Lyra and pyxis for the constellation ask game! -nell
Hi @whumpiary! 🥰 answering this from my phone rn so apologies for all the mess haha
Lyra-give us a few songs that fit your project! Ok so I am SO BAD at making playlists or matching characters with songs and stuff like that... just not how my mind works I guess 😔 That said the title Out Unseen comes from the song Dark Night of the Soul by Ola Gjeilo. The lyrics don't necessarily fit the story but it's more about the ambiance... I feel the song has a lot of darkness and despair but also a lot of hope, it climbs and falls but never fully succumbs to the darkness. There's always a thread of light thinly woven through it.
pyxis-are there any major themes or messages you're writing to show? oh heavens I am not that deep 😭 I think maybe theme is too strong a word, but an important undercurrent for me I guess is this sort of eventual triumph of the underdog against someone who is convinced they're unbeatable? I really like it when a character is thrown into a situation way beyond anything she's ever experienced or prepared for, but she's able to rise to the challenge and discover new depths to her strength she didn't know was there. And I really like it when the all powerful villain ultimately falls because he underestimated her, because he just inherently cannot see that other people can also be "players" in the game and can do things he doesn't expect or plan for, and can fight back against him no matter how much he hurts them. Not exactly a theme, but there's a lot of elements to that dynamic I like to explore. our maybe I just like pretty girls getting manhandled and tied up 🤷♀️ idk the jury is still out on that
The doors slide open with their silent mechanisms, but Caretaker still hears the *whoosh* of the ancient pneumatic doors they had encountered in their first posting as a new recruit. It had been annoying at the time but now they sort of missed it in the way one takes comfort in familiarity.
Their room was a small sanctuary but they tried to use the familiar to cozy it up: their own blanket spread on top of the station-issue bedding, a small speaker they played music on to set an ambience (and fill the silence) and the expensive hand cream that was their treat at bedtime. They would crawl into bed, turn off the light and work the cream into their wash-worn hands, taking care to get in all the crevices so they wouldn't crack and be entryways for infection. Cozying up in the same position and drifting to sleep with the familiar scent lingering in their senses.
Today they clutched a warm mug of tea, as if they could absorb strength from it’s warmth. Their body was past exhausted and unable to keep it’s warmth anymore, small shivers and shakes occasionally betraying the Caretaker’s strength. Selecting 4 pills from a large collection of bottles they took their selected pills(2 supplements and 2 different kinds of pain killers) to help their body with it’s current set of issues. Chronic pain and new stiffness competed for attention and it was almost the last straw. Sitting on the bed while they finished their tea, Caretaker grounded themself in the warm soothing vapor and the soft smoothness of the blanket. A hot shower further helped to soothe the nerves and soon Caretaker slid carefully under the tightly tucked sheets with a sigh of relief.
Reflecting on the day’s events as they worked the lotion into their dry and achy hands, caretaker noted no particular reason they were feeling so...so raw inside? They reminded themself they were off the clock, safe behind this door where no nagging patient could ask for a band aid and no supervisor would comment on their uniform being rumpled looking (never mind the intense work they just finished, it’s about *professionalism*). Most importantly, the threat of the impending call was far less here. Caretaker liked the unpredictable nature of their shift, but in their down shift they did not want to deal with anyone. The chance of impending doom was always around the corner of course; their door was marked with “Medic” so that they could be easily located.
*It’s not even that* they thought, *it’s just everyone is so needy.*
Finding that familiar position as they laid down, they lamented the inability to even eat a sandwich because there were simply too many people that needed help today. *Obviously that sets my blood sugars off and wrecks me for hours.* How life would be so much simpler if people would just take charge of their own health instead of being passive victims to easily remedied problems. They loved helping people, and Caretaker genuinely felt care and compassion for their patients, but some days it felt like emptying a tank with nothing to fill it. Willing to travel and transfer had been great for their career but not so much for their life outside of work. They had had no time to develop a hobby or passion, nor develop a longstanding friendship. They lay there, wondering if that’s part of why they felt so drained, feeling their bones sag into the mattress and the soreness seep across their body.
It was 10 minutes after Caretaker had managed to drift off to sleep that someone knocked on a door. Caretaker sat up straight, using their momentum to move them to the door. They were about to open it when they heard two men chuckling and then moving inside a neighboring barrack. Caretaker’s legs almost gave out as they went back to bed, so exhausted (and now awake) that they wanted to weep. They huddled under their covers as tremors jostled their muscles uncomfortably; with no purpose the adrenaline surged through their system and stimulated muscle that was too tired to handle it. They hated this feeling the most, but were grateful they didn’t actually have to work like this, the shaking hands were always the biggest piss off when dealing with the call.
One last glance at the clock before they stopped watching (it only made things worse to keep running a countdown of hours of sleep you *might* get). *Oh good* they thought with gratitude *It’ll take me another half hour at least to fall asleep, and if I do I’ll have 4.5 hours of sleep. That gives me a half hour of extra time to fall asleep and still get my minimum functioning hours in.* Maybe tomorrow would be a … non-eventful day.
Just as they felt their weight sink into the mattress and their brain drift off towards sleep, Caretaker was awake again. Nature calls.
@whumpiary gets the prompt credit: The strong one having to be impossibly strong for way, way too long. And their little moments alone where they can let down, precious and few that they are because their team/family/the world needs them so often / no space to themselves.
In an alternative universe where @untilthepainstarts‘s Lev married (and murdered) Martin, his captor, only to prove a thoughtful, fascinating criminal mastermind... in a timeline where @whumpiary‘s Cass becomes Cassius Bergen, who takes over the Estate after Christopher Bergen goes mysteriously missing... so there is also a Kauri.
Friendly, charming, engaging, flirtatious, this Kauri is a live-in stray at the Bergen Estate, known to come and go as he pleases. He spends an awful lot of time in Cassius Bergen’s office, and rumor has it he’s not in there to perform administrative duties.
Dot, Nell, and I have had fun along with our group of friends talking out the idea of the Dark AU, and honestly, I couldn’t resist seeing where Kauri might fit into it. I even wrote a thing, which I have been given permission to share here!
So, without further mucking about trying to explain it... here is Dark Kauri. Just sit back and enjoy the pretty.
---
CW: Referenced past noncon and pet whump, hints of fucky headspace regarding spice, some low-level spiciness (like PG-13), conditioned behavior
“Take it off.”
“Mmn… no.” Cass kept his head tilted to the side, watching Kauri stand frozen in the doorway, one hand resting lightly on the frame. Lithe and willowy, the Bergen Estate’s fascinating, gorgeous semi-permanent ward looked every inch the gangster’s moll today. Impeccably dressed, like Cass himself.
Cass wore a black suit over a deep purple pinstriped button up loosely unbuttoned just enough to show off the wide-banded black satin choker he wore around his neck.
The choker was what Kauri’s eyes were locked on, slightly widened.
“Take it off, Cass.” Kauri’s voice caught this time, just slightly, and Cass felt like a shark smelling blood in the water. He could feel the way Kauri’s wants poured out of him, a waterfall of nerves and fear and dark places he was desperate to keep hiding from. “I mean it.”
“Lev’s coming over later, you know,” Cass said, voice light and airy. The blade he cut with, in moments like this, was nearly invisibly thin.
Kauri bled, just the same, whenever and however Cass wanted him to, and somehow he never ran away, no matter how hard Cass tried to push him.
Mostly, he didn’t. Mostly he liked being a safe place for Kauri in a world that had very few of them. But some days Cass felt restless, angry, hungry to prove to Kauri and everyone else that he was exactly the monster he should be.
One day he’d find the thing that chased Kauri away.
Today, he was trying this.
“Do you think he’ll like it?” Cass gave Kauri a half-cocked grin, beautiful poison, crooked two fingers to ask him to come closer even as he wanted to say, Run away this time and stay gone, it’s only what I deserve.
Some of the fear settled, and Cass felt the pulse of his desires begin to shift, to change. Kauri didn’t have what Cass had, but he could read some things, too, in his own way. Instead of turning to leave, Kauri braced himself and stepped forward, moving across the room with each step placed with careless grace. “What? You want me to ask if Lev Viklund-Reid will like your collar, Cass? After he had to wear one?”
“Yeah.” Kauri stopped next to his chair and Cass swung it around to face him, legs apart, sitting back and looking up at Kauri, head tilted. “I want to know if he’ll like my collar. Saw it in a shop two days ago and it made me think of you. And him.”
Kauri’s face didn’t change, but Cass could feel the way his desires twisted, shifted, became darker and started to turn on themselves. Anger, justifiable and justified on every level, was there. But stronger than the anger…
“You want to put one on me, Cass?” Kauri asked, and his voice was low, too deep for how pretty he was, as he moved forward to stand briefly framed on either side by Cass’s suit pant-clad legs. Then he climbed up into the chair, straddling him, the pressure where their hips met entirely too pleasant.
This… wasn’t quite what Cass had expected him to do. “... no, Kauri,” He admitted, and some of the easy confidence was lost, in that moment. The power balance shifted as Kauri rocked his hips forward, rolling them, as his hands laid flat on Cass’s stomach over his shirt and then slid slowly up.
Kauri took over, somehow, in the way his body could light Cass up without even touching bare skin.
Cass cleared his throat. “This isn’t-... Wasn’t my plan.”
Kauri laughed, low and husky, and the spikes of disgust generously ladled over the darker wants that curled around the two of them were heady, making Cass feel half-drunk and outmatched. “What was your plan, then?”
Hands traveled slowly upward, skimming to the sides under his suit jacket to press against his ribs through the silky-smooth fabric of his shirt. They paused over his chest, pressed against his collarbone and then around behind his neck. He felt his curly hair, soft against Kauri’s hands, shift over his neck as he met the warm, wide blue eyes of a runaway pet, someone else’s escaped whore.
Cass knows the feeling, although he didn’t escape - he became the whoremaster instead. Sort of. Sometimes it felt like being whoremaster, trying to hold the Bergen Estate together.
Sometimes, though, Kauri looked at him like this and Cass felt less like he had control and more like Kauri could have shredded him and he might have thanked him for the touch.
“...I wanted to hurt you,” He admitted, not sure why he spoke the words out loud when he didn’t mean to speak them at all. “And Lev. Wanted to see if I could.”
Kauri rolled his hips forward, and the pressure coiled heat low in Cass’s belly, setting the constant low pulse of arousal he felt nearly every time Kauri entered a room into a flame. He hadn’t even felt the pet undo the choker’s little buckle at the back of his neck, blinking in surprise at the feel of the satin sliding away, leaving his neck bare.
“You’d only hurt me if you put it on me,” Kauri said, voice low, husky, warm with need. He held up the strip of silky cloth right in front of Cass’s eyes and tore the buckle off the end in a sudden burst of violence, dropping it with a clatter onto Cassius’s desk.
His smile widened even as Cass felt his smile returning. “I wouldn’t, you know, Kauri.”
“Wouldn’t what?” Kauri knew the answer, but still wanted to hear it out loud. Cass could respect that.
“Collar you. I would never collar you, you know that.”
“Do I know that?”
“Yes.” Cass’s voice cracked, caught, and he repeated, insistent, “Yes, you do.”
“You might, one day, if you wanted someone to see you do it. I’d let you, too.” Kauri shrugged, seemingly unmoved, even as Cass felt the stir of fear that ran through him and around him, half-buried by want for other things but still there, a thread he could pull, unravel, undo if he wanted.
He wanted. And Kauri knew it.
Cass stared with a mouth suddenly too dry for speech as Kauri simply bent himself over backwards, his knees still on either side of Cass’s thighs, and arched his back until he was looking upside down at the industrial-strength shredder Cass kept next to his desk, reaching one arm out while the other went palm-flat to the floor.
Cass’s hands moved fast to grip onto Kauri’s hips and hold him steady as the other man fed the band of shining black satin, torn at one end where the buckle had been, into the shredder. It kicked on automatically, a high roaring whine as it fought to destroy threads instead of paper.
Kauri’s position was nearly obscene, his own growing hardness pressing against Cass’s, shirt riding up to show a flash of pale skin. Cass wanted suddenly to lick his way up or down and he wasn’t sure which or if he would ever stop once he started.
He could see the faintest outline of a bruise along one hip showing above the waistband of Kauri’s pants, his own teeth indented there in a deeper purple surrounded by red and yellow. Biting down had made Kauri scream for more.
If his mouth had been dry before, it became the fucking Sahara when the shredder finished its work and Kauri’s stomach muscles tightened, simply rolling himself back up, curving back to sitting in Cass’s lap again.
He leaned forward, sliding his arms around Cass’s neck, mouth moving against his ear. His teeth nipped lightly at Cass’s earlobe as he whispered, “I’ll wear anything and nothing you want me to wear, Cass, but I won’t let you collar yourself. Now fuck me before Lev gets here or don’t fuck me at all today.”
When Lev arrived, Cass was seated right behind his desk, his shirt wrinkled and suit jacket misbuttoned, half-cocked grin right back on his face, a red mark blossoming along the right side of his neck.
Kauri answered the door for Viklund-Reid with a flush in his face and a swollen look to his lips as he held out his hand. His sweater was on backwards and inside-out. It might have looked accidental, if you didn’t know Kauri.
Which Viklund-Reid didn’t, although he didn’t look surprised, either.
Lev looked to Cass first, eyebrow raised, and he only shrugged in return, giving him a rakish, devil-may-care grin. “Have you met Kauri, yet, Viklund-Reid?”
“I haven’t,” Lev responded, voice warm and slightly lilting, shaking Kauri’s hand without the faint curl of his lip in disgust that some of the others did, either unbothered or just incredibly polite. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Kauri shot him a smile, sunny and winning, and leaned up to kiss Lev on the cheek, fingertips sliding down the lapel of his suit. “You will,” He murmured against the faintest hint of stubble on Lev’s skin, and then moved past him out the door.
Lev and Cass both stared, for a second, in silence at the slight sway of his hips before the ex-pet disappeared around a bend in the hall. Cass let himself soak up the hint of Lev’s desires in the air - they weren’t too far off from his own, although Lev’s were far subtler, buried.
Lev turned back, pressing invisible wrinkles out of his suit. “Are we going to have a problem?”
“Nope,” Cass responded, sunny and bright. He felt a low throb at the spot where shoulder and neck met, a growing hickey that would be a dark bruise by night. He was surprised they hadn’t heard him react to that out in the hall. “What possible problem could there be?”
Lev gave Cass a flat stare and said dryly, “I think I see why you couldn’t wait until after my visit.”
“Wait for what?” Cass asked, innocently.
“Bergen-“
The shredder kicked on, surprising them both as it spat out the last few black satin threads into the trash bin below it. Cass slid the collar’s broken buckle, with its bit of tattered fabric clinging to it, carefully into one pocket.
This is part one of a five-part collab piece I did with @whumpiary! In which our disaster lads meet and the inevitable ensues.
CW: Referenced drugging, forced drinking, referenced past noncon, some dubcon fuckiness and trauma response headspace. Things get darker as we go, and more explicit, too. But also Kauri flirts and it’s adorable. Just a fair warning. I’ll do warnings for each individual chapter as we go.
Kauri isn’t entirely sure how it happened, but somehow his back is against a wall, a drink is in his hand, and there’s a man leaning over him with that grin on his face that Kauri usually likes… but today, he doesn’t.
The bar is kind of dark, and there’s a band playing something that mostly sounds like sad yelling over geese honking to Kauri, but everyone had cheered when the band came onstage so maybe he just doesn’t get the music. He’s not even dressed for the bar, honestly - he’s in his big black zip-up sweatshirt, Dustin’s so it hangs off his shoulders and his hands are mostly covered by the sleeves. A thin thrift-store t-shirt and ripped-up black skinny jeans, the faded old checkered slip-on sneakers he’s had forever… he looks halfway homeless.
The guy has him cornered anyway, and Kauri is feeling all the other drinks he’s let guys buy him tonight, kind of spinning and silly with the alcohol in his veins. It makes it easier not to feel uncomfortable, but part of him is.
He wants to say no, but the word sticks in his throat.
“Come on,” The guy says, leaning over him - it feels like looming - and pushing even closer into his space. “I bought you the drink, the least you could do is a little something for me in return.”
I don’t want to, Kauri thinks in something like a panicked wail.
The man’s knuckles brush the side of his throat and it’s probably a flirtation but Kauri thinks of Owen’s hands around his neck - it feels like a threat.
“Wh-what… what did you have in mind?” Kauri’s voice is airy, a little breathless. His heart is pounding, his face is flushed, and maybe he looks into this… but he’s not. But it kind of seems like the guy maybe knows and doesn’t care.
“A lot of shit, honestly, you’ve been on my radar a while, but first… let’s start with you finishing that drink.” He reaches out and takes the glass out of Kauri’s hand, raising it to his lips. The first sip of syrupy-sweet cocktail seems more like liquid ash on Kauri’s tongue. “You’re a pretty cute drunk.”
“Am… am I?” He asks when the man lets him stop drinking. “I, I don’t want-”
“Have another drink,” The man interrupts, and pushes the rim of the glass against his lips again.
Cass had been watching the guy with the curly hair and the cute smile on and off all night. Partly because he's pretty. Partly because he looks like he’s dressed for a soup kitchen rather than a bar. But mostly because he looks familiar. Annoyingly familiar, in a way that’s maybe more significant than ‘hey didn’t we fuck in a bathroom stall one time?’.
The girl Cass has been chatting to is very, very, very boring. Stupidly boring. So it’s ridiculously easy to focus his attention just over her shoulder at Curly Hair and the guy who’s got him pressed against the wall in the corner, and the pink drink that’s being held up between them, fed to the shorter of the two like it's the holy fucking grail.
Desires are sticky. Syrupy. And in a bar like this, with music like this, with people like this, revulsion is bitter and obvious. Like whiskey in apple juice. Like smoke under perfume.
Cass wishes he'd had more to drink. A couple more vodka tonics and he'd probably refuse to give a shit. But he's annoyingly sober, and he can't help but notice Curly Hair sort of glance around, looking for an exit that doesn't exist.
Cass watches as he smiles, tilts his head. Cass' stomach lurches. He's seen that head tilt. Fuck, Cass has given that head tilt. I want you to want me but I don't want this.
“Hey Kirsty," he says, serving a grin to the blonde next to him. She frowns.
“It’s Kristie.”
“Right. Kristie,” Cass says. Easy smile, a finger tracing circles on the back of her hand. “You wanna go dance? I’ll catch up in a sec”
The girl pouts, grabbing his hand, “Aren’t you gonna come? I kinda thou-”
“Kʀɪsᴛɪᴇ, ɢᴏ ᴅᴀɴᴄᴇ.”
The girl's frown melts into a grin faster than she can notice what’s happening and nods her head enthusiastically, like dancing had been her idea in the first place. And then she’s gone, melted into the pulsing mass of bodies.
Cass needs to get out of here. In a bar like this, with music like this, with people like this, the feeling of I don’t want this is so loud and grating it makes Cass’ heart catch in his throat. And then there’s the other guy. Cass can feel the fucking lust pouring off of the guy. Not just the desire for an easy lay but the absolute exhilaration of a predator who’s got dinner trapped. Or is about to, Cass thinks, eyes following the asshole’s gaze to where they're fixated on a sickening cocktail he’s feeding the smaller guy.
Cass pushes himself away from the bar. He needs to get out of here. He needs to get out of here before he does something stupid because he promised Lou he wouldn't pick anymore fights and because this is none of his business and just because the guy seems familiar doesn't mean Cass knows him but he still finds himself snaking to the corner, anyway, grabbing the tall guy by the elbow-
“Hey, do I know you from somewhere?” he says, feigning rapt enthusiasm.
The taller guy looks Cass up and down. His hair is annoyingly perfect. Like if you tapped it, maybe it'd make a sound like knocking on hard plastic.
“I don’t think so,” the guy says, shark teeth twisted into a grin. Cass watches as his grip tightens minutely on the glass he’s holding. Yeah, fuckhead. Wouldn’t want to lose that, now would we? “If you don’t mind, we’re kinda busy.”
And he's turning back to Curly Hair, who is melting into the wall, a skittish mess of maybe he’ll talk to the new guy - if it’s what you want then I want it - I don't want this - just say no kauri you can just say no - I want this I want you - just say no stop it stop - no just drink it don’t make him mad - I don't want this and Cass really fucking wishes he'd had another few drinks because then he could just walk away, but instead he hits the cocktail careening out of Tall Guy's hand, a spectacular pink mess over the guy's crisp white shit.
Kauri flinches back, hands up over his mouth, staring wide-eyed at the mess.
"Shit, dude. Sorry. I'm such a klutz," Cass grins, holding up innocent hands with a shrug. "That roofie wasn't expensive or anything, was it?"
And sure, maybe this was none of his business, but it's so satisfying when the guy shoves him into the wall. Maybe even more satisfying than the sound of the crunch of the guy's nose breaking as Cass headbutts him in the face.
The guy stumbles back, hands over his nose as blood starts to pour, screaming half-formed curse words that are muffled by his hand and the nasal sound of his voice. From behind the bar, a bartender yells, “God damn it, no fighting! What the fuck, Kauri?!”
Kauri curls back against the wall, his wide, frightened eyes going from the bloody pink-stained man to the new guy who had hit him with his whole entire head and back again. “I’m sorry!” He shouts back to the bartender. “I’m sorry I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“Yeah, well, do something about it!”
Kauri gives the bartender a look of incredulous terror. He’s 5’7” and all lithe, willowy flexibility and he has the brute fighting strength of a very small kitten.
“Like what, exactly?!”
The guy drops his hand - the bottom half of his face is a mess of blood now - and with a snarl, pulls his fist back to punch Cass again.
“Stop them fighting over your dumb hot ass or I’m calling the cops, Kauri!”
The name sticks in Cass' head as he lets the guy land another punch, hard on his cheek.
"Kᴀᴜʀɪ, ɢʀᴀʙ ʜɪs ᴀʀᴍ," he says, on impulse, because the guy is kinda huge and Cass isn’t particularly strong, and he’s been in plenty of fights but he usually only stops them by not really being conscious anymore.
Kauri’s hands snap out thoughtlessly, grabbing the guy’s other arm and helping Cass shove him face-first against the wall, only to freeze up, eyes widening even more in terror as he has no idea why he just did that.
"You better calm the fuck down, man," Cass says, twisting the guy’s wrist so it twinges just a little behind him. He feels amped up and shaky with adrenaline. He hopes he looks as feral as he feels. The big guy blinks, slow and stupid as he tries to catch up with what just happened. "'Cause either I'm gonna kill you or the bar staff are gonna call the cops on your ass. And we both know what they're gonna find in that glass.”
The guy's eyes widen in shock, then narrow. “You can’t prove-”
“You roofied me?” Kauri asks, as though the multiple comments Cass had made had only just sunk into his mind. He felt himself reel with horror, trying to pull away, but his hands just… don’t want to let go of the man’s arm. Panic was a drumbeat in his mind. He knows what roofies are, Nat told him about those, and that they taste kind of salty but there was a salt rim on the drink the guy bought him-
“You were going to roofie me?”
“That jackass broke my nose!” The guy yells, although it comes out more like dat jackash boke by dose. Cass kind of wants to interject that he probably didn't break the guys nose, but it doesn't really seem like the time. “I’ve been talking to you all night and you just believe some asshole that walks up and punches a stranger?”
“I… I…” Kauri cringes back from the fury in the man’s voice. He’s going to be hurt, and he’s terrified, and the only thing on earth he wants right now is to get out of here and away before the man’s hands are around his neck just like Owen’s, it’ll be like that, he’ll hurt and hurt and then pass out and if he can just maybe make nice the guy will stop being angry-
“I, I’m sorry, you-... you did buy me the drink, that was… that was nice… but, but if he saw you-"
"He didn't see shit."
The guy did not seem to realize that that wasn't exactly denying he'd done it.
Cass feels cold fury run through him. He can feel the lust-turned-sour, good-night-wasted annoyance that the guy in front of him is vibrating with. And the panic pouring off of Kauri, so palpable and crystalline it may as well be his own. The want to run away, to get out of here, to back down, to apologise, make nice. They mingle together in his head.
Who the fuck tries makes nice with the asshole who was gonna drug them? He tries to ignore the ‘you sure used to’ that creeps into his head.
Cass doesn't care. He wants to run away and he wants to get out of here but more than that he wants to make someone bleed. This guy walked into the bar tonight, sought out the most vulnerable guy he could find and thought prey. He deserves to know what that feels like. He flips the guy around, pressing a hard hand to his chest to keep him flush to the wall.
“I think I’m gonna call you Scooter,” Cass says “You look like a Scooter”
“The name’s Matt, jackass,” the guy growls. It takes way too much effort to pronounce the M. Cass grins. Matt, huh?
"Alright, Mᴀᴛᴛ. Tᴀᴋᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇsᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ G ᴛʜᴀᴛ's ɪɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴘᴏᴄᴋᴇᴛ. Gɪᴠᴇ ᴜs ᴀ ʟᴏᴏᴋ,” he says. The guy blinks, reaches mindlessly into the pocket of the shitty jeans he’s wearing and pulls out a nondescript little bottle. Matt is staring at the drugs like he can’t imagine how they possibly got into his hand. Cass grins. It’s nice to stare at a predator and make them feel small. "I think he should have to drink it. What do you think, Kauri?"
"Jesus Christ," Matt says, nasally and strangled. "Why did... What the fuck, I should knock your teeth out!"
Kauri grabs the pill bottle out of his hand and tries, despite his hands shaking so badly the fucking bottle rattles, to look like he's reading, carefully keeping his eyes unfocused so they won't try to settle on or understand the letters. Kauri steps closer to them both, putting his hands up slowly, like a man being held hostage.
"Look, you guys, we can just… nobody has to fight," He says, pitching his voice lower, cocking his head just a little to the side. "The bouncers are gonna kick us all out in a second and, and I don't need-... We don't need that, right? Matt? We don't need to, to have anybody closer than this. Just us, right?"
His heart hammers, heartbeat so strong it's nearly knocking the breath out of him. His voice is airy, and soft, and just a little flirty under the fear.
You can fix this. No one calls the cops, no one tells, no one looks too close.
"You didn't n-need that, I'd have… have gone with you anyway, Matt…"
Kauri, you can't say yes if you don't know how to say no. He ignores Nat's strident voice in his head and slides just a little closer, the rise and fall of his chest and the whites around his eyes the only giveaway of his fear. He can see bouncers and he has to make this better before too many people are looking at them.
Matt snorts a kind of bitter, angry laughter, then winces as that burns his injured nose. "You would. The ones like you always do, right?"
Kauri freezes, all the color draining out of his face. The bottle of pills drops to the floor and rolls away, kicked by someone walking by and getting lost somewhere in the crowd. "What?"
"Tell your fucking White Knight to fuck off," Matt says reaching out to grab Kauri's left wrist. "Kauri Grant."
Cass doesn't have time to figure out why the fuck that name sounds so familiar. All he needs to know what's happening is in that look on Kauri's face. He's seen that look. God, he's given that look. Whoever Kauri Grant is, he needs to be the hell away from here. Now.
"Okay, seriously buddy, we don't want anymore trouble," he tries, taking a quick glance at the bouncers closing in behind them "How about you let this go and we do too?"
"I'm not letting go of shit," says Matt, with a smile full of blood. He has one hand locked over Kauri's wrist, pushing up against the leather bracelet there. "Do you have any idea how much this little whore is worth?"
Cass swings the punch before he even has the chance to think what that could mean. Which is maybe not a great move, actually, with bouncers headed their way and a bar full of patrons who are starting to look over. It's especially not a great move because Matt swivels, jerking out of the way, sending Cass' fist straight into the side of Kauri's skull.
Kauri's world crashes at the impact, stumbling back and falling hard onto his side on the floor, head bouncing against the sticky woodgrain, blinking against the black spots dancing in front of his eyes.
It doesn't stop the panic.
Kauri Grant Kauri Grant Kauri Grant
"Y-you can't," he tries, his voice sounding weird and off to his own ears, pushing himself up. "Can't, can't turn me in-"
"I wasn't going to, before that little shit showed up," Matt says with a nasty note of triumph in his voice, one Kauri knows too well. "The guy who just hit you."
Kauri manages to stand up, catching the bouncers too close, too close, and he grabs onto Cass's arm. "He was… was trying to hit you," Kauri says, voice shaking. "And you-... tried to drug me."
"Like no one's ever drugged you before," Matt sneers, and Kauri swallows, hard, and doesn't protest. Matt waves at the bouncers. "Hey! This is Kauri Grant!"
The frozen fear in Kauri thaws and he jerks at Cass's arm to yank him not towards the door but deeper into the bar, pushing through the crowd towards the other side of the stage.
Kauri Grant Kauri Grant Kauri Grant
Cass knows that name, why does he know that name?
It doesn't matter. What matters is they get the hell away from here right now. He turns in Kauri's grip to look over his shoulder, locks eyes with the asshole who seems intent on ruining this poor bastard's life.
"Mᴀᴛᴛ," he yells as he's hauled away into the crowd, "Sʜᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ᴍᴏᴜᴛʜ."
It's not exactly elegant but Matt slams his jaw closed so hard Cass can see him wince against the jolt of pain through his bashed in face. Cass cackles as they disappear into the mass of bodies on the dancefloor.
He feels high. There's twin feelings gripping his chest, the thrill of a fight and the blinding panic of running away. The rush of beating someone at their own game twisted with the knowledge that they need to get the hell out of here before they're caught. He has no idea what's happening but it's fast and it's thrilling. It's making him dizzy, making his blood pump electric. He barks another laugh as he dodges some random guy's elbow, grips Kauri's hand even harder and lets himself be pulled.
"God, who the fuck is Kauri Grant?"
Kauri pulls him to a small door labeled EMPLOYEES ONLY just to the side of the stage, shoving it open and stumbling out into a dark alley, the sudden chill on his skin the only reason Kauri realizes he's sweating.
Out here the noise is gone, there's the sound of sirens far away, and Kauri's eyes dart around, thinking, before he pulls Cass to the right, further down the alley, stepping over refuse and empty beer bottles.
"I… I am," Kauri says, voice thin. The side door they just left opens and he pulls Cass quickly against the wall with him to hide behind a dumpster. "I'm Kauri Grant." He swallows hard, panic still beating at the back of his mind, and slowly slides down the wall to sitting, putting his head in his hands.
"You hit really hard for how skinny you are, d'you know that?"
Maybe it’s the sudden cold, or maybe it’s the way Kauri’s holding his head, but waves of exhaustion and regret and fear hit Cass all at once. He ducks down as voices and noise filter wide and loud, and then go squashed and muffled again with the swinging of the door.
“Fuck man, I’m so sorry,” he mutters, ducking his head to assess the damage. “I didn’t even think”
He reaches out a hand, pulls it back before contact. He really doesn’t know how to do this. The whole… God, what did Fuckhead McGee call it? The whole White Knight schtick. Is he meant to go find ice? Buy the guy a drink for his troubles? Usually when he finds himself kneeling on the wet concrete of an alley in front of a stranger it’s for a very different reason.
Cass sits back on his heels and laughs, loud and unabashed. He’d listened to that girl at the bar talk about her boyfriend for forty minutes when he should’ve been finding some pretty guy to sneak away with. And then he found a pretty guy and punched him in the face. Which… wasn’t always a dealbreaker, but even in the now relative quiet of the alley his heart is still slamming like there’s something to run away from and his brain feels cracked open and Jesus Christ, this night is already just so fucking dumb.
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he says between giggles. He tries to calm it down to a grin. “I swear I’m not laughing at you, Kauri Grant. Did I, um…Is your head okay?”
"Yeah, my head's fine. I've been hit before," Kauri says, not quite muttering, rubbing his hand into his black curls. "Not usually in the head, but, you know, it's kinda empty anyway." He flashes a bright, deflecting smile, looking up at Cass.
Kauri's head cocks slightly to the side, something in his smile changing, softening a little. Not quite flirtation, something more in self-defense. "Can you just say Kauri, please? I don't, um, I don't like his name. Very much. It's just, that's what they call me…" His voice trails off. "Thanks for, um. For catching that guy… I didn't know he put something in it... I didn’t know he knew.”
Cass frowns a little, trying to understand. Didn’t know who knew what?
"Okay you have to back up, you're giving me more questions than… than answers right now..."
But then the pieces of Kauri he's seen through the night start falling together. The skittish eyes that didn't match with the flirting smile. Thanking the guy who would have happily held him limp in a basement. The wanting and wanting and wanting paired with the desperate need to run away.
The ones like you, that guy had said, looking at Kauri like he was something to be eaten. The ones like what? The ones who met conflict with apologies and desperate bids for distraction. His eyes flick to the bracelet on Kauri's wrist, thick and leather and out of place amongst the rest of his "robbed a Good Will" ensemble and too wide, really to be stylish. Just wide enough to hide a tattoo, maybe. Or a brand.
I don’t like his name very much. Cass feels himself paling.
"Oh my god, you're somebody's," he whispers. He closes his eyes and scrubs a hand over his face. Swallows the dry lump in his throat. "You're meant to belong to somebody."
Kauri jerks his arms back against himself, pulling the sleeve of his sweatshirt over the bracelet about ten minutes too late.
He looks up at Cass, blue eyes wide and pleading, and reaches out his hand to brush his fingers against Cass's hand, pitching his voice lower.
"You, you don't have to tell anyone. That I'm, um. You don't have to. I can… I can-" He has no idea how to say this. He focuses his thoughts on what he knows, falling back on training. I want this. I want you. I am an active participant in fulfilling my owner's desires.
"I can, um. Whatever you, you want, if you won't say you saw me?" His voice shakes - he can't seem to stop it. He has to hope it sounds like the good kind of nervous and not the terror he really feels.
Cass feels his stomach drop, something catching in his throat as fingers brush the back of his hand again. The tug and pull of I want this. The tilt of Kauri’s head is so tempting it looks rehearsed. I want you.
“That’s…” Kauri’s eyes are gorgeous — huge and blue and desperate — and Cass has to close his own just to think straight. “That’s not what… I, um.”
I want this. I want you. Resolute and relentless against his thoughts. I want this. I want you. Over and over and over again. Frenzied and pleading and wanting and fucking terrified. I want this. I want you.
Cass curls his fingers around Kauri’s, running his thumb along the other boy’s palm. I want this. I want you. Something in him feels shaken up and loose at the hinges from feeling it. It feels wrong. Too familiar, too close to home, too close to… something. Please let me want this. Please want me too.
Cass closes his eyes again, shakes his head. Maybe it’s just the after effects of being knocked crooked. Cass did punch the guy in the face. And it’s been kind of a fucked up fifteen minutes. Maybe they both just need the distraction. The relief of something simple and easy. And if they're both actively participating in something dumb and fun and stupid, maybe it’ll be enough to make them both feel better.
“Look, I’m not… I’m not gonna say anything,” he says, tugging Kauri’s hand closer, tracing a line up his arm. I want this. He smiles, let’s the pulse of it spur him on “We can just have fun, okay? I’m not gonna say anything”
Relief washes over Kauri, a wave of it that nearly knocks him over. He’s doing it right, his voice is right, all the training is working and letting him slide into an easier place in his head. His smile isn’t quite sincere and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but the relief in it is very real.
Besides, the guy is cute, and Kauri would’ve gone home with him, too.
The ones like you always do.
There’s an unease - he doesn’t always like that things like that are true, about him - and he chases it away by closing his eyes and focusing his thoughts. I want this, I want him - and that part definitely isn’t a lie - and I’ll be safe if I give him this.
“Okay, um, th-thanks,” He says, voice just a little breathy, ducking his head with another shy smile.”I’m, um, I’m up for basically anything, basically always.” He gives a cheeky little grin and a laugh, like that’s a joke he tells to a lot of people and has memorized the timing on. “Just, I’m not trained for-... I don’t go in for pain. That’s it. Hey, so, um, you know my name… what’s yours? So I know what to scream later.”
He’d heard that in a movie once and always kind of wanted to say it.
Cass laughs, broken harmony against Kauri's own. The line is lame but it doesn’t really matter. Kauri makes it charming. He is ridiculously good at this.
"Cass. But usually people just stick with ‘oh, God'," he laughs, moving in closer, grin against grin. He leans in to brush his lip against Kauri's jaw, slow and teasing, hands staying steady on the guy's knee as Kauri hitches in a breath and shivers, turning his head to give Cass a better angle for it. "And I go for anything."
He wants this. They both do. The relief of something familiar and safe. Just a minute of stupid normal. I want this. Cass plants a kiss at the corner of Kauri's jaw. I want him. Cass lets his hand slide from knee to thigh. I'll be safe if I give him this. Cass pulls himself closer in, brings his fingers up to tangle in the dark curls at the nape of Kauri’s neck and… and…
I'll be safe if I want this.
The wave of revulsion that runs through him is slow and sickly, like hot tar, like molasses. Familiar and foreign in the same mouthful.
"Sorry. I, uh," he pulls back and he can feel the ghost of Christopher's hands on his hips, pulling his hair back, lips against his cheek – Don't hesitate, darling boy. Show me what you want.
“Hey… you okay?” Kauri murmurs the words, and it’s with real concern, shivering at the feeling of Cass’s fingers in his hair, slipping his own hands to touch lightly at his ribs on either side, a question and a test.
Cass feels adrenaline gripping him but that's fine, that's good, because wanting and fear walk the same line anyway. I'm an active participant. Which doesn’t feel like the shape of a thought that’s his but is close enough to that it doesn’t matter. He wants this. It's safer to want it. Then you don't have to think. You don't have to feel. That's why places like this are fun, why nights like these are so good.
So like every other night like this, he pulls in close to prettiest guy in the bar, pushes down the resistance in himself, and kisses him fucking senseless.
Kauri’s head tilts back and up for it, twisting his fingers hard into Cass’s shirt to pull him in even closer, until his head bumps back into the wall behind him and he loses his balance, falling back to sitting on the ground with a soft, sweet little laugh, a breath of air before he lets Cass kiss him mindless again.
The safest he’s felt for weeks is times like this, a man’s hands on him, a man’s mouth on his, knowledge and certainty that someone wants him, that he has something to give other people, some way to earn their kindness and repay it. His hands slide up Cass’s neck to tangle in his hair, too, pulling him in as close as he can get on the ground in a dark alley, skin lighting up everywhere they touch.
“H-hey, I can’t, ah-...” He breaks free, and flashes the shy little smile again. He feels so good now, safer, because he’ll be good and he knows Cass meant it when he said he wouldn’t tell, he looks like someone who won’t tell anyone, and Kauri has to trust him. “I don’t… I’m technically homeless. So if you think I’m taking you home, uh… welcome to my house, I guess,” He says, gesturing at the alley around them and then laughing a little to himself.
He’s gotten himself this far, but there’s still a hint of the artificial conditioning twining all his conscious thoughts. I want this is real and true but it’s also what he knows how to say, and I’m safer if I want it, I matter if someone wants me and I want to matter to someone runs under honest desire as he moves to slip his hand up under Cass’s shirt.
“H-how do you, how do you want to… um… this?”
Cass practically vibrates at Kauri's touch and he leans in even closer. Every touch is a relief. His body has been begging for this, for touch, all week
"Well I'd say we could go back to mine but…" Cass thinks of white walls, screaming fluorescents. His tiny quarters with the single bed and the sliding door that Tucker swans in and out of as he pleases. "Mine's not really much of a house either. So I guess we'll just get creative at yours"
He catches Kauri's lips again and pulls himself in closer until he's all but straddling the guy's lap. Kauri moves his body against Cass's like he was custom made for it. He lets his hand come to a gentle rest on the column of the guy's throat, his thumb tracing the line from his chin to his collar and back up again.
This is all Cass has wanted all week. To wrap himself in someone else's wants and just disappear for a bit. And yeah, maybe it feels a little off tonight. A little sickly. Like eating overripe fruit. But it's also been a long time since he's been this close to sober and trying to hook up with someone so who the fuck knows.
"Gotta say, I love what you've done to the place," he adds, breaking the kiss with a grin as he glances around at their elegant surroundings. Kauri laughs, almost a breathless giggle, glad he’s found someone with a real sense of humor even if it’s to keep him from telling anyone who he’s seen. Cass brings his lips to Kauris throat and let's his voice buzz electric along his jugular "I usually swoon for just one dumpster but three? You're such a romantic."
Kauri tips his head back against the wall behind him, staring up into the flat, featureless sky. As soon as Cass says the word Romantic, though, he goes perfectly still. Every muscle tense, for just a second it’s closer to holding a frightened animal than a person.
“Uh, th-thanks,” He manages, shakily, pushing the nerves back down. Just another way to call him a slut, like everyone else does, but he’ll do what he wants and be safer that way. It doesn’t matter if he calls Kauri a whore or a slut or a Romantic, it all means the same thing - people like him. People who can’t stop themselves, who don’t know better, who are nothing and no one unless somebody is touching them.
Cass is nice, and his hands and his mouth feel so good, and it doesn’t matter what he calls Kauri. What matters is giving him what he wants.
He makes himself relax, consciously, and slides his hands around behind Cass, shifting his hips up, letting training take over again until the nervousness could die back down. I matter if someone wants me, it doesn’t matter why or how, I’m safe if I want this.
“If you want, I could, um, could g-go down on you,” Kauri breathes, rolling his hips up.
Cass feels himself grinning at the same moment as he feels his stomach clench in a knot so tight he can hardly breathe. Wanting and fear walk the same line. The latter is easy enough to ignore.
"Fuck yes," he all but moans, swinging his leg around to sit against the wall beside Kauri. Cass fumbles for the button of his jeans. He wants this. Kauri does too. Cass can feel how much he wants this. Kauri wants to feel safe. He wants Kauri to feel safe. And he also wants his brain to shut off and stop screaming discomfort just because the water’s a little muddy.
It doesn't matter if he wants it because it's gonna feel so good once it's happening he won't even care. And then he'll make Kauri feel so good, Kauri won't care either. He won't care about being wanted. He won't care about being safe because Cass will make him feel fucking fantastic.
And all of that would’ve been fine if Cass didn’t look up and catch Kauri’s eyes. He feels the knot in his stomach twist. In less than a second any spark of libido he had had rots and dies. There’s no want in Kauri's eyes. No nervous excitement. It’s not eagerness that’s pulling their bodies in close.
Desperation and terror were just one hell of a cocktail. Especially when finished off with resignation.
Cass closes his eyes and let's his head fall against the wall with a dull thunk.
“No,” he whispers. “No, hold on, stop.”
He really wishes he'd had some ket. Or at least a bit of molly. Just something to blunt the edges of whatever the fuck is happening right now. Something is wrong with him.
"I can't do this," he murmurs, shaking his head. He doesn't open his eyes. "Something's wrong, I can't do this. You don't… you don’t..."
Kauri’s hands are still tangled in Cass’s shirt at first, and he slowly pulls them back, worried, leaning forwards to try and tilt his head and look closer at Cass’s face. No no no no. He’s done something wrong. He doesn’t know what, or how - it had seemed right, like it was all happening the way it was supposed to and soon enough he’d forget to be scared and just feel good things until it was done, and if it was good enough Cass wouldn’t tell anybody about him in case maybe he saw him again.
That’s how it works. Kauri gives, and he gets safety in return. But this isn’t safe.
You don’t even know if you actually want it or if you just think that because they made you. It’s what he thinks the end of that sentence probably is, because it’s what Dustin said when Kauri tried, and it’s what Jake said, and it’s what everyone tells him over and over again. That he can’t even know what he wants, because Owen wanted him brainless and a slut.
“I’m sorry, is it… something I’ve done?”
Cass scoffs a laugh, knocking the back of his head into the brick wall to try and shake his thoughts back straight. What the fuck is he meant to say? Sorry bro, my telepathy killed the mood.
“No,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his face “No you didn’t do anything, you just… you’re just-”
You’re just too fucking close to my kind of broken.
There’s a harsh sort of panic bouncing off of Kauri in waves at the rejection. What the fuck is Cass meant to do though? He can’t pretend like everything’s fine because it’s not. He can’t tell him to piss off because then he’d really be an asshole. He can’t fuck him because it’d be… that’d be...
Cass’ stomach lurches. He slams his hands down against the concrete with a growl, kicks at an empty bottle by his leg. It scrapes harsh against the ground in a loud, grating circle and Cass flinches his foot back like it cut him.
“Jesus Christ, this is fucked,” he says, laughter twisting his voice and making it bitter. He looks over at the person who pulled him out of a bar fight ten minutes ago. This random person who he'd started a bar fight for fifteen minutes ago. This random fucking person he shouldn't give two shits about. Cass shakes his head, "You don't wanna be here, man. Just go home."
Kauri snorts, almost bitterly. “I can’t, remember? I don’t fucking have one. Although I guess I could go sit on the bus…” He sighs, watching Cass - and he’s not always good at reading people’s intentions, but he can read emotions fairly well and he can see that Cass looks nearly sick, either angry or upset, and he just takes in a deep breath, putting his hands up over his face and then down again.
“No, I get it. It’s because I’m a pet, right? It’s, you wanted to see what it’s like with a pet. You saw me with that guy and knew, and you thought you’d try, too, and you can’t… don’t want to, once I’m really here.”
Cass is shaking his head before Kauri even finishes speaking. Who calls themself a fucking pet?
"What the fuck? No. Jesus Christ, no," he screws his face up, rakes his hand through his hair.
Cass can feel something volcanic starting to bubble up inside of him.
He had done everything right tonight. He hadn't had too much to drink. He'd helped some random guy in trouble just because it was the right thing to do. He'd taken Kauri’s lead and then he'd read the warning signs and he'd stopped. He’d fucking stopped. How was he still the bad guy?
"No fucking way are you putting that bullshit on me," he spits. "You're the one who pulled me out here. I was just trying to help. You don't know what you want, then don't fuck with people's heads!"
“Fuck with people’s-” Kauri’s own voice edges with real anger. “I didn’t fuck with anybody’s head! I just, this guy hit on me and bought me a drink, and you showed up and said it was drugged! I didn’t do anything wrong, people talk about wanting to try out pets all the time, I-”
He catches himself, cutting off his own voice all at once like turning off a radio. No no no, if you make him mad he’ll tell someone or he’ll get really really mad or…
Kauri looks away, down at the alleyway pavement, scraping at it lightly with one shoe. “... I’m sorry, I shouldn’t get angry. You were really trying to help, and, and that was really nice of you, to do that. I was just trying to, to pay you back, I guess? Besides, you’re… really fucking cute, so…”
It's the exact same trick he'd tried on the guy inside, Cass realises. Make nice with the wolf and hope that it'll be kind when it eats you alive. It's too familiar and too close and aimed at him and Cass wants to retch. It's burnt sugar disgusting. The desperate need to stay safe, to keep everything calm. No matter the cost. No matter what you give away.
"See, that is exactly what I fucking mean. Two seconds ago you were so mad at me you were basically screaming and now you're apologising and telling me I'm cute just so I'll..."
Cass breaks off, shakes his head, staring up at the hazy not-black of city sky at night. He shoves away the twin claws of rage and confusion as he meets Kauri’s eyes again, tries to keep his voice even and something close to calm.
"Look, I'm not- I'm not gonna say anything, alright? Whatever your deal is, I'm not gonna tell the cops or whatever" Cass tries for a smile "Trust me, I'd be just as fucked."
“Would you really?” Kauri blinks at him, no sign of that earlier flash of anger left, either in his posture or in his expression. He’d done what he’s best at, when it comes to being mad - just pushed it down until he didn’t feel it any longer, and he could see things from the other person’s point of view. Like understanding that Owen was mad because he’d tried to talk to someone when he wasn’t allowed, and that Dustin was mad because Kauri wanted more than he was willing to give, and the way everyone was mad that he wouldn’t sit still.
“And thanks. I won’t tell you what the reward for ‘information regarding my whereabouts’ is, though, if it’s all the same to you.” He tries for a small, slightly sidelong smile, more sincere than his last attempt had been. “Are you a runaway, too? Is there a reward out for you?”
Cass only barely stops himself from balking at the remark. Kauri says it so casually, like having a price on your head is just an everyday annoyance they might be able to bond over. Just all in a day. “Uh… no. No, there isn’t. I would just…” I would just have my contract re-assessed. Risk having my indenture reset. End up permanently locked in the lab. Or back in Christopher’s den. “My, uh, employer wouldn’t be very impressed if you get what I’m saying”
He adjusts his grip on his arm subconsciously, thumb running over the scar that sits along his inner arm. He’s always sort of wondered if one of Tucker’s little chips is there, just sitting by his radial bone, too close to the artery to risk cutting out himself. Guess he’ll never know.
He snaps his attention back to Kauri. Matches the guy’s smile with his own.
“But a reward, huh? Fuck man.” he says. A lofty one at that, apparently. Kauri Grant. Maybe that’s why the name was familiar. He would’ve seen it on the TV or something. Jesus, he’d had to help the one fuckin’ guy with a more tragic backstory than him. He laughs a little, like this is just some sort of watercooler gossip. Mondays, huh? “What did you do, kill your keeper?”
"My, um, my owner. And… no, I-I couldn't-" Kauri's eyes widen with real horror at the thought. "No, I would never have… um, he was, wasn't always that bad… I probably, I just-... I mean I did fuck up, but I didn't hurt anybody."
He looks away from Cass, a little uncomfortably, and says, "He, uh. Got mad when I fucked up. He broke a promise, and I… left. I guess you'd see it eventually, since there's no way I wasn't gonna take my shirt off for you."
He pulls down on the stretched-out neckline of his shirt, and even in the dim alley, a bit of a large, twisted scar shows over his collarbone.
"He paid a lot of money for, for me. I wasn't supposed to be able to leave. I took out the thing he put in to control me."
The third part of my AU collab with @whumpiary where Cass (Ace) and Kauri meet. Read Part One and Part Two for context!
In Part Three, things heat up, get angsty, and then there’s a surprise at the end you’ve all been waiting for... or maybe you weren’t, but trust me... it’s fun.
CW: CONSENSUAL SPICE. This is not implied, fade-to-black, or suggested. These boys have a lovely time and they’re happy to share it with you. Discussion of abusive relationship/abusive past, conditioning,
“I have stuff,” Kauri says, all at once. “In my. I always… I have stuff for it.”
And God, Cass nearly falls apart at the table at that. He wants to climb over the table, or under it maybe, and have Kauri begging right there. Instead he takes in a deep, even breath, tries to stay calm and in control as he pulls his hand back a little, creating distance. One of them had to, huh?
It’s so much better like this than it had been behind the bar. Kauri’s embarrassed and stumbling and wanting it so bad he can barely get his words out properly and the earnest nervousness of it all is so fucking hot. There was literally nothing more attractive than someone wanting something so badly they were ceasing to function.
“You’re doing just fine,” Cass says with a smile, goes in with the understatement of the century. “It’s kinda cute, actually.”
Cass’ eyes slide briefly over Kauri’s shoulder to where Nick is serving a few tables down. He wonders how much shit Kauri’s gonna get in for leaving a free meal behind. He grabs a napkin from the holder, wrapping up his own untouched burger and shoving it in his pocket to give to Kauri later.
“C’mon tiger,” he says, voice heavy with want he’s not even trying to disguise anymore “Let’s get you out back, shall we?”
Kauri wants to say fuck yes and you go first and it all gets too jumbled in his head and instead he mumbles something like, “Fuck first,” then turns an even brighter red and grins. He pulls the ten out of his pocket and drops it on the table.
“Leave a good tip,” He says, sort of embarrassed. “Since we-... with the food. Brings good luck.”
He gives Nick a sunny goodbye, stopping to go up on his toes to kiss his cheek before he pulls Cass out the door, leaving Nick staring wide-eyed with a weird half-grin on his face as they go.
Kauri doesn’t really make it further than the first steps to the back of the building before he moves his back against a wall and pulls Cass to him, pulling him closer for a hard kiss. The skills were learned all the wrong ways but he wants to use them, he’s good at this. His brain is a blurring, fuzzy white noise of lust and it’s the best Kauri ever feels, just like this.
Kauri kisses like he was made for it. Which, Cass thinks as his thoughts slip back to Kauri’s mention of training, maybe he had been. But the fuck does that matter when he moves his hips like this, when his tongue does that, when Cass is almost struggling to keep up, and shit, when did that happen. He kisses up Kauri’s neck and slips his hands under his shirt, breath quickening at the first thrill of skin on skin.
“Tell me you want it,” he says against Kauri’s throat. Because yes he can feel it, he can feel it so strong it’s basically got him seeing double but he wants to hear it. He wants to hear that same irresistible desperation from earlier. Those practiced, expert hands paired with the overwhelmed little stutter of a guy who’s only just figuring out how to actually say yes.
Kauri arches his back into the press of warm palms against his stomach, pushing back under the hands slipping under his shirt, almost whining with it. His skin lights up at the touch, and he's breathing hard around the next kiss, and the next.
"I do, I want you-" He catches himself before he can slip into anything too practiced, refusing to let that in this time.
Instead, he takes a breath, gives Cass a cockeyed smile, and says, low and soft and his blush is red enough to read even in the dark, "I, um. Gonna need you in some part of me tonight, pretty soon. I, I want-"
His mind supplies an amazing, confused flurry of thoughts of legs around Cass's waist or with his chest and stomach against the wall or bent over or on his hands and knees and he can barely think coherently enough to form words behind yes now again.
"I, I'm not good at saying things right when I'm not acting, uh, I just-..." He slips a hand forwards, deftly undoing the button on Cass's pants and yanking down his zipper so he can slip a hand down, feel the warmth of skin there, different than anywhere else. "I want this," He says, half-breathes. "In me."
Cass jerks up into Kauri’s hand at the touch involuntarily, laughing against Kauri’s mouth, “That’s all you had to say, baby.”
He kisses Kauri hard as he fumbles with the button on the other man’s jeans, one hand snaking beneath the waistband of his underwear to palm at Kauri’s hardening cock as the other pulls his hips in tight to his own.
Working with Kauri’s body is like following the line of a road on a map. It’s so simple and so satisfying Cass could do it with his eyes closed. It would be so easy to fall to his knees, pull Kauri into his mouth with a cruel little ‘my turn first’ and drag it out until the guy was desperate and begging but God all he wants right now is to be inside of the guy, fuck him until he can’t breathe, until he can’t think of anything else.
“You said you had stuff?” he says, voice low and grazing, free hand travelling over Kauri’s hips, down his back, over the shape of his arse while the other works at the guy’s cock. He breathes hot against Kauri’s neck. He doesn’t want to wait. He wants him now.
For once, Kauri isn’t really worried about how he looks. Normally there’s some hint of putting on a show, of looking the right way, training and need working together to make him the kind of lay people remember just looking at for some of the time.
But he’s trying not to do that with Cass. Instead he’s more fumbling, even though his touch is expert, and he breathes in high little moans, hips jerking himself against Cass’s hand. He’s so hard he could scream so fast - Cass is good at this, too, so good, like he can tell every single place Kauri wants him to touch without him ever even saying it.
“Uh, y-yeah, in my… hnnnh, yes, right there-... in my pocket, h-hold on-” His pants are falling down around his hips and he probably looks ridiculous trying to hold himself together, digging into an inside pocket on his zip-up, flashing lust-bright eyes up at Cass, breathing hard. He holds up a condom in one hand and a little single-use packet of lubricant in the other.
“Ta-da,” He says, with a hint of the shy, slightly nervous smile. “Always, um, always have stuff. You’re so fucking gorgeous. D’you want me, um, me to… I can put it on you with my mouth.”
It had taken three full training sessions to learn how to do that, and his jaw had ached for days.
Cass’ smile falters for a moment before returning, eyes flicking between Kauri and the condom. He's so earnest it's almost devastating.
“Uh, no. No, thanks. You don’t have to do that,” Cass flashes a grin before snatching both packets, distracting Kauri with a kiss as he tears the condom open with nimble fingers, rolling it on blind. He tears the second packet open with his teeth, slicking himself up with one hand while the other pushes at the back of Kauri’s hips with enough pressure to turn him. “Now, flip.”
He pulls himself close along then other man’s back, reaching around to stroke him as he slips his slicked-up hand beneath Kauri’s waistband.
“I don’t need tricks,” Cass murmurs against Kauri’s neck as he presses a finger into him “Just be your gorgeous self.”
Kauri lets out a shuddering breath, turning quickly around - so fast he nearly trips on himself and has to throw a hand up on the wall to catch his balance. “I’m sorry, I’m-... sorry, I’m usually better at this part…”
He’s trying not to use his training - somehow Cass seems to know when he does it - but taking away all the training means he’s mostly awkward and fumbling and feels like he’s barely had sex before. Still, he can’t quite help the grin on his face, pressing his forehead against the wall and shifting hands to his pants to undo them and push them lower down to barely stay up around his thighs as Cass presses his finger in.
“Hnnnh, you’re… fuck, that’s good,” He whispers. Something in him, some restlessness he can only rarely settle, is soothed as soon as someone does something like this. Wanted, he’s wanted, he’s someone, he matters to someone, if only for a while. “Can… can you, um, kiss my neck, a little, while you-... that…”
Cass laughs gently, teeth grazing Kauri’s earlobe as he starts to kiss down his neck in response. It’s relieving having someone arch up against him like this. He doesn’t have to think. He doesn’t have to analyse or second-guess. He doesn’t have to navigate the nuances of what they want or don’t want because it’s so fucking obvious and it feels so good to give it to Kauri. Like he’s falling back into the role he’s meant to be in. Like every other moment had just been lead-up, had just been treading water until he could be right back here, where he belonged, his body pressed up against another person, giving them what they needed.
“You feel so good,” he says, adding a second finger, curling them just a little just to hear the way Kauri’s breath hitches. He presses an open mouthed kiss to the join between Kauri’s shoulder and his throat, stroking him slow, easing in a third, “God I can’t wait to be inside of you.”
Kauri lets out a breathy little whine, not quite a moan, bucking his hips forward and then rocking them back, his head dropping forward a little and his eyes closing. Forward, into Cass’s grip around him, the way his hand is moving just a little slow, exactly how Kauri wants it - no one ever knows to start this slow, like this, no one ever just knows that but somehow Cass knows that’s how he wants it.
Forward into his hand, backwards onto his hand, Cass’s mouth on his skin. He’s drowning in the other man in all the best ways. “Fuck, you even smell good,” Kauri manages, his voice higher, breathy, rocking back and this time his back arches and his head falls back on Cass’ shoulder. “Ah! Haaah, ah, y-you, ah, shit, no one finds it this fast, want-... I want you so b-bad, Cass.”
It doesn’t come out practiced or trained, it’s all shaken up in him. He wants Cass’s cock in him so bad he can’t think.
Cass tangles his fingers in those curls and tugs gently back until Kauri’s neck is pulled back in a delicious arc. He sucks kisses along it as he pulls his fingers out of Kauri, wraps them around his own length.
He eases in slowly, so fucking slowly, too fucking slowly, and has to nuzzle along the length of Kauri’s neck, inhaling deep, breath hitching just to keep himself calm. He lets out a barely-there moan, more of an exhale of breath.
He’s so desperate for this, for Kauri. So desperate to make him feel good, to give him what he needs. It would be so easy to rut into him, fast and hard like an animal, have him stretched open and panting in seconds, but it’s good like this, better like this, because he can feel Kauri melting under his hands, keening at every gentle touch.
“Can’t believe I-... I get to have you like this,” he says voice stuttering with his breath as he rocks his hips forward, slow and smooth. He runs his thumb over the tip of Kauri’s cock with just the slightest amount of pressure, matching his own rhythm in gentle strokes “So fucking- God you’re so beautiful. Can’t believe I get t- to do this for you”
Kauri relaxes around him, one of the first and hardest skills he'd learned was how to relax his body no matter how he felt and the skill comes in so handy now. He lets out a soft whine as Cass presses on, the sensation of being filled driving him as crazy as the hand stroking him off.
"Next time I, I want to look at your-... ah, face-... Yes, yesyesyes-" Cass has a steady rhythm, slow but deep, and Kauri rocks his hips back against him, burying him deeper with each thrust.
He feels like he'll collapse if Cass pulls out, just clatter to the ground. Like being full of his cock is all that's holding him together.
Cass hits that spot inside him, then again, and Kauri moans, grinding back. More now harder. The best he ever feels, in moments like this.
“I like the s- God- like the sound of next time.”
He pictures Kauri’s legs around his waist, or his mouth around Kauri’s cock, or making him fall apart with words alone, just begging for Cass to touch him. He imagines fucking him slow, flat on his back, keeping him on edge for an hour as he kisses him soft. He’d give him whatever he wants- everything he wants.
Cass braces one hand against the wall as he quickens his pace, the other wrapping around Kauri’s front, pulling him tight to Cass’ chest as he fucks into him. He buries his face in Kauri’s hair. He wants him close, even closer than this. God, he just wants more. He feels needy and desperate, even now, buried inside of him.
“Fuck, you feel so good,” Cass manages out, thrusting in hard and deep. “So fucking good.”
He drops his mouth to Kauri’s neck again, nipping gently at the delicate skin. He’s close. He’s so damn close.
Kauri’s conscious thought shatters, finally, and he feels the need in him building, heat in him pushing him towards climax but he’s trained for this, too, on a level deeper than thought. Kauri knows how to pace himself, to make it perfect, to time everything just right so that the person inside him finishes before he does.
He wants Cass to finish first, wants to feel him before he lets go.
“C’n… hold on, can do… you want to feel good, let me just-”
Kauri lets out a breathless, half-moaned laugh and tightens himself around Cass, turning his head to kiss into Cass’s neck, nipping at his skin. “Need you to, to come so I can come for you,” he breathes into his ear.
It’s all he needs. Cass curls around the shape of Kauri with a moan, breath caught in his throat as he comes. He lets his mind go blank, his thoughts go quiet, wrapped in pleasure and pressed deep into another man’s body.
He stays there, continuing to rock into Kauri gently as his hand wraps back around Kauri’s cock, the other tracing pretty lines down his jaw, down his throat, down his chest with long, soft fingers.
“So perfect,” he whispers against his shoulder “Come for me.”
The command tips him over, and Kauri moans, rocking forward into Cass’s hand and then going suddenly still and tense, spilling with Cass still moving in him and against him, jerking his hips in small movements as he comes onto the wall and then the ground, soft little cries muffled against Cass’s neck.
He was made for this. It’s what he is, what he was remade to do. In the moment of orgasm and then in the afterglow, Kauri feels like a whole person. He’s wanted. Cass wanted him, and he did it all exactly right. He’s good, a good boy, good at what they made him.
He feels so warm, floating in post-orgasm bliss, wanting nothing more than this moment to last.
“Th-that was… was…” Kauri laughs, breathless, pressing kisses against Cass’s neck, sliding his arms up and around behind him so he won’t pull out too soon, enjoying the feeling even now. “Best sex I’ve h-had up against a wall in an alley… You’re so fucking good.”
"All you, gorgeous," Cass laughs, still rocking his hips slowly, drunk on the feeling. God, he could stay here all night. "You're so good, Kauri. So, so good for me."
He stays there for another few moments, peppering Kauri with soft kisses and letting the other man do the same. It feels like the world stops hurtling on so violently when he can just lean into this, stay here, forget about himself and forget about everything. Just give someone exactly what they need. Exactly what they want. It was so simple.
Everything else was complicated, tangly and difficult but this… He knows he’s good like this.
"Next time... we do that in private, so I can stay just like this for you," he says, another quick kiss against Kauris temple "But for now..."
He grabs Kauri's hand, moving it away so he can start to ease out. His own hand is still tucked around Kauri’s front, under his shirt, feeling every stutter and movement of his body as he pulls out. He tucks Kauri back in before he tidies himself up, pulling the condom off and zipping his jeans back up.
Kauri, used to mostly cleaning himself up and usually cleaning up the other guy, too - it’s part of training, he falls into it mindlessly and the guys never seem to notice and if they do, they just say thank you and don’t give it a second thought - blinks, staring down at Cass’s hands so carefully shifting his pants back up over his hips, tucking him back into them, even zipping and buttoning and he lets out a huff of disbelieving laughter.
What had he done to meet someone so nice?
He turns to say thank you and instead Cass’s mouth is on his, insistent but still soft and sweet, and Kauri melts against him, sliding arms eagerly around his waist to hold him close, draw it out, make it last even longer. Finally, when they break apart, Kauri is still nearly panting, still feeling the languid afterglow looseness in his limbs.
Cass keeps his voice low and soft in that way that seems to make Kauri short circuit, “Still wanna come back to mine?”
“Yeah, I… yeah, I do, I want-... I want to, um, to get a little longer with you. Plus, I can’t exactly write you a letter-” Kauri’s voice cuts off, and then he laughs, a little nervously. “Since I don’t have anywhere you could get me one back. I want-... yeah. If you’re still offering, I do.”
Kauri's easy to fluster, Cass is realising. Intensely so. There's been a permanent blush on his cheeks since before they left the diner, and everything he says is coloured by the adorable tripping over of words. He gives Kauri's hand a squeeze and a little smile, pulling him out towards the street before dropping it again, walking backwards as he talks.
"Well you'll know where I live in about three minutes, so you can just leave me a love note like diner-boy did."
He flashes a grin and walks in the opposite direction than they'd come. Away from the bar, away from the burger joint. He can see the Facility buildings from here, nondescript and unsigned. It’s hard to tell, if you don’t know what they are, if they’re meant to be residential or corporate. Probably because they functioned as a mix of both.
He feels like a teenager sneaking someone in through his bedroom window. Like he’s breaking some private rule with himself that keeps his two worlds separate. He glances back to Kauri, smiles in that easy way, "Hey so it’s no big deal, but, uh... guests aren’t exactly celebrated at the Facility so like, if we see anyone, just be chill, yeah?"
Kauri walks after him like a lovesick puppy and he knows it, a stupid smile on his face but Cass doesn't seem to mind and Kauri can't seem to stop.
All his stuff will be waiting for him at the park even if it takes him a day. He's had to leave his backpack and everything before for nearly a week. Nobody knows about the loose tile in the bathroom ceiling where Kauri keeps things.
It sounds so fucking nice to have a Facility you could just leave if you wanted. Kauri's vaguely jealous as he talks, thinking it sounds like the dorms in Owen's movies.
"I can be chill," Kauri says seriously, with sparkling eyes and a flush still in his face. "I'm good at quiet, I was, I… learned how to be really quiet. I won't fuck it up."
He was nervous, but he wanted more of Cass, for at least a little bit. He could be normal long enough to fool whoever they might run into.
There's a part of Cass that wants to tell Kauri to stop talking. Every time he opens his mouth, some horrible line of tragic comes peeling out from nowhere. Cass tries not to linger on it, the little slips. About learning and training and being good.
"Well we don't have to be that quiet," he says, trying to keep it light. "Just careful."
The door unlocks with a quick little beep as Cass flashes some other guy’s keycard and he pushes it open. He gestures for Kauri to go inside, feeling suddenly embarrassed at how upscale the place must look in comparison to damp alleys and park benches.
"Not really my deal," he says, trying to shrug it off. "But I'm not paying or anything, so..."
The foyer is orchids-on-the-marble-desk kind of nice. There's a completely impractical couch to the left you could probably trade in for a decent car. Cass hates everything about this place but it was still better than Christopher's. And he'd bet serious money it's leaps and bounds from wherever Kauri last slept.
It looks like the lobby in Owen's condo, to Kauri, only even nicer. He presses himself to Cass's side, nervous in his grungy thrift-store clothes, worried they'll kick him out or know what he is by sight, that someone like him only belongs in a place like this if he's got a collar around his neck.
Or it'll be like they said in training - runaway Romantics come to bad ends when someone knows they can't really fight back.
By the time they get to the elevators he's holding onto Cass's waist tightly enough to probably hurt.
"I'm a few floors up," Cass says, a flirty smile trying to smother the sudden tension running through him. "Reckon I could have you begging again before we get there?"
He doesn't realize his breathing has picked up until Cass talks again, and Kauri's answer comes out more breathless than he means it to. He nuzzles briefly into Cass's neck just for the reassuring hit of safe he feels when he's touching someone.
"I'd beg for you right here," He says, and then turns red again. "I'm sorry. I get, um, I do that when I'm, um. Yes."
Cass feels on edge all of a sudden. Out of his element. He doesn't like bringing people back here, he doesn't even like being here. The whole point of going out and hooking up with people is that he can be somewhere else for a night. And he'd ended up hauling Homeless Hottie through the door instead.
"You don't have to come up, you know." The words come from nowhere. Not rude, just a little prickly. "Like I don't need you to be here, it's just a place to crash."
He rakes his eyes over the other man, who looks just as nervous as Cass feels. Jittery. Like someone’s about to arrest him.
"I fuckin' hate this place so if it’s making you feel weird or you wanna leave, I get it," he tries to feel casual about it, watching for the elevator doors to open. Please stay though. I hate it here but I don’t hate you so please, please stay. "It's not like we didn't already fuck, so no hard feelings."
Kauri leaves places. It's what he does, stay long enough for someone to want him and then go when they don't any longer, or when the closed door might be locked and he can't handle it any longer.
Weirdly, though, he doesn't want to leave Cass.
"I'm sorry," Kauri says softly. He's made him mad, somehow, and he's not quite sure what he did this time. He started the whole night by getting Cass mad – Kauri's carefully-remade mind drops the simple fact that Cass had actually gotten mad at Matt, and substitutes himself as being at fault for not just taking the drink and being good with perfect seamlessness – and he's done it all over again without even trying.
"I want to stay with you," He says, sincerely, truthfully. "Overnight. I think I want to know you better for a while. I just, um. No, you're right, if you don't want me in your place that's, that's okay. I was just being-... I haven't-... I get nervous about locked doors but it doesn't mean I don't want something."
Cass nods slow, trying not to prickle over the idea that this place is anything close to his. He flicks his eyes over Kauri, almost surprised at the amount of resolve in his voice. He shrugs. Makes a choice.
"Okay. So no locked doors," he tosses Kauri the keycard that isn't his. Nobody was paying him to give a shit about facility security and he'd snag another one tomorrow anyway. "All I want is a good time, alright? For both of us."
Kauri takes the keycard and stares down at it, blinking, then the tension melts out of him all over again and he slips it into his back pocket. The elevator doors slide open and Kauri is noticeably more relaxed as he’s pulled into the elevator, looking up at Cass with all the humor and lightness back in his eyes.
Cass steps backwards until his back is pressed up against the mirrored wall with Kauri in front of him, hand reaching out to press the button for his level as the doors slide closed again. He tries to let the tension in his shoulders drop, fastening on a grin in its wake "Now tell me what you want."
“I want…” Kauri thinks it through - there’s a pile of responses on his tongue, ready to go, all of them trained and conditioned, memorized and repeated at the other end of a shock stick or tied up in ropes or hit on the knuckles whenever he got it wrong. He rejects every single one, because none of them are the true thing, the thing he really wants to say.
It’s pure sincerity when he leans in closer to Cass, goes up on his toes to kiss him, and says softly, “I want you to kiss, um-... to kiss me stupid ‘til we get into your room and I want to ride you when we’re in there.”
Kauri’s so easy to kiss. He’s so easy to move with, so easy to tug and pull. He’s so easy to want. Cass pulls him in close, and with barely enough space between them to breathe it’s hard not to think God, he’s made for this.
“You’re so good,” Cass says, pressing up against him. The elevator doors slide open behind them and Cass kisses Kauri backwards until they’re up against the hallway wall, Kauri giggling quietly and running his hands up Cass’s sides and back down to his hips to pull them flush again.
The res level is featureless and clinical compared to the foyer. Why waste money decorating something the public didn’t see? Something only meant for those lowest on the company totem pole?
He leads Kauri down the hallway a few steps, pushing him gently into his quarters as the door slides open, kissing him all the while.
“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” he says with a grin, stripping his jacket and adding it to a chair piled with clothes. “My, uh, boss likes things to stay tidy, so naturally I keep it as messy as possible.”
Aside from the debris of his life scattered around – clothes on the floor, papers and books on the inbuilt desk, a couple pill bottles sitting pretty by the lamp – the place is stark and white. Featureless. The king single shoved in the corner lays unmade, white quilt gathered at the bottom a testament to the restless sleeper he is when he dains to occupy it. He feels strange with someone in his space like this. Exposed, almost.
“I’d offer you something to drink but, uh,” he looks around the room, shrugs “I’m not exactly well-equipped for guests.”
“That’s okay,” Kauri answers, sincerely, looking around the room with the opposite of Cass’s expression on his face. There’s a hint of nervous worry when he sees the stark white walls, the slightest hesitation before he lets himself be pulled into the room, but the simple mess is immensely comforting.
Not a cell, not ‘resident rooms’ like his own had been, empty and with just the floor to sleep on unless you earned blankets and a pillow and there were rumors the really good trainees could earn a bed. No, this was like…
“Like a dorm room at college,” Kauri whispers, then winces at a spike of pain ricochets around inside his skull.
don’t think about that don’t remember that that never happened you made that up it’s common to have false memories after training
He shakes it off almost instantly - it’s there and gone, barely a flicker of expression before he makes himself forget he’d ever said anything.
“Are you allowed to have things for the walls?” He asks instead, his voice perfectly light and cheerful, moving forward into the room, grazing fingertips over the pile of clothes in the chair, as if considering something. “I could bring you a picture. There’s a lady down at the farmer’s market who paints, she likes me, she always says she’ll give me a painting if I ever have a place to put one.”
Cass closes his eyes, a smile creeping over his face. He can’t tell anymore if the way Kauri tilts the conversation onto easier topics is intentional or just a very well practiced habit. Either way, it's entirely sweet and a little disarming.
“You know, I’ve never asked,” he says, sweeping in close again, wrapping an arm around Kauri’s waist. “But I’d risk breaking the rules for you.”
He tilts Kauri's chin up to meet him in a kiss, and as he does he feels an unpleasant twinge of jealousy. He can't help but feel like Kauri's unfairly lucky. He knows it's not a rational thought. He knows it's not. But still.
How the fuck do you stay homeless when people seem to be tripping over to try and help you? There seem to be so many people wanting to offer Kauri small kindnesses but instead he opted to turn them all down just to stay on the streets and desolate. And Cass had fought tooth and nail for a single bed in a room without a key.
Like a college dorm room, Kauri had said, before all but flinching away from his own comment. Like a college dorm room. Cass wouldn't know would he? Had never had the chance.
“Where’d you go to college?” he asks, innocent enough. The other questions, the crueler, bitter-with-jealousy questions– were you any good? did you get kicked out? is that why you sold yourself? fucking piece of shit drop out, buried in fancy college debt? – stay at bay.
Kauri's quiet, pressing the kiss closer, deeper, burying himself in it, more aggressive now. The headache threatens if he tries to ask too many questions, the memory of drugs woozily running through his veins, hooked to a wall and forget forget forget in his head obliterating whatever poor son of a bitch had lived in his head before.
Then, finally, he pulls away and shrugs, smiling sunny and bright, deflecting, distracting. "I don't know," Kauri says, voice perfectly, carefully constructed to seem careless, isn't it so funny that I don't know, but really, who cares? "It's not important to what we're for-... what we do. Not like I could write a fucking essay to save my life anymore. Or a poem."
Another flinch, as if Kauri had tripped over something, and he shoves Cass's back against the wall with a sudden aggressive need, slipping a hand into the waistband of his pants while shifting a leg between Cass's legs, an expert move to brush against him from two directions.
"Doesn't matter."
A familiar rush of hot and cold runs through Cass' body at the answer, at the touch, at the rough push against the wall that makes him shudder with a kind of practiced thrill. Kauri knows exactly what he's doing with his hand and the bid for distraction spurs Cass on even more.
Kauri's uncomfortable. He wants distraction. Deflection. To change the subject. But Cass wants to know. Cass wants to push. "So, what? They ju - hah - just keep the slutty parts and fry the rest?"
It's getting mean. He can feel it. A backwards kind of resentment clawing under his skin, twisting his mood. He catches Kauri's lips with his own, fingers brushing under the hem of Kauri's shirt. The kiss is desperate and rough, on the borderline of bruising, and when Cass pulls away he feels a childish sort of challenge pulling at him
Kauri ignores the first question entirely, sliding his hand straight down to brush over Cass between his legs, feeling him soft but he wouldn't be for long, Kauri knew just what to do to get past this moment and his thoughts, and he likes the rough stuff as much as he ever likes tenderness.
He's trained to.
Jesus, I know I asked for a brainless slut, Kor-Bore, but this is something else. Do you even have brain cells now?
He's just started to curve around him, to stroke him back to hardness, when Cass asks, "What if I wanted a poem?"
Kauri's face flickers with hurt, an oddly naive why would you ask that considering the practiced physicality on display. Then he tilts his head, looking up at Cass, and gives him the honest fucking answer while giving his cock just enough of a roll of his palm to feel good.
"I'd tell you to go fuck yourself."
Cass knows an evasive answer when he hears one. It's not some sort of pathetic no homo-ism which would've been funny in its own right with Kauri's hand sitting where it is. It's something deeper than that. Something that hits close enough to home to hurt.
The energy in the room has shifted. Tense and pulsating. The undercurrent of something bitter. Territory Cass was more familiar with than tender kisses in alleyways.
"Seems like you're already doing that for me," he says, rolling his hips forward into the touch. He doesn't bring his hands up to touch back, to hold. It's a challenge in its own right.
How much will you still want me when I'm not acting how you want? When I'm not doing what you need?
Cass has been choked against this wall, threatened against this wall, had his head bashed into it more times than he could count. His eyes track across Kauri's face, land on his lips. He doubts the other man has anything even close to violence living in his veins, but Cass still juts out his chin, looks down at Kauri through lidded eyes. Even the thought of it sends something electric through him.
"You gonna make me sorry for asking?"
"No," Kauri answers easily enough, a short, almost curt single syllable. He can feel Cass getting hard again under his hand, and he tilts his head just a little, looking down, before he gives just enough of a squeeze to keep it interesting.
"I don't do that. I just make you stop wanting to ask."
It's an honest answer - and Kauri grabs him by the belt loops in his pants, pulling him back until they stumble to the bed and Kauri half-falls to seated with Cass standing between his legs, yanking open Cass's pants with no gentleness this time.
"Show you what parts aren't fried," Kauri mutters, half-under his breath, moving to shift his pants down and press a kiss to his stomach in the same moment.
The sound Kauri pulls out of him is more of a grunt than a moan. Cass can feel himself starting to swim. That particular territory on a night out where old restless anger hollows him out and switches on the autopilot. He tilts his head back where he stands, tangling his fingers through Kauri's curls as he closes his eyes. He breathes in.
But this is his place.
This is his fucking bed, his fucking room.
He doesn't want to drift. He doesn't want to leave.
There were two ways Cass knew that kept him attached to the ground. The easiest was a punch in the teeth. The other was harder. Sharing something to make the other person feel closer to you, and then hold onto that like a tether.
It made them like you more, made them easier to stay hooked to. It made it easier to feel what they wanted, even. To ride that wave. But it meant sharing some broken part of himself. Sometimes he lies. Usually he lies. But tonight...
"I couldn't read until I was like 17," he says, voice is low, only opening his eyes after he's said it. "The guy who taught me how also taught me how to fuck."
He traces his fingers down the curve behind Kauri's ear, along the line of his jaw, tilting his face up with a gentle hand under his chin. Cass searches blue eyes and doesn't know what for.
"I'm fried, too."
"I'm… I'm sorry." Kauri hesitates, leaning forward with his shoulders so his chin rests lightly on Cass's stomach, looking up at him. "I can't… I can't read the note from Nick because I can't read. And I can't write you a poem because I can't write, either."
He jerked Cass's pants down over his hips, to his thighs, and kissed into the flat spot just inside each hip, one on each side.
He looked back up.
"I don't know what I look like. I can't look in mirrors. You guessed it right. They fried most of me. Now please push me back on the bed and…" Hold onto me, please, just want this, too, even if it's just to fuck me, just don't make me leave with this the last thing I said "-fuck me or something if you're going to keep me talking about this."
Hearing it all come rattling has something under Cass' skin curdling a little. He doesn't usually go for tragedy. He almost regrets pushing. He almost wants to apologise. Instead he straddles Kauri's hips, knees on the mattress as he pulls the guy's shirt over his head and throws it to the side before doing the same with his own. He kisses him until he's flat on his back on the mattress.
This part is so easy. Puzzle pieces fitting together, gears slotting into place, every kind of made for this metaphor rolled into one.
"We don't have to talk."
He apologises with his tongue, with open mouthed kisses that travel down Kauri's throat to the twisted scar along his collarbone and back up. He rolls his hips into the man beneath him, unbuttons those jeans with one hand and delights in the heat of Kauri's cock as he palms him, feels him start to harden.
His own jeans practically fall off as he stands, loose from Kauri's ministrations, and he kicks them to the side before leaning forward, kissing lines down Kauri's stomach and down his hips and down his thighs as he undresses him too. He presses his cheek to Kauri's leg, planting a kiss on his inner thigh.
"Just one more question." He brushes against Kauri's hardening cock with his lips, "This?" He slips his hand under Kauri's lower back, down the curve of his arse, just barely pressing into him again, "Or this?"
Kauri hums under the attention, he loves being pressed back into the mattress, a hint of weight holding him down. It’s what he wants, what he’s for. Any anger in him drains out with every kiss - Kauri is used to apologies that aren’t spoken or that don’t happen at all.
He wouldn’t even want an apology - he has no idea how to handle them unless they’re laced with reasons that Kauri’s really the one to blame.
Kauri pushes himself up on his elbows, nerves singing, and looks down towards Cass, the shy, sincere smile on his face as he pushes himself closer to sitting up.
“Um, your-... your mouth,” Kauri says, hushed, almost shocked-sounding. “Mouth, please.”
Cass holds eye contact as he smiles, running his tongue along the underside of Kauri’s cock before taking him into his mouth. He hums deep in his throat, lets his hair fall in front of his face like a curtain and lets everything else fall away completely.
He will never understand people that don’t love this; that don’t love taking another person in with your mouth, with your hands, and making them utterly melt. It was so simple. So good. Skin against skin, another person to breathe in. He didn’t have to think about anything else, he didn’t have to worry about anything else. He could lose himself in wanting them, in being wanted.
He runs his hands up Kauri’s thighs as he works at pulling delicious sounds from him, finding a rhythm with his mouth, interrupting it again with the swirling of his tongue. Kauri tastes good. He feels good. It’s good, it’s all so fucking good.
Kauri stays up on his elbows at first to watch him, taking the sight of Cass in with unadulterated, if oddly pure, joy. He’d had no idea what this felt like, beyond a sense-memory that told him he’d had one before, the first time someone he’d hooked up with had gone down on him after he ran away.
He never got tired of it - of how wonderful it was to have someone want him so much they would touch him even without taking anything for themselves. It felt so perfectly right, and he couldn’t keep the dopey smile off his face even as he had to shift and finally lay back, focusing his eyes on Cass’s ceiling, his hands sliding into his hair, running through the strands, hips moving gently up to push himself deeper, just a little.
It’s not long before his soft exhalations are full-on moans, and he tries to keep mostly quiet since there are probably other people here but he’s never really been good at that - Owen didn’t want him trained to be quiet at times like this - and he can’t help himself, moaning, “You’re so good, this is so-... fuck, so good, Cass, under the-... yeah, like th-that, just like that-... ah, you’re so so good, so nice, so nice to do this, to, to, ah, ah, ah-” He trails off into a louder sound as Cass hits just the right spot just under the head and his hips jerk, hands buried deeply in his hair, eyes wide and hardly seeing.
It feels so good. For maybe the second or third time, Kauri’s genuinely a little sad he probably won’t see this guy again.
The sounds Kauri makes are so fucking endearing. He moans like he's never had a blowjob, like he's not sure he's ever gonna have one again. Was there literally anything better than hearing someone make sounds like that? It makes it easy to enjoy, to indulge in getting him off.
Cass can’t help but laughing under his breath as he pulls off, licking long and slow along Kauri’s cock.
“Enjoying yourself, big guy?” he mutters, smiling up at Kauri’s blushing cheeks, the mass of dark curls against the sheet before swallowing him to the hilt. Maybe the only thing better than hearing someone make sounds like that was knowing you were the one that caused it.
He speeds up, moaning deep around Kauri’s cock. Hands down the best fuck Cass has had for months.
Kauri’s moans turn into something like loud, high-pitched whimpers as Cass’s throat vibrates around him with his own sounds, his fingers tightening to nearly painful in Cass’s hair and his hips jerking up harder than he intends them to, thrusting into Cass’s mouth unconsciously.
“Y-yes, you’re so-... so good, this is so good, I’m, I’m going to-... wait wait wait if you keep g-going, I’ll, I’ll, um-... I’ll-” Kauri’s body tenses all at once, and he lets out a loud cry as he tilts over the edge, coming right down Cass’s throat.
He’s barely finished before he’s trying to pull Cass back up to him, to kiss him, to tangle every single limb around him and keep them pressed together at every possible level.
Cass finds himself, not for the first time tonight, laughing into Kauri's mouth. The guy holds him like he's gonna disappear the second they're not touching, and Cass wraps his arms around his waist as he kisses him.
I'm not going anywhere. God, please keep touching me like that. I want you, I want you, I want you.
He feels love drunk and loose, even though he's still achingly hard. He rolls his hips along Kauri's thigh, chasing the gentle friction as he rocks forward and back but not reaching for more just yet. Cass doesn't want more right now. Just wants to enjoy Kauri's body warm beneath him, the tiny electric sparks he can feel under every brush off his fingers. The desperate kisses, panting breaths, those pretty sounds still sighing out of Kauri's mouth.
He plants a kiss on Kauri's cheek, reaches down to brush his hand against Kauri's cock one more time. "That was hot."
Kauri jumps a little, letting out a half-squeaked whine at the hint of touch to his already overstimulated cock, then laughs and presses against him even more, tilting his head up and back for another kiss, taking the affection as it’s given with pure gratitude for it.
“Yeah, you’re really good at it,” Kauri says, grinning. He can taste himself on Cass, and that’s a rare thing for him, this happens so rarely and it’s even more rare they want to kiss right after. “You’re so, so good. That was so good.” He can’t stop saying it, and he knows it’s stupid to repeat it over and over again, and he finally just ducks his head, tucking it under Cass’s chin, to hide his bright red flush, as much from the aftermath of orgasm as from his embarrassment.
“I like your bed,” Kauri murmurs, stretching his legs out, tangling them with Cass’s. He’d expected to be curled up on a park bench or lying under someone’s heavy weight by now. Lying like this instead - curled up with someone built more like he is, who seems to feel the same way about wanting touch - is so much better. “It’s really soft.”
Cass snorts, nearly makes a quip about razor wire bed springs and b-grade foam, but he stops himself, remembering where Kauri would've been if not here.
"You're really soft," he says instead, running his fingers in long circles along Kauri's arm, his back, down his side. He can feel his own body relaxing with the rhythm of it, with the feeling of skin on skin.
He wishes it didn't feel so good to have someone tucked into him like this and pressed against him. He wishes he wasn't like this, he wishes he wasn't so needy. There's a tension in him he never knows he's holding and it releases when someone touches him. It's like he's never really breathing when he's not being held.
"I should thank that asshole for tryna spike your drink, huh?"
Kauri actually laughs, breaths against Cass’s shoulder, hands sliding across the muscles of his back. “Or I should, I guess,” He says, ignoring the flutter of nervousness. He's too loose, right now, languid and his eyes are finding it harder and harder to open.
“Used to get drugged all th’ time, anyway,” Kauri says, his voice slightly slurred with sleepiness. “It’d jus’ feel like home.”
Cass huffs out a laugh. He reaches behind himself to tap his fingers on the bedside table, one of the bottles from the random assortment of benzos and sleeping pills rolling away as he does. "I'm outta the good stuff but help your fuckin' self."
He wonders vaguely at what point the venn diagram between Kauri's experiences and his own would start looking close to a circle. He wonders too if maybe he should worry about that. He stares up at the ceiling, hand tracing lazy shapes along Kauri's upper arm.
"Mine put it in chocolates, usually," he whispers, not even sure if Kauri's conscious enough to hear him "Or in drinks. He liked it when I'd forget."
There’s a pause, like maybe Kauri had fallen asleep, before he murmurs back, “It was in our food, th’ water, all of it. Did y’... mmmmn…” Kauri nuzzles in closer, pulling Cass as tight against him as he can get, shifting around so he can bury his feet under the blankets at the end of the bed. “... tell you it’s what you’re for?”
Cass buries his face in Kauri's hair and closes his eyes. He feels sleep tugging at him now. Making his body heavy. Pulling him down.
"Yeah," he mutters, pressing a kiss to Kauri's head "Told me I was made for it."
Kauri tries to think of a reply, but the moments lying together, the languid loose feelings of his muscles, and Cass’s warm body in the bed all work together to ensure he’s sound asleep before anything in particular comes to mind. He holds Cass tightly, and in his sleep he never rolls away, only shifts closer, twining his legs around Cass’s so their hips are flush even sleeping, as though he wants only to be touching Cass with as much of himself as he can, even fast asleep.
They’ve only been asleep for a handful of hours when the sliding door slams open. Cass sits up immediately at the sound, awake and heart pounding before Tucker even has the chance to thump the timered light back on.
“Rise and shine, Ace, we have a lot to-“ Tucker’s voice cuts off as he takes in the scene before him. He tilts his head to the side, blinks, a dangerous smile curling his mouth “What the fuck is this?”
