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He hasn't been here in ages, not for at least thirty years. A distant crash of waves and the lumbering of burgeons offshore gives Verso the sense of treading mine-infested territory. The Stone Wave Cliffs. He has no personal ties.
He thinks of very little, pays no mind to the gilded wallpaper sidled up to hexagonal rock structures.
He does have a sense of foreboding, despite his focus. Call it a sixth sense. He is watching and being watched.
By something more than a nevron. Paintress Clea and Alicia would typically lack motivation for watching him from afar without approaching. Renoir is the obvious culprit, but Verso cannot pick him out amidst all that grey and shadow.
Expedition 33 fights their way to where Esquie instructs. Verso is silently begging his big, beautiful, bumbling friend doesn't get them all killed in the process. It wouldn't be the first time. Or the sixth.
He considers approaching the group and offering his services. Esquie knows him. He can vouch. At the same time, he's not confident they'll trust him, and they seem to have an edge that other expeditions thought they had and didn't.
The lumina converter is an interesting invention. He read over the notes once or twice during its creation. Gustave, like many in Lumiere, aren't very diligent about locking their doors, even to something valuable like a workshop.
And Verso needed something with which to amuse himself while he was in the area and Maelle didn't need his spectral supervision.
Maelle's surrogate brother. Would Gustave be the most difficult or easiest convince? He's a sweet man. Gentle by nature. They have some things in common.
Verso is a touch more charismatic, and good-looking, and eloquent, and was probably a better brother to Alicia, and the rock-throwing is so... archetypal.
But he's very sweet. Smart too. That arm is impressive as well. His apprentices really love him. Hopefully they'll see him again, or-, well, yes. At least once.
The far edges of the cliffs are concealed by darkness, shrouding him and whoever is insistently triggering his alarm bells.
He feels a subtle change in the breeze and, blades already drawn, unleashes a sword glare into the black.
For a brief moment, his strike illuminates a hand. Not a person's; the movement is incorrect. Then he hears a bell, and a lantern illuminates, followed by another, then another.
The tension crawling along his back finds direction, and he stands tall. "Oh. Wonderful," he drawls to the writhing, clicking, sword-wielding mess. One of Clea's worst creations, truly. The budding hand fetish and teratophilia of a teenage girl honed into a singular being under the convenient guise of a means to frighten her little brother to death with dramatic irony.
The tinkling of those lamps was etched into real Verso's nightmares once and, by extension, his own. It approaches, its abominable form communicating all he needs to understand. This is not the watcher he's been sensing, but it is the immediate threat.
Running isn't an option in this cave, and dying would not serve his mission very much. If he is right and Renoir is lurking, Verso needs to mitigate his potential damage to this expedition.
Fighting alone isn't ideal. As much as he has survived a lot of shit out there alone, Lampmaster has been something to avoid.
No longer, he supposes. He fends off swings with one blade and projectiles with the other. The bastard is aggressive.
He cuts into several of its hands, which frenzies it further, making it clumsy. The foul smell of its ink isn't enough to distract him, but its wild swings are a challenge.
Then he hears the polished shoes on the cave floor, the cane's accompaniment to a well-known cadence and gait. The katana spears him, driving through his guard.
"Hmm," Renoir's voice hums, but he can barely hear it through the singing of his organs.
"You." Verso seethes as he grips the sword's blade, speared as a Lumiere fisherman's catch.
"I haven't seen you for some time," he hears frigid regard of his father clearer now. One of the hands the Lampmaster stands on and pushes him down, pinning him to the ground with its sword. "As much as it pains me to see you wounded, I suppose this will interrupt your meddling."
"Please. You always get a kick out of something or other running your son through," Verso gasps. He struggles to stay witty through the pain of the blade mulching his insides. The creature clicks insistently, fingers wriggling near and on his face and neck. His arms and legs are yanked at odd angles, and he feels a femur nearing its limit in socket.
"Hm. I see your ventures yielding you unfortunate rewards. Stay out of-"
Verso feels and hears a pop, and the nausea and sudden spike in pain almost wrenches a wail from his lips.
~~~
Verso jolts, breath fast and panicked. He's-... he's awake. He's not there. That wasn't... that happened. It isn't happening. It happened.
"Hh, what? You alright?" Monoco startles awake in his arms and turns his fuzzy head toward Verso with a slur of sleep in his speech.
The tickle of bristly fur pulls him into the now, away from that horrendous memory. Breaking bones and dislocations hurt so much more than stabbing. They always felt wrong. "God, fuck Clea," he mutters as he burrows his face in pillowy fur and evens out his breathing.
"Oh yeah? Nevron nightmares?"
Verso groans into the fur, not caring much for his volume. Monoco and he generally sleep a grove over from the rest of the party as to keep their, "weird, old-man snoring," as Maelle once put it, to themselves.
"Which one was it?"
Verso doesn't answer yet. He prefers chasing the comfort of warming his face and suffocating himself. A leg drapes over Monoco's, who turns more to lie on his back and wrap an arm under and around Verso's shoulders to pull him closer.
"You're dampening my fur, sweaty man," he chastises Verso despite nuzzling his face back and forth. It creates a pleasant friction with Verso's beard and musses his already messy hair.
His pulse has quickly slowed, but he's bothered by the paintress' ability to cause his suffering on a quiet night such as this. Not many a nevron can get to him like that encounter did.
They had seen one recently. "Was it that lampmaster? You were shaky when we took it on."
"Wath noth," he mouths into the fur.
"We haven't traveled together for a while. Did you forget what it's like to be around someone who can actually read you?"
He had not. The number of full conversations the two had had in the last couple of weeks with looks and body language alone had cemented that nothing about their relationship had changed. The frequency of these voiceless arguments, silent flirtations, and singular, seemingly out-of-pocket words used to convey whole manuscripts of meaning to each other finally resulted in Maelle deeming it their, "weird, secret old-man language."
Verso finally turns his face to the side, letting his cheek rest against Monoco's mane, "You sure you weren't just jittery and projecting it onto me?"
"My excitement for battle has a different cadence of bounce to the twitch of your knife hand and nervousness in your step."
"Maybe you were nervous this time. It's okay to admit it. I know it's hard for you."
Monoco turns his mask to hypothetically glare at Verso. Verso pulls his head back enough to meet his gaze brazenly, hair fallen over his eyes and clinging to his forehead.
Their staring contest ends with a snort from Monoco, a subsequent kiss to his mask from Verso, and a hum of approval, again, from Monoco.
Verso has a thought, several, in fact. He recalls how he and Monoco experimented in the past with transformations. He even turned into Verso once, a... cathartic experience.
Monoco has a new leg. Verso lowers his eyelids, lets lewd ideas travel between them with a squint.
Monoco is nonplussed, "What reckless, disgusting venture are you about to ask of me?" Verso grins and gives nothing away that he already hasn't. He lets Monoco continue his grumbling, "You've got that look again, like I'm here for your every ridiculous request. You have two working hands and a number of phalluses packed among my things. You can take care of your own strange cravings."
When Monoco seems to be done moaning, Verso asks, "Would you like to fill every hole I've got as the lampmaster?"
"Oh, yes. That sounds lovely," Monoco replies immediately. Verso's grin widens. He pats the wooden furry chest as he comes to stand and help his 'friend' up. "Shall we move across the bank? Somewhere the rest of the group won't hear how loud you are?"
"I am a cuddlefish compared to when you get started up. Don't pretend." He strolls over to Monoco's pack, grabbing the correct 'leg', which in reality is just a meatier hand, and tosses it behind him. The lack of a thump into the grass lets him know it's been caught. He also grabs a couple necessary oils and a rag, then uses pictos to stow them away.
When he turns back to Monoco he is already standing by the bank ready to swim. He holds out his hands, ushering toward the water, "Après toi, mon cher."
"Merci, mon vieux. Try and keep up with those rusted joints of yours."
"My joints are perfectly functional." Monoco's fur bristles as Verso passes him, stripping to enter the water.
"Rusty. I'm surprised Maelle hasn't made a comment about them being 'weird and old' yet." He wades into the water faster when Monoco starts to chase him.
"She hasn't because they're as spry as they've always been!" he asserts.
"Sorry, couldn't hear you over the geriatric squeaking!"
"You tramp. You're just trying to piss me off so I'm rougher with you in minutes' time," Monoco calls to him as they swim.
"How dare you suggest I would ever do such a terrible thing," Verso flips onto his back, performing the backstroke to keep sight of Monoco. "Hypothetically, were I to ever do it, though, how effective would you deem it?"
"You'll find out soon, won't you?" Monoco's gravel has Verso licking his canines. It travels into his ears and down, despite the chill of the crystalline water.
They make it to the other bank in quick time and move under a tree speckling the light of the shattered night sky.
They take some time to dry off in silence. Verso lights a fire and watches his longest friend's fur spread out between the shaking water loose and the steady night wind.
It dries quickly, magically so. Yet another thing Verso doesn't understand, no matter how many times it's described to him. Meanwhile, his own hair dries slowly.
The breeze deposits a chill at the base of his spine, which climbs to his neck where his gray-white fur collar usually sits. He has an instinct to be wrapped in long wood arms, to have his back to wood and fur that seems to contain an inextinguishable flame within on which to warm his back.
He sees Monoco and yearns for the mute peace of falling snow. He wants a wood-burning stove always burning too hot for two. He wants the smell of sex and pine oil and nevron feet in a space to which the word house is foreign and nest is apt.
It's strange, yet he thinks he could feel no other way but nostalgic. And he does, shamelessly, for a time in which he was so riddled with despair, and his only light was a man who utterly refused to let him wallow alone. Who took his quiet days of wasting away and made that suffering romantic.
"Hmmm. What saccharine thing is going through your head for you to grant me such a look, I wonder?" Monoco wasn't looking directly at him, but he had a clear view.
Verso grins and lets all the love he's ever felt fill his eyes. "I'm wondering when you're going to be done wringing out those rotten stumps so we can get on with this, naturally."
Monoco scoffs, "Must have been very gross for you to bite back like that."
Verso places his hands on his hips, "You're supposed to be fucking my nightmares away, not unpacking my every thought."
"What's the difference?" Monoco stands up straight, holding the lampmaster's leg-arm out. The transformation creates a flash before Verso's eyes. He always seems to blink and miss it or some equivalent thing.
Seeing it before him now, Verso is filled with thrill and nerves, nerves all dancing and screaming and running in circles.
Monoco towers over him, as he has so many times before. He flexes many fingers of many sizes, each making a hideous pop. Clicks emerge from the tattered clothing in a rhythm like breathing. Monoco lowers the large saber atop it, but does not drop it.
"Shall we do this the easy way, or the hard way?" Monoco's voice echoes, seems to emanate from everywhere in the creature. Verso's decades of calm demeanor keep him from showing the very real effect Monoco is having on his heartbeat. He supposes those hands will feel it soon enough.
"Take me," he responds, softer than intended.
He watches the sword drop from its wielding hand and hears Monoco's huff of amusement, "Spoiled sport," he remarks as his feet thump on the grass with their approach.
Hands open their palms to Verso. He knows his nervousness is likely visible now in his quick breath. When the first hands wrap around him and lift him, gripping his waist and back and supporting his legs, he fights the urge to close his eyes. He finds his eyes flitting back to the sword discarded on the ground. After the third glance, he realizes the lanterns have also been discarded, dim and abandoned in the grass.
The hands possess various qualities, clammy, hot, stiff, rough. But they all smell of pine.
He's pulled out of his head by large fingers running through his hair, over his scalp. He looks into the inky black beneath the tatters. His own hands come to brace themselves on arms that disappear into the rags. The hand slowly running through his hair travels behind his ear, down his neck and into the hair of his chest, pressing to his heart with a rigored palm.
It covers most of his chest with its size. A smaller, equally scarred hand reaches for his face. He fails to suppress the flinch and tensing of everything, even with the hand holding his cheek, unmoving. He expects Monoco to mock his skittishness, and he doesn't. He doesn't, and damn, he wishes Monoco would. He is so open and naked and unready.
Monoco doesn't move, save for the soft clicking and heaving. The fingers of the hand on his cheek also make small circles in place, playing with the hair behind his ear.
Slow, up and down. Verso really wants to close his eyes, but he doesn't. His fingers grip gristly forearms. He smells pine, only pine. He wants to close his eyes and see Monoco again so much. He wants to see-...
Monoco says nothing, damn him. Bless him, he waits and waits. He's patient. He's always been so patient.
It feels like ages, but Verso calms eventually. His lids feel heavy. He still does not close them, but now, as if feeling the change, fingers slide firmly, testing, over Verso's chest.
When Verso's torso continues to rise and fall evenly under the hand, a thumb comes to run along his bottom lip. He feels... better. "Say something," he whispers against the alien thumb.
Silence, then, "Sing for me." Monoco's echoed and sonorous bass vibrates his lips. Verso huffs out a laugh, then can't help but smile. Now, he lets his eyes fall closed and his lips stay parted. The invitation is accepted, and the thumb, tasting of ink and bark passes his lips.
He doesn't sing, per say, but to Monoco, his noises always sounded like music, or so he's been told. He lets an audible sigh melt into the thumb. His glazed eyes flutter back open, and they peer into the dark before him. He hears the soft growl of his lover in response.
The hands on him begin to roam and squeeze, kneading his flesh and muscles. Those supporting him can't move much, but the others slide their large fingers along his stomach and sides, grip every part of him they reach. They pointedly avoid heading directly for his crotch, though one finger runs along his happy trail, sending tremors along his abdominals.
Despite how the fear had gripped him moments ago, he's been erect this entire time, since his reminiscing before Monoco transformed. He's been brought to release in far more harrowing circumstances while being fondled by more grotesque textures than these.
The hand traveling from his navel to his crotch feels damp and swollen, as if the skin were soaked for too long. One in his hair snags it with callouses and frayed, dried skin. The hands at his back, under his buttocks and thighs, they are sandpaper and leather and clay and loam.
Some of them feel dead. His breath quickens only just. "They thomething," he demands again around the thumb in his mouth, lets his tongue articulate on its print.
"Greedy," Monoco clicks. Verso lets his eyes plead. It earns him pleasant vibrations that travel through every phalange into his bones. "From this strange and livid sky, tormented like your destiny," the voice rumbles over and through him. "What thoughts in your empty soul descend?" The thumb in his mouth presses on his tongue as one hand previously groping at his chest reaches up to caress, then clamp down on his neck, "Réponds, libertin."
His response is a moan around the soaking digit. In the chaos of so much sensation, he moors himself in the underlying smell of pine and the voice that has awoken him from the worst places. "Insatiably greedy," it drones, "of the obscure and uncertain." Two hands come to his side, one pallid, one red. One is large, the other less so. They are held open beside Verso, waiting.
He obeys. He takes a trembling hand off one of the forearms before him and summons one vial of oil into his hand. One of Monoco's hands pulls the stopper from it and tosses it aside, then returns to waiting beneath the bottle as Verso pours the contents onto both the waiting hands.
The empty bottle slips through Verso's unsteady fingers. He watches the hands spread the oil on themselves. Its smell is neutral, like a scentless candle, practically nothing compared to the being before him and his own arousal. A trail of it slips steadily down the forearm of the smaller hand. He feels his heat stir at the sight.
"I will not whine like Ovid chased from the Latin paradise." The smaller hand presses to his stomach and travels down, spreading slickness in its wake. The larger runs fingers down his spine, then part the cleft of his buttocks. He arches when a large digit begins to press and run along his rim.
He thinks of nothing but what is happening to him. He hears nothing but Monoco's voice. Even his own drunken breath passes by his ears in favor of sating Monoco's desire to hear him sing.
A finger breaches him to the knuckle, then stills. His gasp becomes invitation for the thumb in his mouth to be replaced by two other fingers. "Heavens torn like shores." Verso groans as the finger presses deeper. He feels himself quivering around it. "My pride is reflected in you."
The second knuckle. It's not a normal hand, but it's not quite the size of a strap either. It moves slowly within him, and he's surprised at how quickly he adapts to it. He's not fully adjusted, but he always likes that.
Monoco takes the hint from his squirming and prods his entrance with another digit until it gives way. Verso's singing increases in pitch. At this, the lubricated hand at his front ventures down, scratching over his happy trail, and proceeds to fondle him noncommittally while two others, feeling of dirt and leather, run over his chest and are sure to stimulate it as they do.
"Your vast mourning clouds are the-... fuck, something, errr, dreams." Monoco's voice is lust-logged, sluggish. The second finger insists until it is right alongside the first, burning him from the inside. In his position Verso can't sit back on it, can't do much at all but wiggle and wish for it to move.
Monoco answers his incoherent pleas by pushing a third in. Verso's noises turn gruff at the spread. It meets the two that pull out to the first knuckle, then they all drag along his inner walls as they push back in.
He throws his head back. Had he any leverage to thrust against the hand being frustratingly inconsistent with the handling of his erection. It goes so far as to apply pressure to the base of it to impede his ability to release. In turn, the fingers pinching his chest grow more ruthless, and the fingers moving inside him gain a steady rhythm.
A hand is still on his neck. And one is still in his hair. And many are still on his back and squeezing his thighs until they almost distract from the ones in him.
His eyes roll in his head. The clicking and growling is echoed by panting. "And your gleams," Monoco sighs in empathetic pleasure, "are the reflection of the hell where my heart delights."
His mouth hangs slack around the fingers. He whimpers without words. He begs for it all to quiet down but also for it to rip him apart.
He rides that edge such that it's practically painful when he finally comes, leaking onto the hand that has freed his base.
His vision is cloudy, and his grip is no less bone-breaking when he is lowered onto his back on the soft grass. It finally eases when the lampmaster before him is a collection of wood and fur once again. Monoco lies down and pulls Verso atop him, messy and delirious.
The part of his scalp that was being tugged now is being stroked lazily, soothingly.
Verso lets his eyes fall closed for a few moments. He remains as still as possible as to let his nerves stop screaming at all stimulation.
Minutes later, he lifts his head and presses a kiss to Monoco's mask. The mask tilts up as Monoco lifts his head. "Evening, my dear."
"Mm, gloating is unbecoming of you," he responds to Monoco's tone, rather than his words, with a rasp in his throat. He then proceeds ignore his own criticism and kiss every mark on Monoco's face. The chuckle and pleasant sigh that reverberates through it and into his lips ignite the lanterns behind his eyes, guiding him away from exhaustion. An arm wraps around his lower back, pulling their lower halves flush, legs intertwined. His hands run through Monoco's fur, and the soft sighs he hears in response pool in his stomach despite the recent orgasm.
Verso lifts his face away from his love-dizzy object of affection. "The line is 'Your vast mourning clouds are the hearses of my dreams.'"
"The what? Horses?"
"Cars for dead people."
"Mm." Verso grins, lowering his chin into the welcoming fur. Monoco returns to the previous topic, "Gloating is very becoming of me. Especially in the matter of your tastes." The arm around Verso's waist squeezes them together, "Even after all these years, you shy from expeditioners and come to me."
He 'hmphs' in a fit of teasing spitefulness, "Keep on, and I'll think twice about repaying the favor."
"You wouldn't spite us both. And who needs you to return the favor? I've gotten on fine by myself for years now."
"Hmmm snarky. But you left me last time, remember?" Verso taps Monoco's chest with his index, a gesture that evolves more into a scratching motion when his finger catches on a tangle in the fur.
Monoco is silent for a moment before he says, "Couldn't let you be the only source of drama between us." Verso's laughter is yanked from his tired throat, sending him into a coughing fit.
After the fit subsides with the help of a wooden hand patting his back, Monoco speak again, his voice less indignant, "Nightmares chased away, you think?"
"If not, we'll just have to keep doing it until it works."
"We may just." The nightmares are always chased away with Monoco near. They may do it again regardless. He very much enjoyed that.
Verso pats his arm, "Alright, let me up."
"Why?"
"So I can return the favor. When was the last time you maintained yourself? Given the squeaking, I imagine it's been ages."
"Again with you..." Monoco's head tilts to the side as the arm around Verso's back loosens enough for him to sit up, straddling the waist beneath him.
"Don't you 'again' me." He sweeps the hair from his eyes, running a hand along wooden grooves, knicks, and smooth patterns. He feels the scars, gouges in Monoco's wood, runs a finger along one, and glances up when he hears a resulting hum.
He lifts Monoco's arm, running his hands over the patterns, then stops at the rusted joint. He noticed when they first ran into him at the station, but they hadn't had this much time alone prior to tonight. "Monoco," he tuts, "these look like they haven't been done since I did them. What was that you said about getting on by yourself?"
Monoco averts his mask. Verso can feel the eye-roll in spirit. After a few moments, he grumbles something on the edge of Verso's hearing. "Doesn't what?"
"Don't make me say it again!" Monoco tilts his head up.
"You're the one grumbling!" Verso shoots back.
"It doesn't feel the same as when you do it!" He snaps, "And you damn well know it." He drapes his other arm over his illustrative eyes.
Verso doesn't think Monoco could possibly endear himself further to him, but this is a good effort. He sighs, letting the rest between them stretch on. He lowers his head to the markings on Monoco's arm and delivers a kiss to each one. He then starts to run his hands along the length of the arm. "Monoco..."
"Mmmmwhat," he demands, more of a croak than an inquiry.
"I missed you too."
"MMMMMM," Monoco's distress gets louder beneath his arm. Verso continues to kiss the other one as he summons the vial of pine oil, rag, and a small, knife-like implement with a rough edge.
"I'll need to bring this out."
"Mm? Wha?" Monoco's voice is soft. Verso kisses him again, basking in the hitch in breath before clarifying.
"I'll need to get all the rust out before we can polish, mon vieux."
"Mm," Monoco let's the arm over his eyes fall away. It spreads out along the grass as he gathers his fleeting wits.
Verso recalls when they first started exploring this aspect of their relationship, finding what felt good between them. It was a pleasant surprise to find almost any caress or kiss is the answer for Monoco. Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise. The Gestrals have no sexual practices; they wouldn't. Of course he would be touched-starved.
He can't orgasm, but Verso knows all the ways to make him lose himself to attentive touch. Even half-seated comfortably upon Monoco's abdomen, uncleaned mess on their stomachs and groins from their cuddling, Verso hears Monoco's breathing turn leaden as he bends over one laid-out arm and picks at the joint with his knife. Verso's grin is wide during the process. He scrapes until he sees clean metal beneath, blows away the shavings and comes in after with the rag.
"Lookit how hard these have to work? You'll feel forty years younger after this."
"You torture me," Monoco groans.
"I treat you like royalty. Hold still, y'old stump." He moves over to the other arm. "We'll get all the rust first." He hears a hiss and glances up to Monoco's mask, "Did that pinch? Big baby." He jolts and laughs at the slap delivered to his buttocks in retaliation.
Monoco huffs, "Still a touch skittish, mon cher?" The hand lingers as he works, fingers pressing into flesh. Verso delivers a quick glance, the corner of his lip tugging as he digs the knife between the hinges of Monoco's elbow. Monoco jerks his head back, hitting it against the grassy bank.
"Still a touch sensitive, old man?" He leans over, pausing and repositioning to plant kisses down the side of Monoco's torso. A hand slides into his hair, the chest beneath him rising and falling in a flutter. Verso runs a hand over the other side of Monoco's chest, down his stomach and over his pelvis and thighs. His fingers press at the smooth patches between Monoco's legs.
Few Gestrals are as old as Monoco, and those select few have similar smooth spots, places that feel closer to polished stone than wood. Verso noticed decades ago that the places that received touch more often, his arms, chest, inner thighs, as well as his palms and the soles of his feet, are particularly smooth.
He lets his teeth scrape over wood and enjoys the shiver it draws out of Monoco, "Ugh, get on with the rust part already. We'll be here all night."
"Like you have anywhere else to be," Verso protests. His kisses are slow and wet.
"We only have until morning," Monoco strains. "We both know how long 'maintenance' can last."
Days, when the blizzards rolled in, and they had no reasons to venture out. Hunger is a beast that quiets down the longer he ignores it, but arousal is the opposite. They could easily lose track of time when they were first coming to learn sex was an option to while away the hours.
But Verso concedes, ignores the friction revitalizing his dick for the sake of getting to work once again. When he's done with the wrists, he climbs off and sits before Monoco, between his legs. He lifts one of his lover's legs onto his shoulder and starts chipping away at the rust in the knee.
The work takes him, as does Monoco's sounds, his squirming. They're admittedly distracting, but he manages to get both knees and ankles finished in good time. "Hmm, I'll take a sander to your feet some other time." He promises, examining them.
"Forgot it in the pack, didn't you?"
"That I did," Verso stows the odd knife, "I was distracted." He wipes the joints down, then picks up the bottle of pine oil and pulls off the stopper. His muscles relax at the sudden overwhelming waft of it. He doesn't take his eyes off Monoco as he presses two fingers to the top of the bottle and flips it quickly. He doesn't need much. "Do you ever miss it?"
"The days of maintenance? Hah. The ache after them. Like after a long battle. The type that settles right in your core. As much as I missed our duels."
"Mmm," Verso lets the noise escape him, brought on by Monoco's words. He places the bottle down, "I... more meant, all of it. Frozen Hearts, you ever miss it?"
Monoco's head lulls to the side as he places a hand on Verso's cheek. "I did." A smooth wooden thumb trails over his lips. He kisses it, then the palm nearby. "Mostly I just missed you." Verso will just pretend the whimper was too soft to hear. "And I don't have to anymore, now that you've come crawling back to me."
He smiles into the palm, "You made yourself pitifully effortless to find, Mr. 'I never want to see your face again.'"
Monoco huffs, "It was easy to say when I could still see your face." He cups Verso's face with both hands, "Now I'm just happy it didn't come true."
Verso blinks away the emotions threatening to leak out his eyes. "Monoco."
"Verso."
Verso pouts, taking one of Monoco's hands in his own, and kisses it again, then uses his two fingers to spread the pine oil on each knuckle. It seeps into the creases as Monoco lets his other hand fall and relaxes back into the grass. Verso lubricates every joint of Monoco's hands, kissing everywhere he touches as he moves up each knuckle to the wrist, then to the elbow.
Monoco's restrained breaths turn into moans quickly. The ministrations and worrying of his wooden fingers are already robbing him of all reason, but oil and warm skin on raw joints always comes as lightning to his center.
"Tell me what you feel," Verso coaxes as he runs his hands over Monoco's arms and chest on his way to the other elbow. He leans down and plants slow kisses up the arm before reapplying oil to his fingers and lubricating the joint. He hears his own sighs escape him in response to Monoco's pleasure. His hips roll hypnotically, creating a friction he's yearned for all night.
"The same rush every time we dual," Monoco pants, "And you gain the upper hand." His sentence is broken up as another jolt surges him, "My back to a corner, seething at that look you give me." He looks up at Verso, "That one. The one where you know you have me."
Verso is leaned forward, his length rubbing against Monoco's hip as he lets his fingers circle the joint hinge. "Mhm," he provides with every ounce of eloquence. "Feels good when I beat you, hm?"
"Shockingly. Frustratingly," he seethes. Verso sits up and moves back between Monoco's legs. "Almost as good as when I beat you."
"Mmm almost," he groans as he applies oil to his palm and runs it along the inside of Monoco's thighs, delighting in the way they shiver. When he's done, he applies more to his hands and scoots closer, the backs of Monoco's thighs flush to his stomach. He positions his head between the shaking legs to ensure they don't clamp down on his dick at an inopportune time, then he settles in just the right spot.
His thrusts come even with the caressing of Monoco's joints. If anything's going to make him come, it's Monoco's unraveling when they've only just begun. His gyrations, and the arching of his back, one could be fooled into thinking he could experience release. Maybe he can, in a sort of mental way.
His movements steal away Verso's desire to tease him. His thrusts quicken along with the newfound sense of urgency.
Between their sounds of pleasure, Monoco's voice is like a sinful confession, "I missed this so much."
Verso now realizes, he's not going to last long at all. "Oh, I'm not letting you get back to sleep tonight."
"Don't. Undo me."
"Oui, mon amour."
"Fuck, Verso."
He feels lightheaded when he comes again. His thrusts slicken between oil and fluids painting Monoco's crotch, thighs, and stomach. Verso slumps back. He grips the calves squeezing his neck and pulls one away to kiss along it.
"We're really not getting back to sleep, are we?" Monoco squirms at each peck of Verso's lips.
"You're the one who told me to undo you."
"And I meant it, but you're the one coming up with the excuse for why we're both sluggish tomorrow."
"What, gonna be all tuckered out after tonight? You are getting old." He adds pine oil to the ankles, continuing to torment his lover as he mocks him.
Monoco squeezes Verso's neck between his legs until he starts to choke, "As if I've ever been the one to fall asleep first between the two of us. Can you even keep going? You'll be spewing powder in a few minutes' time."
He pries the legs apart, keeping his fingers in Monoco's ankles to deter him, "Keep talking, and I'll put cum in your joints again."
"That supposed to be a threat or a promise?"
A fit of giggles arises from Verso as he climbs between Monoco's legs toward open, waiting arms once again.