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Landing in vacuo had been easy, and they'd slipped into the shadows soon after. It was evening, the lights had been low, and no one questioned two guys just trying to keep their heads low, especially when one was hanging his arm off of the other.
Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable, use it to your advantage
.
A wise lesson he’d learned years ago.
Mercury supposed they looked generic enough, having taken off his jacket himself and Tyrian having donned his long coat again to hide the tail. They’d found lodging for the night, out of the way from prying eyes. The assassin dropped the fake-nice chummy façade the moment they were alone, complaining about how stiff he was after being jammed in an airship for that long. Tyrian just smiled, eyes following him curiously.
That was actually something he’d noticed lately. He’d been the target of more glances than normal, something he’d have missed if he didn't have the habit of counting. It was a skill Mercury had picked up from his dad and it’d kept him from being noticed by a target or an onlooker more than once.
Mercury didn’t know the reason he was the subject of the scorpion’s focus though and he didn't think it wise to ask dumb questions, especially not when they were alone in a motel together for an undetermined amount of time.
The crickets and frogs outside were deafening, and he focused on that instead as they waited idly for the sun to go down.
---
He shouldn't have let the scorpion crawl into his bed that night, but in his half-awake state he never thought to say no.
"I know what it's like to have part of you stolen." Tyrian whispered into his ear from behind, tail curling around Mercury's leg. Metal on metal shouldn't sound so soft, but the polished surfaces slid together with an almost inaudible noise. "I know the burning hole it leaves."
Mercury was silent. No matter how much he liked his mechanical parts, the bitter feeling that his dad had done it to him because he was too weak to stop him would never go away. He envied people that could accept things and move on, finding things to fill the void. It wasn't even the fact that his father took his legs, he liked his current ones. They were part of who he was and a reminder that even bleeding and bandaged he still managed to get revenge immediately.
Whatever Tyrian was thinking, it was wrong.
It wasn't his legs, it was his semblance that left a gaping hole in his chest.
" More room for anger, then ." He mumbled to the dark.
His father stealing his semblance was something he hid, not because he hated it but because all it did was make people pity him. He didn't care for that, he was a better fighter without it. He had to work harder than everyone else because of it, but he was stronger than them, stronger than people who relied on their semblance, than people who couldn't fight once their aura broke. Stronger than people who didn't know how it was to fight when you were bleeding and hurt and had nothing but fists and instinct.
Tyrian's hands traced circles on his skin, lithe body curling around the younger assassin. "That doesn't meet the need completely though, does it?"
He let his hands wander across the other’s body, trailing up his sides and down his toned stomach. The boy's pale skin, scarred from his painful childhood, was softer to the touch than it should be. Tyrian pulled Mercury tight to his chest, burying his face in the boy's neck and grinning as Mercury’s hair tickled his nose. He pressed his lips to the nape of the other’s neck, smiling at the shiver he got in response. The teen had put up so many walls- Tyrian intended to slip through the cracks.
No, it didn't meet the need. Souls weren't meant to have that happen to them. Aura wasn't meant to bleed constantly, or have part of itself ripped from the body.
Mercury bled aura in a steady drip, every waking hour of every day. It wasn’t significant, but it was there, always trying to fill the hole that his semblance used to take. It hurt, a dull ache at best and an agony if his aura broke.
He wondered idly if Tyrian could see that hole in him, given his understanding of the other’s semblance.
“No.” Mercury admitted. “It doesn’t.”
He didn't expect a response, nevermind one with emotions.
“I thought I told you to do what makes you happy.” Tyrian almost sounded sad. "I just want the best for you."
His hands drifted lower, cupping Mercury through his pants. Years of training betrayed him and a huff slipped out as he leaned into the touches. Mercury didn’t respond, not wanting to say something stupid that would snap the tenuous thread the atmosphere seemed to be suspended from.
Tyrian was handsy. That was a fact anyone who was (un)fortunate to get within arms reach of him knew.
Mercury thought the hand sliding under his waistband was past the point of ‘handsy’ but he wasn’t going to say
no
if it felt good-
Careful fingers almost waited for him to protest but held no hesitation at the same time. Mercury felt like a live wire. He didn't know if he wanted this, but didn't not want it.
"Sometimes we need to fill the void ourselves, do what makes us happy."
“I don’t think I can handle
happy
, it seems boring" Mercury’s airy words betrayed the confusion of his predicament.
He didn’t know why he was letting Tyrian so close or why he was letting him into his head at
all
.
The tail around his leg tightened. Possessive, wanting, it pulled his leg back to hook over Tyrians and left Mercury feeling less exposed than he should have felt. The hand palming him made him want more.
What had changed? He should be fighting, uncomfortable at his core being exposed, uncomfortable at being in such a compromised position unable to move… but he wasn’t.
“Happy is only boring if you do it wrong.” Tyrian teased, not giving a chance for the other to respond before wrapping his fingers around his prize and drawing a whine out of the boy as a second reward. Oh, the boy was so eager under his hands, hot and heavy in his palm. Truly, he should get an accolade for his patience and restraint given how he was itching to take this further, take what he wanted.
He could make Mercury crack with just a little effort, see the greener side of things. The long game would be worth it.
Then
the boy would be his.
Mercury didn’t expect that, though to be quite honest he wasn’t sure
what
he expected at the moment.
“Y-you do this often?” his breath hitched as the scorpion’s lips closed over the boy’s pulse point, sucking on the tender skin. It would be hidden by his shirt but only barely. A bruise bloomed, purple-red in the dim light and a hungry possessiveness welled up in Tyrian’s chest. Why stop at one, he thought.
If the boy objected to the use of teeth he certainly didn’t voice it. What would Mercury be like, writhing under him. Would he scream? Whimper? If this was just a taste of the future, Tyrian couldn’t wait to hear the needy whines and gasps turn into something louder. Maybe he could make the boy beg. That would be beautiful, he thought, thumb sliding over the head of the teen’s cock and smearing the bead that had been forming.
Tyrian hummed in response, admiring his work.
It was a world of difference to have a hand other than your own, he thought.
Mercury didn’t know what to do with his own hands, settling on grasping the bedsheets and throwing one hand back into Tyrian’s hair. It was soft, like silk he thought, if memory serves correct. He gasped as Tyrian squeezed just a touch, control slipping. Truly he didn’t mean to tug on the man’s hair, but the hums Mercury received in return didn’t sound angry so he continued.
Usually he thought of girls when he was alone but right now could only think of the scorpion and his piercing yellow eyes. He wondered how Tyrian’s mouth might feel if his hands were this good. The man had gotten into his head but he found no room to complain.
He was putty, pliant in Tyrian's hands, a weapon to be held and used. A hand wrapped around his throat, nails feather light, pressing just hard enough to sell the idea of a threat but not enough to break the skin. Mercury arched backwards, head coming to rest on Tyrian's shoulder as his eyes fluttered shut. He wouldn't beg, wouldn't make a sound, but felt himself mouthing please over and over. Everything was too soft, too tender , and to the assassin it was torture.
He drifted over the edge, bucking into the scorpion's hand as he came with a silent cry.
Tyrian held him fast so as not to let him fall apart, whispering things Mercury didn't listen to as he worked the boy though and past his climax. He gasped for air, twitching with overstimulation. Too much, too much-
"...I can make sure you find what you want.” was all Mercury heard as he finally caught his breath, the other man finally stopping his ministrations.
Tyrian nipped the junction between his shoulder and neck before getting up, gaining a tired whine out of the younger man. Faintly, Mercury was aware of the sound of running water and then the bed dipped again. There was no way that hands that gentle were owned by a mass murderer, he thought, as Tyrian cleaned him up. Those same hands that were oh so carefully rolling him onto his back and holding his hips gingerly. A hot tongue, almost scalding to his chilled skin gently lapped at the mess on his stomach and Mercury tensed up instinctively. He was barely used to people touching him and Tyrian's mouth was too much after everything. Tyrian finished with an almost apologetic kiss to his stomach when he was done and it made his insides twist in ways he didn’t understand. Too caring .
The younger man’s mind was racing, made worse by the older man sliding back into bed behind him and curling around him again. It was as if he was trying to meld every inch of their bodies together.
He shouldn't like this. He shouldn't want more of this. He shouldn't feel the urge to relax into Tyrian's arms like this, shouldn't have been so okay with letting the lunatic get so close to him in so many ways. He’d seen what the scorpion could do, and what he had done...
Yet as Tyrian held him tightly, clung to his back and wrapped his tail around him again in a comforting gesture, his breathing slowed and he found himself drifting. Gentle humming lulled him to the verge of sleep while the want for more settled deep in his chest.