the Viera lets out a soft huff of a sigh.

“Some hypocrite you are, then.” He rolls his head back, arms folding across his chest again. “Acting like I’m the weird one for forgetting my name.”

Again, Rook snorts; this time, it’s closer to a laugh.

“Doesn’t that make you a hypocrite, too?” Only now does Rook realize his hands had fallen still; he resumes his work with a shake of his head. “You asked if I didn’t remember like you weren’t going to believe me.”

“Tch... I guess.”

Another few moments of silence pass, although this time the air has returned to a more comfortable sort of quiet — almost like things between the two of them have already gone back to normal.

“I guess...we’re both just hypocrites, huh.”

Like things have gone back to normal — like whatever this is, this thing that neither of them can seem to put a name to even if they tried, is anything close to normal.

But maybe that’s alright.

“There are worse things to be.”

Things could always, always be worse.

---

It takes a few more rounds of negotiations — which is to say patient perseverance on Rook’s part, and impatient bickering on the Viera’s — before they settle on “V” as a compromise for the Viera’s name, or lack thereof.

In that time, it becomes routine for V to spend his nights in Rook’s bed — and never to do anything more than sleep in his embrace; he seems to have already accepted that pushing Rook to go any further will get him nowhere fast — although how he spends his days is rather less routine. Some days he simply lazes about with his somnus pipe, barely even moving from one spot to another by the time Rook returns from his ventures; some days he dips his hand into Rook’s gil purse and slips away for the entire afternoon, only to return with his pockets full of knickknacks and his arms full of street food he has no intention of sharing; and some days he doesn’t return at all until the late evening bells, sometimes not even until Rook himself is already fast asleep, leaving him to wake with the Viera’s unexpected weight curled up in his arms or draped across his chest.

But, without fail, no matter how little Rook might see of him during the day, he always comes back — until he doesn’t.

It can’t be that unusual; it shouldn’t be, at least. V is a man with his own business to attend in the city, business that he doesn’t always share with Rook, and that’s fine. It isn’t as though either of them can afford a private linkpearl to keep in touch — and it isn’t as though V would want Rook to have any power to keep such close tabs on him, considering how violently he rejects any notion that he might be kept. That’s fine. Rook understands this about him only too well. There isn’t anything strange about it, no matter how he considers it.

Nevertheless, when Rook wakes in the dead of night to find his bed empty and the apartment door still locked, no amount of reassurance can seem to settle his thoughts long enough for him to go back to sleep.

It’s probably nothing — surely, it’s nothing worth any concern. Perhaps he’s still out and about, doing whatever it is he always does so late at night, and simply lost track of the time. Perhaps he’s found another bed in which to spend his night, one that belongs to a man more receptive to his advances. That’s fine. It’s fine.

Or, perhaps he’s once again crossed paths with the three men Rook had beaten so soundly upon their second meeting. Perhaps he’s crossed paths with the merchant he’d stolen from just prior to their first meeting, perhaps even with Brass Blades in tow. Perhaps he’s crossed paths with a Garlean spy, or some other manner of imperial operative, one who recognizes the face of a once-constant presence at the side of a now-fallen decurion, one who can draw a direct line of cause-and-effect from one point to the other, and—

Before Rook’s thoughts can spiral any further downward, churning out the worst of possibilities no matter how much effort he puts into quelling them, he’s out of bed and getting himself dressed. He’s already finished lacing one boot when he finally hears the lock at the door begin to turn.

“Rook—!!”

Any relief he might have felt upon seeing V come stumbling across his threshold is tempered by confusion and concern — not just for the stumbling, but also for the way he’s haphazardly dressed, his oversized shirt tugged so far to one side as to expose an amount of scarred skin that V normally finds intolerable.

“Are you...”

But the words die on Rook’s tongue as two other factors come into consideration, one after the other in rapid succession — the first of these being the canvas satchel V clutches close to his chest, one Rook doesn’t remember ever having seen him carry before; and the second, which Rook knows he’s never seen before, being the look on his face, an expression which can only be described as delirious glee.

“Rook— Ahaha, thank fuck, you’re awake— Look, look, look!!”

Is he high? He must be, although this level of excited energy is rather unlike any somnus high Rook has ever seen. He’s still picking over possibilities as V continues to stumble towards him, nearly tripping over his own feet but somehow managing to catch himself, and upturns the canvas satchel in his arms to spill its contents directly onto the floor at Rook’s feet.

“Look at all this!!”

He’s looking, alright, but that doesn’t mean he understands. V’s prize appears to be little more than a stack of books — no; ledgers? One lands directly on its spine, opening to a page crammed full of handwritten, barely legible rows and columns — and sheafs of paper, some of which come loose enough to flutter every which way as they tumble out from the opened satchel.

“He showed me everything— Heh, ahaha— Can you believe that!? He showed me everything, what an idiot!! Aha, hahaha—”

He still doesn’t understand, but there must be something big here, to have V outright giggling the way that he is now. Rook turns to him with a furrowed brow, a look of quizzical concern clear on his face.

“V, what is this?”

“Aha— Look, look.”

At once, V drops to his knees to dig through the pile, and comes up with one piece of his prize in particular — a small, slim book bound in black leather, which he opens to a spread of pages filled with more rows of that cramped handwriting — before he all but shoves it into Rook’s face.

“See? Look.” He flips through pages without actually affording Rook any time to read their contents. “Contacts. Buyers, suppliers, competitors, bribe-takers, blackmailers... Meeting dates, meeting locations, transaction records, linkpearl frequencies, and a personalized note for each and every one... He kept records of everything, you see? And he kept all of it together, in one spot... And— Ha, haha— And he showed me where it all was!! Ahahaha...!!”

V can’t seem to hold it in any longer; he falls entirely to the ground, laughing in that way Rook doesn’t think he’s ever heard from him before, which leaves Rook to finally sift through the paperwork and try to decipher what in hells he’s talking about.

Now that he actually does have the chance to read through the ledgers, of course, it doesn’t take long at all for Rook to put the pieces together: these are the records of an uncommonly meticulous somnus dealer.

But if V has all of this, that can only mean... The furrow in his brow creases even more deeply.

“V...” He would never have stolen something like this — would he? — unless he could be sure that he faced zero chance of reprisal. “What did you do?”

“Aha... Haha...”

V pushes himself upright with one arm; the manic energy seems to be fading, but the smile on his face is every bit as delirious as before.

“I didn’t do much of anything. I barely even had to. Ahaha... It wasn’t even hard, you know? It never is, with men like him.”

He pushes himself up even further, until his weight is back on his knees, and he begins to draw closer, close enough to fold his hands over Rook’s thigh and rest his chin there.

“All you need to do is find something they want — like a chance to touch this body — and you don’t even have to actually give it to them. Isn’t that hilarious?” He can barely keep himself from laughing even as he speaks. “I only needed to dangle myself in front of his nose like a prize he had any chance of winning, and he did the rest all on his own. It was like he couldn’t wait to tie the noose around his own neck.”

Rook’s mind churns. For a long moment, all he can do is stare.

“V, you...”

But V continues.

“He told me all about it.” Another giggle bubbles up from his throat as he speaks. “Every supplier he had listed in his little black book; every important customer who wouldn’t dare to cross him for the amount of dirt he had on them... He bragged about it, even. Can you believe that? Haha, like he really thought that would impress me into sleeping with him... Like he really thought I was too stupid to do anything with all that precious intel.”

As he speaks, V slowly, steadily pulls himself up into the empty space beside Rook on the sofa where he sits; Rook, meanwhile, can only continue to stare.

“Talk about thinking with your dick... I told him he’d need a tonic of vigor to keep up with me — you know, aha, since I’m a Viera and all — and he took it right out of my hands. He didn’t even question it; he didn’t even think it was a little strange. At least, not until he started losing consciousness instead... But it was already too late for him to do anything about it by then. Heheh, ahaha... Isn’t that hilarious?”

By this point V is leaning with his full weight against him, both arms wrapped around Rook’s while he nuzzles his face into the gaps between his scales.

“I didn’t even have to lay a finger on him... Heh... He didn’t even get to lay a finger on me. All I had to do was take off my clothes... And he was so busy watching me touch myself, he barely even noticed that his heart was about to—”

“V.”

The picture he paints with his words is a little too vivid, stirring up an entire range of emotions that Rook doesn’t care to identify; he cuts V off instead, bringing up his other hand to the top of V’s head and forcibly pushing him away.

“You...” Something is stirring, still, in ways that Rook isn’t quite sure he’s ever felt before — but he pushes through. “You should have been more careful. You need to be more careful. If... If whoever finds that body figures out that you were with him, then...”

V does little to resist how Rook pushes him away, but his ears twitch sharply against Rook’s hand before swiveling back, and the look on his face sours into one of exasperated antipathy. (This, of course, is an expression Rook finds much more familiar.)

“Oh, please.” His ear twitches again as he flops back against the arm of the sofa with a huff. “Like the undertaker who gets stuck with his corpse is really going to be able to tell the difference between a somnus overdose and literally any other kind of sedative. Like they’re even going to care enough to check. Nobody’s going to mourn somebody like him. Even his precious customers aren’t going to give a damn so long as their supply doesn’t dry up.”

The point he raises is difficult to deny, no matter how Rook searches for a way to deny it. What with everything else that goes on in this city to keep the authorities’ hands full, the idea that anyone would seek a full investigation into the death of some somnus dealer is...unlikely, at best. Even so...

“Shit... If I’m quick enough to fill his niche, they might not even notice he’s gone. Can you imagine? Can you even imagine...”

It’s only then, as V begins mumbling to himself, that a realization suddenly dawns upon Rook, one that leaves him feeling foolish for not having considered it sooner: the reason why V took all of this to begin with.

“V, you’re—” The amount of disbelief he feels in that moment would be staggering if he weren’t already seated. “You can’t really be thinking of—”

“Of fucking course I am,” V snaps back with sudden vigor. “What, like you think I just did this, all of this, for the hell of it? Like I didn’t plan for exactly this outcome?”

Rook wonders, then. How long had V been planning this, without him having ever suspected a thing?

“I’m sick of it, Rook.”

He realizes that V is staring right at him, and as Rook meets his gaze, he realizes something else: that the delirium in V’s eyes is entirely gone, and in its place is a flashing spark of something he can’t quite put his finger on.

“I’m sick of just getting by on your scraps — you know? I’m sick of just getting by in the first fucking place. Don’t you get it?”

It takes a moment, but the more V speaks his mind, the clearer it becomes — that fiery flash in his eyes, clearly, is the spark of ambition.

“For once... For fucking once in my life, I want to be the one in control. I want to be the one calling the shots. Is that so fucking wrong of me? To actually fucking want something for once, something that actually fucking matters?”

He leans forward, once again invading Rook’s personal space, his expression sharpening as he continues on.

“Money is the only thing that really talks in this town... So that’s exactly what I’m going to get: money. As much as I fucking need, until I’m the one on top. Do you get it now?”

He says it so simply, as if it’s such a straightforward goal to achieve — as if Ul’dah hasn’t already crushed numbers untold of those who once shared that very same ambition.

“And you’re going to help me.”

Rook blinks.

“Right?”

Of course, he isn’t exactly surprised, not even by the lack of any real question in V’s tone. Perhaps this was a foregone conclusion from the very beginning; perhaps V already understood that better than Rook understands it himself.

“I...”

It goes against every instinct in his blood, against every part of his very nature: to embark on a venture with such obvious and ever-present risk when he’s already living comfortably without, and living safely, at that.

But — this is just another part of the game he’s already been playing, isn’t it? The game he’s been playing this whole time, inviting danger and risk upon his own head from the very moment his eyes first met V’s.

He takes a breath.

“Alright.”

Besides, he reasons with himself, V needs someone to look out for him; no amount of raw ambition is going to help him make it anywhere if he’s on his own. And if he’s already been looking out for V up to this point, then it only makes sense for him, the one person in this whole damn city who knows V better than anyone else, to keep doing that... Doesn’t it?

Of course it does. It’s only the most logical course of action for him to take; of course it is. At least, this is what he tells himself as V wraps his arms around him again, laughing just as deliriously as when he had first stumbled through the front door.

---

The first deal is arranged within a sennight, once V has determined which among the suppliers in the hapless dealer’s black book is his likeliest bet for a successful turnout.

His confidence in that successful turnout, naturally, does nothing to ease any of Rook’s reservations about the whole thing. Not that such reservations are enough to make him go back on his word, or to even try turning V away from his chosen course, but they are plenty enough to leave him feeling much more wired than usual as he waits with V at the agreed-upon spot.

“Shit, is this guy ever gonna show up?”

V spits and swears under his breath, every ilm of him rattling with anxious energy, casting long shadows in the lamplight as he paces from one end of the platform to the other. The dispatch yard is rather closer to the city walls than Rook would prefer, at least when it comes to engaging in business as shady as this... But at this late hour, there are no workers about, no merchants or refugees or adventurers wandering through, not even a single Brass Blade on patrol. They shouldn’t have anything to worry about, at least not when it comes to any uninvited third parties sticking unwanted noses where they don’t belong.

Which just leaves everything else about the situation to occupy Rook’s concern.

“Ugh, come on.”

V paces, and Rook stands perfectly still, except to scan the horizon for any sign of their invited guest. He can only wonder whether he’ll be called upon to actually fulfill his role as a bodyguard, or if it’ll be enough for him to simply stand at V’s side and look menacing.

(Not that he really knows, at least not consciously, how to look menacing in any remotely convincing regard. Every time he’s been called intimidating to his face, it’s never been the result of something he did or said in any purposeful manner, not as far as he’s ever been made aware.)

He wonders... But the time for wondering is nearly up.

“V.”

“What?”

Rook gestures with a nod of his head — there, on the horizon, are three figures approaching, roughly from the direction of Stonesthrow.

At once, V goes still; his posture shifts, shoulders squaring, and every bit of that anxious energy seems to sharpen to a single point.

“Fucking finally.”

Gradually, the trio comes near enough for Rook’s watchful eyes to make out their features in the dark: one Midlander, rail-thin and overdressed for the evening air, followed close behind by a pair of bulky Highlanders with heavy-looking sacks slung over their shoulders. The Midlander stops just before they reach the tracks, raising a hand to signal the others to follow suit, and casts a squinting, sour look up at where V and Rook stand on the platform above.

“Get down here so I can get a good look at you.”

V shoots Rook a look of his own, brow knit and eyes wide with sudden uncertainty, as though he might have any better idea as to what they should do. The best Rook can offer in return is a slight nod and a few whispered words:

“I’m right here.”

That seems to do the trick; V takes a quick breath, short but deep, and smooths out his expression before he steps down from the platform and into the light.

Of course, the Midlander’s own expression only sours even further as he looks between the two of them from the other side of the tracks, back and forth until he finally seems to settle on Rook.

“What is this, some kind of joke?” he spits, his focus still fully on Rook. “A lizardman and, what, some pet rabbit? Where’s the usual guy?”

Rook can feel the way V bristles without even turning to look — but he does, of course, to try and gauge exactly where his temper’s at.

“He’s been indisposed,” says V, his tone of voice just as honey-sweet as the smile on his face. (His temper is quite a ways from critical mass, but it is clearly climbing.) “I’ll be the one handling business in his stead, so if you would kindly direct your attention to me, I would be most appreciative.”

“Huh...”

It isn’t clear which part the Midlander finds more unexpected: the way V asserts himself, or the cordiality of his tone. In either case, he looks V up and down before glancing back to exchange skeptical looks with the Highlanders in his company.

“And just why should I believe you, huh?”

One of V’s ears twitches back; the smile on his face doesn’t falter, but it’s clearly more tense than before.

“How exactly do you think I knew to call you out here in the first place, hmm?” V leans forward as he speaks, tilting his head to one side. “Not that it really matters, of course. You don’t have to believe me, if you really can’t bring yourself to do it. If you need to believe in anything, well...”

He withdraws a hefty sack of gil from the pouch at his hip — nearly all of Rook’s savings, and who even knows where or how he managed to gather the rest, just to meet the supplier’s asking price.

“It should be this payment I have for you, right here. Don’t you agree?”

The Midlander exchanges another long look with his heavies, and he barks out a laugh.

“Hah! Maybe you’re right, maybe... So, let me ask you something else.”

He raises his hand again — another signal, evidently, as the Highlanders each roll their shoulders, dropping those heavy sacks right to the ground, and begin to advance across the tracks.

“What’s there to stop me from just taking that payment, and everything else you got on you, too? Huh?”

In his peripheral view, Rook sees V take a sudden step back — but only in his peripheral view. His focus is now solely on the pair of Highlanders, one of whom is now close enough to lunge for—

“Don’t—”

Rook steps into the lunging Highlander’s path with such swiftness, such smoothness, that the man’s eyes are still fixed upon V as Rook grabs his extended arm with one hand, snatches his head by the hair with the other, and uses all of the force and momentum he can muster to bring the man’s face smashing down onto one raised knee before he kicks him square in the chest.

It’s entirely possible that one or the both of them are shouting by now, but Rook can no longer hear it; all voices, even V’s, are so distant to him that they might as well be an entire world away. But they’re not even remotely a world away, of course — they’re right here, near enough to start swinging, and it’s all Rook can do to duck the first thrown punch while keeping himself in close enough quarters to counter with an uppercut straight to the man’s diaphragm.

He staggers back, wheezing, but Rook doesn’t have even a moment to consider his next move before there are arms wrapping around his shoulders and a dead weight trying to bring him down. Luckily, the man’s form is poor, and he doesn’t have nearly the height on Rook to make such a maneuver work in spite of that; he needs only a moment to brace, to lean forward just enough to counter the Highlander’s weight with his own, and before the man can reorient himself or even begin to adjust, Rook has one of his arms in both hands, flipping him right over his shoulder and slamming him down on the ground.

“To hells with this—!!”

The other Highlander’s voice is the first to break through the fog, just as he turns and makes a break for it. It takes a few moments longer for the other Highlander to get enough breath back into his lungs to even get up from the ground, but once he does, he doesn’t wait to follow suit.

“H-Hey, what are you—” The Midlander, his eyes wide, whirls around to shout after them, but neither of them look back no matter how much he raises his voice. “J-Just what do you think I’m paying you for, huh...!?”

Rook straightens, taking the chance to catch his own breath, and he turns, with every intention of asking V whether he’s alright...

But he doesn’t have to. V remains standing in a defensive posture, hands raised as though he might actually need to do something with them, but he’s clearly unharmed; there’s a high flush in his cheeks, and the look in his eyes, staring back at Rook, is one of unfettered delight.

Something stirs.

“I-I, uh... I-I didn’t mean any... That, that was just, uh, j-just a test, you, er, y-you understand, right...?”

V’s attention returns to the Midlander as the man babbles pathetically on, and his lips curve into a wicked grin.

“Let’s try that again. Shall we?”

His voice is every bit as sweet as before, if perhaps a bit sharper, as he once again takes the pouch of gil in hand and empties nearly half of it back into his pocket.

“You’ll take my payment—” V hands the considerably lighter pouch off to Rook, who begins to make his own advance across the tracks; the Midlander nearly stumbles over his own feet with how quickly he backs away, clearly desperate to maintain the distance between them. “—and I’ll take your goods. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. Don’t you agree?”

Rook stops just short enough to toss the pouch at the Midlander’s feet. The man whimpers, ducking as though Rook had thrown a punch instead, but of course he’s quick to snatch up his gil.

“H-Hey, this isn’t—” And, of course, he’s quick to catch on to the pouch’s lessened weight. “This, this isn’t what you said you’d—”

“Oh, isn’t it?” V cuts him short with a cluck of his tongue before he clasps both hands together. “That’s right. You’ll find I’ve already subtracted our convenience fee from your total payment.”

“C-Convenience...?”

“That’s right.”

That honey-sweet smile finally falls from V’s face as he repeats himself.

“For the convenience of not having my man here rip your miserable fucking head right off your fucking shoulders.” And then, without missing a beat, that smile — that sweet smile, that sickly sweet tone of voice — snaps right back into place. “You understand. Right?”

“R-Right, right, of course, right, I, I-I understand, this, th-this won’t happen again, i-it won’t...!!”

Rook wonders how true that really is — whether this man won’t simply turn up at the next meeting with even more backup in tow, or if he won’t preemptively try to get the drop on V when he least expects it...

But that’s a bridge best crossed whenever they actually come to it, perhaps. Whenever that next meeting occurs — if it should occur at all — if he should once again be the only man standing between V and certain harm, then he’ll just have to deal with it, regardless of what other circumstances there might be. It’s as simple as that.

The Midlander finally scurries away, disappearing into the dark, and V exhales so deeply that Rook can feel it even from the other side of the tracks.

“Fuck... Alright, let’s get this shit back home before he changes his mind.”

Rook simply nods, already slinging both of those heavy sacks over his shoulders with ease. He doesn’t expect they’ll find any trouble getting back into the city; the guards at the gate know his face only too well by now, and they’ve received enough sternly-worded notices from the vocate to know better than to impede a retainer going about his business, even at this late hour of night.

No, if he’s worried about anything now...

“V?”

He snaps up to face Rook, eyes wide as though he’s just broken out of a trance — an expression which lasts upon his face for all of a second before he decides to look annoyed instead.

“What?”

Rook takes a moment to look him up and down, once again reaffirming that he’s unharmed — shaking, but unharmed.

“Just checking you’re alright.”

V looks away with a flustered scowl, raking one hand back through his hair.

“Yeah, well, consider me checked.” He turns on his heel, already heading back towards the city walls. “Come on, hurry up already.”

Rook wonders.

Not that he has much time for wondering now; that’s best left for later, perhaps. He adjusts his grip on the sacks at his shoulder, and he follows closely after V.

---

Just as expected, the guards at the gate — well, the one who’s still awake at this hour, anyway — barely gives the two of them a single look askance as they pass through. Rook knows well the least-traveled path back to his lodgings; not a single other soul crosses their path, let alone stops to accost them, as they bring back their somnus haul.

What Rook doesn’t expect is what happens after the door’s been locked and the sacks deposited on the floor: V dragging him down with surprising strength into a searing, urgent kiss, lips slotted firmly against his own while he presses every ilm of his body against him.

He doesn’t think — he doesn’t even have the space to think, not for a single second before his hands are at V’s hips, before his lips are parting and V is pushing into his mouth with a soft sound, before V is pushing him back while keeping himself pressed so, so close, and it’s a wonder they don’t trip over each other’s feet as they stumble back towards the couch, where Rook all but falls back onto the cushions and V wastes no time in climbing up after him.

“I wish,” V breathes against his lips, both hands at Rook’s chest while he grinds down into his lap. “I fucking wish...he’d given you any excuse...” His hands slip lower, tugging upward at Rook’s shirt until they find their way underneath. “To snap his fucking neck...”

V bites greedily, desperately at his lip, and he—

No— No, no, what is he doing, he can’t—

“V, w-wait— Stop—”

Though he’s barely able to catch his breath, Rook stops everything to put both hands at V’s shoulders and push him back. V does nothing to resist him, although, predictably, his face — skin flushed, eyes dilated, lips swollen red — is now fixed upon him in a glare.

“I...” The strength of that glare is uncommonly intense, such that it leaves Rook grasping for words. “You know I... We can’t—”

“Oh, would you get OVER yourself already!!”

V punctuates his shout by hitting both hands against Rook’s chest, the look upon his face now twisted into such fury as Rook has only rarely seen.

“What the fuck is this about we, huh!? Last I checked, YOU were the only one deciding we can’t ever fuck each other, for some fucking reason!!”

Rook’s head swims; no words remain within his grasp.

“I—”

“Tell me.” V cuts off whatever he was going to say, not even Rook knows what, with a snarl, and twists his hands into the fabric of Rook’s shirt. “Tell me, and don’t fucking lie to me. Tell me why you won’t fuck me.”

His head is still swimming. The sheer anger in V’s voice rings in his head, leaving no room whatsoever for Rook to come up with anything that might soothe his temper.

It leaves no room at all for anything but the truth.

“I...” He has to look away; the intensity of V’s stare is simply too much. “Haven’t I told you before...? I just... I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to do anything that could hurt you. That’s—”

“And what do you think you’re doing right NOW, huh!?”

V tears himself away with a wordless sound, as if raw frustration and fury itself is what looses from his throat, and sits with his head in his hands, his ears flat, his fists grinding into his eyes. Rook finds himself at an utter loss.

“V, I—”

“Shut up.”

He doesn’t turn to look back at him. Rook isn’t quite sure that he could handle it if he did.

“Always, you’re fucking always pushing me away, even though I keep telling you this is what I want, that you’re not going to fucking hurt me or whatever — like you know what’s fucking best for me. Like I’m— I don’t know, like I’m some fucking doll for you to keep on a shelf. Like I’m just something for you to fucking look at, to make you feel so fucking good about yourself, because you’re so fucking kind to me.”

Only then does he finally lift his head again, meeting Rook’s gaze with wounded, red-rimmed eyes.

“How the fuck do you think that makes me feel, huh?” V’s lip curls into another snarl. “Do you really think that’s what’s best for me? Do you really think I’m better off this way, over whatever the fuck it is that you could possibly do to me?”

Something inside him aches in a way that he no longer thought was possible.

“V, I don’t—”

“Or are you just saying that to spare my fucking feelings?” V’s teeth bare this time, as his words rise in volume; clearly, he doesn’t intend to leave any room for Rook to attempt a rebuttal. “Is that it? Tell me, then, what’s the REAL reason? You’ve seen enough of my body to know how fucking hideous it is, is that it!? Or is it just that you don’t want to bother with me because I’m all used up, because I’m damaged fucking goods—”

“V, would you listen to me!?”

Rook grabs him by the shoulder, jarring V just long enough for him to get one foot back into the conversation. He can’t waste this chance.

“I don’t think that. I’ve never thought that. I...”

But words begin to slip from his grasp all over again. Rather than cut back in, V stares up at him, half expectant, half glaring.

“I...”

If he says the wrong thing now, he’ll lose V’s trust for good, without any chance of winning it back. He’s surer of this than perhaps anything else in his entire life. And yet...

What else can he say but the truth?

Rook closes his eyes for a moment, willing himself to just keep fucking talking.

“I just... I didn’t want us to... This....relationship, or whatever it is...” Even now, he still can’t say. “I... I didn’t want it to become transactional. I...didn’t want you to see me that way. After everything you’d been through, I... I never wanted you to feel like...like that was the only reason I wanted you around. Like you had to sleep with me if I was going to keep being kind to you. That’s all.”

V turns his head away again, his hair falling in such a way to keep Rook from seeing the look on his face. Something aches.

“I’m sorry.” He lets his hand slip from V’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for not being more honest with you. I’m sorry for...for not listening to you. I was trying so hard not to hurt you, but...”

His words trail off, but V says nothing in reply. He takes a deep, soft breath.

“Could you ever forgive me?”

For a long, agonizingly long few moments, V doesn’t respond at all — until he lifts his head again.

“I might forgive you.” He turns, just enough to look up at Rook from the corner of his eye. “If you make me cum.”

Oh.

So that’s how it’s going to be.

It’s almost uncanny, how easily V can turn the atmosphere, no matter how dour, entirely on its head with a single word or a slight change to his expression — such as now, when he meets Rook’s gaze with a look in his eyes that can only be described as defiant.

Something is stirring all over again. But Rook knows better this time than to push it aside.

He tilts his head, meeting that defiant look with one of his own.

“How many times?”

V’s immediate response, perhaps predictably, is a scoffing snort.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” His lip is curling again, this time into more of a smirk than a snarl. “Getting me off isn’t gonna be some walk in the park, you know.”

“Is that so...”

There’s no actual question in his tone — only the certainty that this is a bet he’s going to win.

He leans in for another kiss before V can come up with another retort, and V welcomes him, lips parting with another soft sound while his arms wind around Rook’s neck and his hands begin to rake through his hair...and then he stops, pulling back, V chasing after his lips with a confused noise, to descend to the floor, to kneel between V’s spread legs and hook his fingers into the waistband of his trousers to begin pulling them off.

V doesn’t hesitate to comply, picking up his hips and kicking his way out of each pant leg even as Rook peels them off, and he keeps his legs splayed after, spreading even wider to make more room for Rook as he settles in.

He takes a moment to study the scene before him: V’s clit, bigger than any he remembers having seen before, and already swollen red from arousal, just poking out from beneath a faint dusting of not-quite-white hair, from between folds that are already glistening damp.

“W-Well?” V shifts a bit, his typical impatience clearly tinged with self-conscious anxiety. “Are you just gonna keep staring, or—”

In an instant, that impatient tone is cut short — in the very same instant that Rook leans in, hands braced at either of V’s inner thighs, to lave his tongue over that swollen clit.

“What—” He can barely speak for the way his voice hitches right into a high-pitched gasp, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. “Are you—”

He squirms and twitches in Rook’s hold, one hand winding into his hair and clutching tight, leaving Rook to wonder if it’s truly possible that he’s never had this done to him before — but that only gives him all the more reason to keep going, to lap between V’s parted lips in one long, slow lick before working back down, slowly, deliberately working him open...

“F-Fuck— Fuck, you’re really— Ohh, fuck—”

The hand in Rook’s hair begins to pull even tighter, just as V’s voice is beginning to pitch higher and higher. Rook takes that as his cue to flick the tip of his tongue over V’s clit, before he closes his lips on it and—

“Fuck—!!”

V cries out, the sound of it landing somewhere between a sob and a shout, and every ilm of him suddenly draws taut beneath Rook’s hands, his hips jerking and twitching right up into Rook’s mouth as he shudders and gasps for air.

It’s only after all his tension seems to finally wind down that Rook draws back, just far enough to meet V’s gaze as he looks up at him, and takes a moment to catch his breath while he swipes a thumb through the mingled slick and saliva on his lower lip.

“Was that one?”

V’s face — perfectly, erotically flushed and undone as he pants for air — twists into a furiously flustered scowl, the color in his cheeks somehow rising even higher as he hooks both of his legs over Rook’s shoulders.

“Sh-Shut up—” Those tightly wound fingers start to push Rook’s head back down. “Just, shut up and do that again, alright...!?”

Rook doesn’t resist him, of course, although he does huff out a laugh against V’s skin, even slicker than before, as he dips his tongue back into the space between his legs.

“D-Don’t...fucking laugh at me, you...”

Whatever venom might have lingered in V’s tone is quickly undercut by the way his words trail into a moan, by the way his back arches and his thighs begin to tremble, as Rook mouths a wet, lingering trail over every ilm of him — kissing, sucking, laving a path back up to his clit...

“Don’t... D-Don’t you...dare s-stop... Hah...”

Rook answers back with a wordless affirmative sound, rumbling low in his throat as he closes his lips on V all over again, and his reward is another keening moan, a high-pitched warble, while V squirms desperately beneath him. He softly sucks, not letting up for even a moment, and shifts just enough to accommodate one of his hands slipping further in, fingers teasing apart those slippery folds and—

“Wait— Oh, fuck, w-wait—”

At once, Rook comes to a stop, drawing back with both hands and mouth to look up at V again.

“Wh...”

V, on the other hand, turns his gaze back downward with a look that is in equal turns both dazed and offended.

“Wha... Why did you stop!?”

“You said to—”

“I didn’t mean— Ugh, could you actually listen to me, for once!?”

His fingers tighten in Rook’s hair again, but this time Rook doesn’t let himself be pushed back down so easily; he arches a brow, instead, and keeps his eyes locked with V’s as he slowly, teasingly slides one thumb across the seam of his thigh, stopping just short of his wanting, dripping mound.

“Say what you mean, then.”

“Y-You—”

V tries for a look of fury, a look of rage, even, but there’s already another keening cry slipping out from his throat, no matter how hard he bites his lip to try and hold it back, and he rocks his hips in a futile effort to bring some more friction between his pussy and Rook’s teasing hand.

“F-Fuck, you—”

“Say what you want.” Rook, meanwhile, keeps his face impassive — perhaps except for the tiniest bit of smug gratification over seeing V like this — and his voice level, utterly unhurried. “And I’ll give it to you.”

“Ngh—”

That face is flushed beet red by now, save the flash of white where he bites down on his lip harder than ever before — until he finally releases it with a whine, making plain his desperation for anyone to hear.

“I-I want... I want you to...t-to make me cum, a-alright!?”

“Mm.” Rook purses his lips, letting his head tilt to one side until his horn is fully resting against V’s thigh. “How?”

“Fuck you, like you don’t f-fucking know—”

“Tell me.”

Rook slides his thumb right up against V’s clit, and even though he applies only the barest amount of pressure, the sound that escapes V in that moment can best be described as a squeal.

“I’m not even making you say please,” Rook says plainly, drawing back his thumb one more time and relishing in the way V shudders and gasps for its absence. “Just tell me what you want me to do to you. That’s all.”

“F-Fuck you—”

“Or—” Slowly, with the barest amount of pressure, he swipes that thumb up and down over V’s folds. “—we can keep doing this all night. If that’s what you’d prefer.”

“You— Ngh—”

Again, V tries to rock upward into the motion of his hand, but Rook holds him fast. V bites his lip again, eyes squeezing shut in an obvious effort to hold himself back — until, finally, he finally relents.

“Suck me off— Just, k-keep sucking me off until I cum, okay, f-fuck me with your fingers already, and don’t f-fucking stop until I— Ahh—”

Rook doesn’t wait for him to finish before he begins to do as he’s told — fingers pushing deep inside, tongue pressing and rubbing over his clit with ruthless intensity — and his reward is a wail like none he’s ever heard from V before.

“Oh— Oh, fuck, fuck, don’t— Don’t stop, don’t, I’m— I—”

Both of V’s hands are on Rook now, sliding down from his hair to grab onto his horns like he’s holding on for dear life, and he’s squirming, rocking, jerking with such force now that it’s all Rook can do to hold him in place with his other hand. His voice is winding higher and higher in the meanwhile, louder and louder, while he barely manages to string one word to another between sobbing, shuddering gasps for air—

“I— Rook—”

V’s legs clamp down where they hang over Rook’s shoulders, just as he tightens down on the fingers still inside him, just as his back arches and his hips lift and his fingers curl with digging nails over Rook’s horns, and he comes with another wailing cry.

Rook keeps working him through it, keeps working his fingers and mouth until he’s wrung every last bit of V’s climax out of him, until the legs at his shoulders finally begin to fall slack, until the rest of V’s body begins to unspool right on top of him... And then — just as he’s finally begun to draw back — V’s hands slide from his horns to grip either side of Rook’s face, tilting his head upward until his eyes meet V’s all over again.

“Take me to bed.” He’s still panting, still gasping for air, but the determination in his eyes could not be clearer. “Right now. Or I’ll never forgive you.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Rook surges up into another kiss, V’s lips parting hungrily for him, as he slides his hands beneath V’s thighs and hoists him up with ease. V moves with him as though guided by instinct, legs wrapping around Rook’s midsection and arms winding around his shoulders in near-perfect tandem, and he uses the leverage from his new position to grind and roll his hips against Rook even as he’s carried straight to the bedroom.

“Fuck... Is that really...what I taste like...?”

V murmurs against Rook’s lips, his words barely rising above the volume of his own breath, but he doesn’t stop; if anything, the slide of his tongue against Rook’s only becomes even more insistent, teeth biting, lips sucking with more fervor, more desperation, more, more...

Rook, of course, says nothing at all — not until they reach his bed, where he deposits V before climbing after him on all fours.

“How do you want me?”

“On your back.”

V doesn’t hesitate, putting both hands at Rook’s shoulders to start pushing him back — and neither does Rook, going exactly where V directs him, pausing only to strip off his shirt while V settles between his legs and begins to undo his trousers with impatient hands.

“It’s about fucking time you finally... Finally... Uh...”

He finally, fully pulls Rook’s pants away, and his words trail off as the look of self-satisfied determination on his face begins to fade, leaving in its place only quizzical consternation.

“What is this?”

Rook can’t help it; he has to laugh.

“You’ve never been with an Au Ra before, have you?”

At once, that look of consternation transforms into one of V’s more familiar scowls, ears lying back as his cheeks flush bright red.

“Shh, shut up!!” He can’t seem to decide whether to turn his glare directly towards Rook or down between his legs. “Just, tell me what I need to...”

“Here.”

Rook takes one of V’s hands in his own, gently guiding him below the scales of his pubic mound, guiding his fingers to the slit where his glistening cockhead is only just beginning to breach.

“Like this... Ah—”

V catches on more quickly than he’d anticipated, rubbing carefully, almost teasingly, to coax out Rook’s full length, and the touch of his hand, of each of those dexterous fingers, is enough to make Rook bite his lip on a sharp inhale.

“Shit...” V is biting his lip as well, murmuring with something like wonderment in his tone as he works his hand over Rook’s swelling erection. “No wonder I’ve never felt you get hard...”

“You— Ah— You...could have just asked, you know.”

“Ugh, I said shut up...!”

He shoves Rook until he’s lying flat on his back, and for a moment, all Rook can do is breathe out another laugh — until V takes him in hand again, lifting his hips and sliding Rook’s cock between those slick folds, and guides him right up to his entrance.

“Like I was saying.” Somehow V maintains that haughty, smirking look on his face even as he sinks down, bit by bit, onto Rook’s cock. “It’s...about...f-fucking time—”

He maintains it right up until Rook is fully buried within him, at which point his head rolls back with an open-mouthed moan...and Rook is right there with him, unable to hold himself back in the slightest.

“Fuck... Oh—”

Already, the wet, tight heat of V’s cunt is so much, it’s so much as to be overwhelming — and that’s before he begins to move, lifting himself up and rocking back down with a mewling cry, and it’s all Rook can do to grab onto either one of his thighs just to try and hold on.

“Fuck, fuck—” Rook’s teeth dig into his lip, just as his fingers dig into the skin of V’s thighs, leaving impressions even where his burns begin to thicken and whorl. “V— V, you—”

“S-Stop—”

V’s breath shudders as he leans forward, as he braces both hands against Rook’s broad chest, as his fingers curl and his nails dig in deep.

“Violet. Call me Violet.”

“I—” He’s so dazed, so overwhelmed by sheer sensation, between how tightly V envelops him and the bite of those nails in his chest, that Rook can scarcely call upon a single word to question him. “But— You—”

“Only you.” V’s eyes are all but fully hazed over with lust, tinged by the high flush in his face, but, somehow, that determination from earlier continues to shine through. “Only you. Nobody else. I want it— I need it to be you.”

“I—”

Before he can even begin scrabbling for a response, V rocks back down onto him in a slow, deliberate grind, and anything Rook might have said next is cut off instead by a low, desperate groan.

“Say it—” V bites his lip, biting back a noise of his own, before he continues. “I need to— to hear it— in your voice. Only your voice. Only—”

But he’s cut off by another gasping cry as Rook tightens his hold on him, hands sliding upward to grasp his hips, and thrusts up into him.

“Violet—” It almost feels strange on his tongue, but Rook doesn’t have nearly the space of mind to linger on that, not with the way V — no, Violet — writhes in his hold and down onto his cock. “V-Violet— Fuck, Violet—”

Violet, meanwhile, has completely dispensed with any pretense of holding himself back. His cries are louder than ever before, interspersed with gasps and moans as he meets Rook’s every thrust with as much fervor as he can, and when he does speak, his words are near to incoherence:

“There— Th-There, right there, fuck, f-fuck, don’t, don’t you d-dare fucking stop, oh, gods, fuck, Rook, please, please, I need— I need—”

It’s entirely possible that Rook is vocalizing as well, whether it’s to repeat Violet’s name or to babble on just as incoherently, but he can no longer hear his own voice. All he can hear is Violet, instead, his voice winding up ever higher, ever louder; all he can see is Violet, back arched, skin flushed, lips parted and face contorted into a look of pleasure like he’s never seen before; all he can feel is Violet, the warmth of his skin beneath his hands, the slight weight of his body bearing down, thighs clenching and muscles going taut, every ilm of him tightening around Rook so sharply, so suddenly, as he lets out a gasping cry...

He’s so transfixed, he doesn’t even realize he’s about to come until it happens — until it takes him by sudden and total surprise, jerking his hips out of rhythm and pulling a gasp from his own throat, and he’s spilling into Violet’s cunt before he can even think to hold himself back.

For some time after, the only sound that rings into Rook’s horns is the mingling of their breath — harsh, shuddering, raw — until Violet murmurs a wordless sound, which heralds him pulling up from Rook’s softening cock until he slips free, crawling forward to lie flat on Rook’s chest, and nuzzling his face into the crook of Rook’s shoulder and neck, slotting in just so, as if it were a perfect fit.

A perfect fit, just for him.

Just so...

“You’re mine.”

Violet is murmuring again, all but breathing out the words, while he mouths over the gaps between Rook’s scales and grazes his teeth against his skin.

“Mine... Only mine. My Rook.” He kisses, bites, sucks at the skin between Rook’s scales, such that he already knows there’s going to be a mark. “And I’ll be yours... Your Violet. Only yours. Only yours... Only mine. Nobody else’s. Nobody...”

Part of Rook wonders just how much Violet actually means what he’s saying now — whether any of this is something he’ll continue to want, continue to believe once the afterglow has fully faded from his senses. But, even if that should be the case...

He doesn’t find a single part of himself — not a single onze, not a single drop of blood coursing through his veins — that’s inclined to protest. No, not in the slightest.

Rook turns his head to one side, just so — just enough to tilt his face downward without catching Violet on his horns, to press a kiss between those leporine ears — and he murmurs into Violet’s hair:

“I’m yours.”

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv oc #ffxiv gpose #ffxiv writing #gpose #writing #violet vespertine #rook

bala-xiv

Feb 23

quid pro quo; pt. 2

part 1

“You still haven’t told me what I should call you.”

But, somehow, this one piece of information — the most critical piece of information possible, one might say — has managed to elude him.

The Viera takes another deep pull from his pipe, unhurriedly exhaling another thick cloud of somnus smoke.

“I know.”

Rook doesn’t exactly frown, but his brow does furrow by the slightest amount.

“Do you plan on ever changing that, or...?”

To that, the Viera snorts.

“Why? Maybe I don’t want you calling me anything at all.” His lip curls into something like a smirk. “You don’t need to be talking about me to other people, anyway.”

Rook thinks.

“Maybe I want to call you by your own name.”

That smirk fades from the Viera’s face.

“Why not?”

Silence follows. The look of tense annoyance that had come over the Viera’s face begins to gradually melt into one of impassive resignation.

He takes another pull from the pipe before he continues.

He pauses again, taking yet another drag. Rook says nothing; all he can do now is sit with the weight of what he’s just been told.

The Viera laughs again, sending more somnus smoke drifting upward.

After that, the Viera falls silent for a time — no more words; no more laughter. The smoky haze in the room is only just beginning to clear.

“Anyway.”

His head swims.

“What are you—”

“I didn’t—”

“Stop.”

“But I just told you—”

“I don’t want to.”

(It’s strange, isn’t it? How this feels more comfortable to him than the alternative.)

“How am I treating you like a child?”

Rook frowns, his brow furrowing. He wonders.

“So... It doesn’t matter at all what I want, then?”

“Tch.”

At that, Rook abruptly stops what he’s doing to give the Viera a flat look, which is what finally catches his attention.

“What?”

“You are not a hundred years old.”

“I could be!” he huffs again, his tone defensive. “How would you know, huh!?”

For once, Rook allows himself the indulgence of snorting through his nose.

“Twenty-five summers. Tops.”

“Wha—”

“Twenty-six. If you count by the winters instead.”

Rook relishes in his victory for all of a moment before he begins to wonder.

“You say you don’t remember what your name used to be...” He’s musing again, thumb rubbing firm circles into the arch of the Viera’s foot. “But you remember a detail like that, huh.”

Part of him had expected another indignant outburst; instead, the Viera remains quiet, his voice still soft even when he does speak again.

Rook wonders. But he has nothing to say; not yet.

“So.”

“You won’t fuck me, but you’ll do this?”

“Is that strange?”

Predictably, the Viera huffs; he never does like to have his own words turned back on him.

“You’re strange.”

He’ll take that, Rook thinks, over any other, potentially worse alternatives. For now.

“You know... Speaking of which.”

His idle words draw another downward glance from Rook, but the Viera isn’t looking at him this time; he’s staring up at the ceiling, one arm folded up behind his head.

“I don’t remember you ever telling me what your name is.”

That realization, only just now dawning upon Rook as the Viera speaks it into being, is sufficient to give him pause — but only for a moment, and then he shrugs again.

“Do I need to?” He looks to the Viera from the very corner of his eye. “Considering how often you go through my things, surely you’ve already learned it by now.”

Rook snorts again, and he takes a moment to wonder whether the Viera doesn’t realize his own admission or if he simply doesn’t care. But, regrettably, he does have a point.

“It’s Rook,” he finally says, his voice soft, while he stares back down at his hands and massages the Viera’s foot. “That’s what I’m called.”

From the very corner of his eye, he sees it: the tilt of the Viera’s head to one side, and the confused scrunch that comes over his face.

“Rook?” His tone drips with skepticism. “Really? That doesn’t sound like any Xaelic name I’ve ever heard.”

“I know.”

More silence follows. Rook can feel the Viera’s impatience winding up tighter and tighter with each passing moment.

“So... What, then?” Skepticism and impatience, each coming through his words in equal turns: “You’re not even gonna tell me your real name? Or, what, you don’t remember yours, either?”

“I don’t.”

“Huh?”

His frankness seems to have caught the Viera off-guard. Rook can’t quite see the way his expression turns from where he’s sitting, but...

He closes his eyes.

“I don’t remember.” He takes a slow, even breath. “So... It’s just Rook.”

Another silence — longer, heavier, much more palpable in its stillness — is all that follows, for what feels like half an eternity. Then, finally, the Viera lets out a soft huff of a sigh.

“Some hypocrite you are, then.” He rolls his head back, arms folding across his chest again. “Acting like I’m the weird one for forgetting my name.”

Again, Rook snorts; this time, it’s closer to a laugh.

“Tch... I guess.”

Another few moments of silence pass, although this time the air has returned to a more comfortable sort of quiet — almost like things between the two of them have already gone back to normal.

“I guess...we’re both just hypocrites, huh.”

Like things have gone back to normal — like whatever this is, this thing that neither of them can seem to put a name to even if they tried, is anything close to normal.

But maybe that’s alright.

“There are worse things to be.”

Things could always, always be worse.

---

But, without fail, no matter how little Rook might see of him during the day, he always comes back — until he doesn’t.

“Rook—!!”

“Are you...”

“Rook— Ahaha, thank fuck, you’re awake— Look, look, look!!”

“Look at all this!!”

“He showed me everything— Heh, ahaha— Can you believe that!? He showed me everything, what an idiot!! Aha, hahaha—”

“V, what is this?”

“Aha— Look, look.”

But if V has all of this, that can only mean... The furrow in his brow creases even more deeply.

“V...” He would never have stolen something like this — would he? — unless he could be sure that he faced zero chance of reprisal. “What did you do?”

“Aha... Haha...”

V pushes himself upright with one arm; the manic energy seems to be fading, but the smile on his face is every bit as delirious as before.

“I didn’t do much of anything. I barely even had to. Ahaha... It wasn’t even hard, you know? It never is, with men like him.”

He pushes himself up even further, until his weight is back on his knees, and he begins to draw closer, close enough to fold his hands over Rook’s thigh and rest his chin there.

Rook’s mind churns. For a long moment, all he can do is stare.

“V, you...”

But V continues.

As he speaks, V slowly, steadily pulls himself up into the empty space beside Rook on the sofa where he sits; Rook, meanwhile, can only continue to stare.

By this point V is leaning with his full weight against him, both arms wrapped around Rook’s while he nuzzles his face into the gaps between his scales.

“V.”

“Shit... If I’m quick enough to fill his niche, they might not even notice he’s gone. Can you imagine? Can you even imagine...”

“V, you’re—” The amount of disbelief he feels in that moment would be staggering if he weren’t already seated. “You can’t really be thinking of—”

“Of fucking course I am,” V snaps back with sudden vigor. “What, like you think I just did this, all of this, for the hell of it? Like I didn’t plan for exactly this outcome?”

Rook wonders, then. How long had V been planning this, without him having ever suspected a thing?

“I’m sick of it, Rook.”

“I’m sick of just getting by on your scraps — you know? I’m sick of just getting by in the first fucking place. Don’t you get it?”

It takes a moment, but the more V speaks his mind, the clearer it becomes — that fiery flash in his eyes, clearly, is the spark of ambition.

He leans forward, once again invading Rook’s personal space, his expression sharpening as he continues on.

“Money is the only thing that really talks in this town... So that’s exactly what I’m going to get: money. As much as I fucking need, until I’m the one on top. Do you get it now?”

He says it so simply, as if it’s such a straightforward goal to achieve — as if Ul’dah hasn’t already crushed numbers untold of those who once shared that very same ambition.

“And you’re going to help me.”

Rook blinks.

“Right?”

“I...”

He takes a breath.

“Alright.”

---

The first deal is arranged within a sennight, once V has determined which among the suppliers in the hapless dealer’s black book is his likeliest bet for a successful turnout.

“Shit, is this guy ever gonna show up?”

Which just leaves everything else about the situation to occupy Rook’s concern.

“Ugh, come on.”

He wonders... But the time for wondering is nearly up.

“V.”

“What?”

Rook gestures with a nod of his head — there, on the horizon, are three figures approaching, roughly from the direction of Stonesthrow.

At once, V goes still; his posture shifts, shoulders squaring, and every bit of that anxious energy seems to sharpen to a single point.

“Fucking finally.”

“Get down here so I can get a good look at you.”

“I’m right here.”

That seems to do the trick; V takes a quick breath, short but deep, and smooths out his expression before he steps down from the platform and into the light.

Of course, the Midlander’s own expression only sours even further as he looks between the two of them from the other side of the tracks, back and forth until he finally seems to settle on Rook.

“What is this, some kind of joke?” he spits, his focus still fully on Rook. “A lizardman and, what, some pet rabbit? Where’s the usual guy?”

Rook can feel the way V bristles without even turning to look — but he does, of course, to try and gauge exactly where his temper’s at.

“Huh...”

“And just why should I believe you, huh?”

One of V’s ears twitches back; the smile on his face doesn’t falter, but it’s clearly more tense than before.

“It should be this payment I have for you, right here. Don’t you agree?”

The Midlander exchanges another long look with his heavies, and he barks out a laugh.

“Hah! Maybe you’re right, maybe... So, let me ask you something else.”

He raises his hand again — another signal, evidently, as the Highlanders each roll their shoulders, dropping those heavy sacks right to the ground, and begin to advance across the tracks.

“What’s there to stop me from just taking that payment, and everything else you got on you, too? Huh?”

In his peripheral view, Rook sees V take a sudden step back — but only in his peripheral view. His focus is now solely on the pair of Highlanders, one of whom is now close enough to lunge for—

“Don’t—”

“To hells with this—!!”

Rook straightens, taking the chance to catch his own breath, and he turns, with every intention of asking V whether he’s alright...

Something stirs.

“I-I, uh... I-I didn’t mean any... That, that was just, uh, j-just a test, you, er, y-you understand, right...?”

V’s attention returns to the Midlander as the man babbles pathetically on, and his lips curve into a wicked grin.

“Let’s try that again. Shall we?”

His voice is every bit as sweet as before, if perhaps a bit sharper, as he once again takes the pouch of gil in hand and empties nearly half of it back into his pocket.

Rook stops just short enough to toss the pouch at the Midlander’s feet. The man whimpers, ducking as though Rook had thrown a punch instead, but of course he’s quick to snatch up his gil.

“H-Hey, this isn’t—” And, of course, he’s quick to catch on to the pouch’s lessened weight. “This, this isn’t what you said you’d—”

“C-Convenience...?”

“That’s right.”

That honey-sweet smile finally falls from V’s face as he repeats himself.

“R-Right, right, of course, right, I, I-I understand, this, th-this won’t happen again, i-it won’t...!!”

The Midlander finally scurries away, disappearing into the dark, and V exhales so deeply that Rook can feel it even from the other side of the tracks.

“Fuck... Alright, let’s get this shit back home before he changes his mind.”

No, if he’s worried about anything now...

“V?”

He snaps up to face Rook, eyes wide as though he’s just broken out of a trance — an expression which lasts upon his face for all of a second before he decides to look annoyed instead.

“What?”

Rook takes a moment to look him up and down, once again reaffirming that he’s unharmed — shaking, but unharmed.

“Just checking you’re alright.”

V looks away with a flustered scowl, raking one hand back through his hair.

“Yeah, well, consider me checked.” He turns on his heel, already heading back towards the city walls. “Come on, hurry up already.”

Rook wonders.

Not that he has much time for wondering now; that’s best left for later, perhaps. He adjusts his grip on the sacks at his shoulder, and he follows closely after V.

---

V bites greedily, desperately at his lip, and he—

No— No, no, what is he doing, he can’t—

“V, w-wait— Stop—”

“I...” The strength of that glare is uncommonly intense, such that it leaves Rook grasping for words. “You know I... We can’t—”

“Oh, would you get OVER yourself already!!”

V punctuates his shout by hitting both hands against Rook’s chest, the look upon his face now twisted into such fury as Rook has only rarely seen.

“What the fuck is this about we, huh!? Last I checked, YOU were the only one deciding we can’t ever fuck each other, for some fucking reason!!”

Rook’s head swims; no words remain within his grasp.

“I—”

His head is still swimming. The sheer anger in V’s voice rings in his head, leaving no room whatsoever for Rook to come up with anything that might soothe his temper.

It leaves no room at all for anything but the truth.

“And what do you think you’re doing right NOW, huh!?”

“V, I—”

“Shut up.”

He doesn’t turn to look back at him. Rook isn’t quite sure that he could handle it if he did.

Only then does he finally lift his head again, meeting Rook’s gaze with wounded, red-rimmed eyes.

Something inside him aches in a way that he no longer thought was possible.

“V, I don’t—”

“V, would you listen to me!?”

Rook grabs him by the shoulder, jarring V just long enough for him to get one foot back into the conversation. He can’t waste this chance.

“I don’t think that. I’ve never thought that. I...”

But words begin to slip from his grasp all over again. Rather than cut back in, V stares up at him, half expectant, half glaring.

“I...”

If he says the wrong thing now, he’ll lose V’s trust for good, without any chance of winning it back. He’s surer of this than perhaps anything else in his entire life. And yet...

What else can he say but the truth?

Rook closes his eyes for a moment, willing himself to just keep fucking talking.

V turns his head away again, his hair falling in such a way to keep Rook from seeing the look on his face. Something aches.

His words trail off, but V says nothing in reply. He takes a deep, soft breath.

“Could you ever forgive me?”

For a long, agonizingly long few moments, V doesn’t respond at all — until he lifts his head again.

“I might forgive you.” He turns, just enough to look up at Rook from the corner of his eye. “If you make me cum.”

Oh.

So that’s how it’s going to be.

Something is stirring all over again. But Rook knows better this time than to push it aside.

He tilts his head, meeting that defiant look with one of his own.

“How many times?”

V’s immediate response, perhaps predictably, is a scoffing snort.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” His lip is curling again, this time into more of a smirk than a snarl. “Getting me off isn’t gonna be some walk in the park, you know.”

“Is that so...”

There’s no actual question in his tone — only the certainty that this is a bet he’s going to win.

“W-Well?” V shifts a bit, his typical impatience clearly tinged with self-conscious anxiety. “Are you just gonna keep staring, or—”

In an instant, that impatient tone is cut short — in the very same instant that Rook leans in, hands braced at either of V’s inner thighs, to lave his tongue over that swollen clit.

“What—” He can barely speak for the way his voice hitches right into a high-pitched gasp, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. “Are you—”

“F-Fuck— Fuck, you’re really— Ohh, fuck—”

“Fuck—!!”

“Was that one?”

“Sh-Shut up—” Those tightly wound fingers start to push Rook’s head back down. “Just, shut up and do that again, alright...!?”

Rook doesn’t resist him, of course, although he does huff out a laugh against V’s skin, even slicker than before, as he dips his tongue back into the space between his legs.

“D-Don’t...fucking laugh at me, you...”

“Don’t... D-Don’t you...dare s-stop... Hah...”

“Wait— Oh, fuck, w-wait—”

At once, Rook comes to a stop, drawing back with both hands and mouth to look up at V again.

“Wh...”

V, on the other hand, turns his gaze back downward with a look that is in equal turns both dazed and offended.

“Wha... Why did you stop!?”

“You said to—”

“I didn’t mean— Ugh, could you actually listen to me, for once!?”

“Say what you mean, then.”

“Y-You—”

“F-Fuck, you—”

“Ngh—”

“I-I want... I want you to...t-to make me cum, a-alright!?”

“Mm.” Rook purses his lips, letting his head tilt to one side until his horn is fully resting against V’s thigh. “How?”

“Fuck you, like you don’t f-fucking know—”

“Tell me.”

Rook slides his thumb right up against V’s clit, and even though he applies only the barest amount of pressure, the sound that escapes V in that moment can best be described as a squeal.

“F-Fuck you—”

“Or—” Slowly, with the barest amount of pressure, he swipes that thumb up and down over V’s folds. “—we can keep doing this all night. If that’s what you’d prefer.”

“You— Ngh—”

“Suck me off— Just, k-keep sucking me off until I cum, okay, f-fuck me with your fingers already, and don’t f-fucking stop until I— Ahh—”

“Oh— Oh, fuck, fuck, don’t— Don’t stop, don’t, I’m— I—”

“I— Rook—”

“Take me to bed.” He’s still panting, still gasping for air, but the determination in his eyes could not be clearer. “Right now. Or I’ll never forgive you.”

“Fuck... Is that really...what I taste like...?”

Rook, of course, says nothing at all — not until they reach his bed, where he deposits V before climbing after him on all fours.

“How do you want me?”

“On your back.”

“It’s about fucking time you finally... Finally... Uh...”

He finally, fully pulls Rook’s pants away, and his words trail off as the look of self-satisfied determination on his face begins to fade, leaving in its place only quizzical consternation.

“What is this?”

Rook can’t help it; he has to laugh.

“You’ve never been with an Au Ra before, have you?”

At once, that look of consternation transforms into one of V’s more familiar scowls, ears lying back as his cheeks flush bright red.

“Shh, shut up!!” He can’t seem to decide whether to turn his glare directly towards Rook or down between his legs. “Just, tell me what I need to...”

“Here.”

Rook takes one of V’s hands in his own, gently guiding him below the scales of his pubic mound, guiding his fingers to the slit where his glistening cockhead is only just beginning to breach.

“Like this... Ah—”

“Shit...” V is biting his lip as well, murmuring with something like wonderment in his tone as he works his hand over Rook’s swelling erection. “No wonder I’ve never felt you get hard...”

“You— Ah— You...could have just asked, you know.”

“Ugh, I said shut up...!”

“Like I was saying.” Somehow V maintains that haughty, smirking look on his face even as he sinks down, bit by bit, onto Rook’s cock. “It’s...about...f-fucking time—”

“Fuck... Oh—”

“Fuck, fuck—” Rook’s teeth dig into his lip, just as his fingers dig into the skin of V’s thighs, leaving impressions even where his burns begin to thicken and whorl. “V— V, you—”

“S-Stop—”

V’s breath shudders as he leans forward, as he braces both hands against Rook’s broad chest, as his fingers curl and his nails dig in deep.

“Violet. Call me Violet.”

“I—”

Before he can even begin scrabbling for a response, V rocks back down onto him in a slow, deliberate grind, and anything Rook might have said next is cut off instead by a low, desperate groan.

“Say it—” V bites his lip, biting back a noise of his own, before he continues. “I need to— to hear it— in your voice. Only your voice. Only—”

But he’s cut off by another gasping cry as Rook tightens his hold on him, hands sliding upward to grasp his hips, and thrusts up into him.

“There— Th-There, right there, fuck, f-fuck, don’t, don’t you d-dare fucking stop, oh, gods, fuck, Rook, please, please, I need— I need—”

A perfect fit, just for him.

Just so...

“You’re mine.”

Violet is murmuring again, all but breathing out the words, while he mouths over the gaps between Rook’s scales and grazes his teeth against his skin.

He doesn’t find a single part of himself — not a single onze, not a single drop of blood coursing through his veins — that’s inclined to protest. No, not in the slightest.

“I’m yours.”

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv oc #ffxiv gpose #ffxiv writing #gpose #writing #violet vespertine #rook

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