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The Leader of District 1 loosened his tie, sealing the cacophony of the casino floor—a chaotic blend of cigar smoke and the clatter of cheap chips—behind the closing elevator doors.
He fished a titanium master key card from the inner pocket of his bespoke suit, his thumb absently tracing the District 1 eagle crest and the intricate engravings on its surface. In this entire building, this card represented supreme, absolute bypass. It could silently slide open the heavy blast doors of the armory three floors underground, or grant a brazen entry into the private sanctum of the penthouse suite. But at this moment, in Alfred’s eyes, its only value was to open the one door where Arthur Kirkland was waiting for him.
The elevator ascended in silence, leaving the city’s clamor beneath his feet. The luxury hotel occupying the top forty floors and the den of sin in the two basement levels were both, nominally, under the name of his twin brother—the man with the perpetually mild smile. Matthew Williams was the perfect lubricant; he provided the most professional dealers and the most soundproof walls for the heavyweights tearing each other apart in this neutral colosseum, wisely retreating into the shadows to avoid the bloodshed.
After all, when you know for a fact that your brother is a monster in human skin, being a invisible man is the ultimate survival tactic. Alfred had always appreciated Matthew’s self-preserving wisdom—as long as it didn't interfere with his world domination or his love life.
With a soft ding, the nineteenth floor arrived.
The hallway was lined with deep gray plush carpet that swallowed all sound. Warm yellow wall lamps cast Alfred’s shadow into a long, distorted silhouette. He idly chewed over the room number Arthur had given him over the phone: D1923.
He was certain he had heard D. Even though when the call came, Arthur was clearly in the shower—the sound of splashing water drowning out most of the noise, making that habitually arrogant British accent sound hazy and moist with steam. 1923. Alfred’s mind had habitually disassembled, added, and reduced those four digits to a meaningless single-digit "6" while in the elevator. Throughout the wait, his mind was filled with nothing but that beautiful waterbird currently being soaked pink by hot water. He missed those emerald eyes clouded with mist, the soft, warm lips, and…
Oh god, just the memory alone was making Alfred’s temperature rise. Too hot.
At the end of the hall: D1923. He tapped the titanium card against the sensor; a green light flickered dimly, and the electronic lock gave a submissive click. The handle turned in Alfred’s palm. He pushed the door open—
The first thing to hit his eardrums was a wet, lingering sob. It was unmistakably the sound of a human body being utterly impaled, a weeping moan squeezed out from the brink of collapse.
Alfred’s footsteps froze dead in the entryway.
The prefrontal cortex of his genius brain completed the first round of analysis at lightning speed: Conclusion—this voice does not belong to Arthur Kirkland. He had heard the Lord of District 44 moan far too many times; this defenseless, sugary whimpering came from an entirely different set of vocal cords, a different habit of breath. It wasn't the same person.
Then, the need for rational analysis vanished.
The moment Alfred stepped past the foyer, rounded the short corridor, and his gaze collided defenselessly with the massive bed, his pride as the ruler of District 1—his brilliant brain—shattered completely.
The floor lamp was dimmed to its most suggestive setting, the light spilling over the king-size bed like melted honey. The high-thread-count white sheets had long since devolved into a shapeless vortex, and at the eye of the storm were two naked bodies entwined.
The one on the bottom was pinned in a deep rear-entry position, face buried in the pillow, lower back arched into a full, taut curve. A thin layer of sweat on his spine caught the warm light, giving the skin a glazed, honey-colored sheen. From the delicate shoulder blades to the deep hollow of the lower back, he rippled with every heavy thrust from the man behind him. His fingers gripped the edge of the pillow, a string of shattered, wet gasps spilling from his lips. Occasionally, a thick, nasal, sugary whimper escaped through the friction of the fabric—a sound so blissful it felt like the soul itself was trembling.
"Ah… ahh… so good… ungh!"
The man behind him had one hand digging into his flushed hip bone and the other braced against his sweat-slicked lower back. The movements weren't exactly brutal, but every shove hit deep and true. The steady, rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh echoed with a lewd, wet quality in the soundproof room, mingling with the uncontrollable weeping of the man beneath him.
Alfred’s blue eyes, which had seen a thousand storms of bullets, stared straight at the back of that hair-tossed head. He was forced through 0.3 seconds of high-definition image recognition: the familiar golden-brown curls; the neatly folded white shirt on the nightstand with a goddamn red maple leaf embroidered on the collar; the wire-rimmed glasses that symbolized civility and reason; and finally, the profile of a face that could maintain a polite smile in any bloodthirsty negotiation, now flushed red with pleasure and utterly lost to ecstasy.
Matthew Williams—his twin brother—was currently being fucked senseless by some random guy from out of nowhere.
In the next 0.7 seconds, Alfred’s brain underwent three spectacular stages: Stage one, a pure data crash, like a supercomputer hit by a virus designed to cause a total meltdown; Stage two, a wave of genetic-level spiritual pollution surging from his tailbone to his skull, feeling as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water and a bucket of concentrated lava into his head at the same time; Stage three, a soul-shattering shock.
"AAAAAAAAAAAH—HOLY SHIT—!! WHAT THE FUCK—!!!"
The scene froze instantly. The two people on the bed looked as if they had been turned to stone by Medusa; the motion was jerked into a hard pause. The man in the back still had his hand frozen on Matthew’s waist, while Matthew whipped his face out of the pillow. His entire face was red enough to bleed, and the lingering lewd haze in his pupils was instantly replaced by pure, magnified terror the moment he saw the intruder.
"FUCK!!!"
Matthew’s usual mask of mild-mannered elegance was shredded. His voice hit a dolphin-range pitch Alfred had never heard in his life. He scrambled frantically, desperately trying to yank the duvet over them to hide where they were still intimately joined. But the damn blanket was pinned under their knees; Matthew yanked twice to no avail and, in a fit of breakdown, grabbed a pillow to shield his chest, looking exactly like a deer caught in high beams.
"Alfred?! Why the hell are you in here!!!" Matthew shrieked.
"I’m the one who wants to know why the fuck YOU are here!!!" Alfred roared even louder. His hand was already fumbling frantically for his phone like he had Parkinson’s, hoping this small slab of electronic metal would be his only escape pod from this Cthulhu-level nightmare.
The man behind Matthew finally snapped out of his trance and scrambled to withdraw, his movements so frantic he seemed to be trying to compress his entire physical presence into a vacuum.
Alfred’s peripheral vision caught a glimpse of his face—dark hair, features that looked vaguely familiar. Probably some second-in-command who had stood in the back row smoking cigars at a multi-district summit, or maybe some executive’s personal assistant? To hell with it. Alfred would rather gouge his own eyes out right now than dedicate even a single byte of brain capacity to retrieving that man's file.
His thumb, driven by pure muscle memory, hit speed-dial "1." He desperately needed Arthur Kirkland to cleanse his traumatized soul.
The phone rang twice before being picked up. On the other end, the voice was tinged with impatience, the whirring of a hairdryer audible in the background.
"Hullo?" Arthur’s voice was heavy with a nasal quality, clearly multitasking between drying his hair and answering the phone.
"Arthur!" Alfred wailed, sounding like a Golden Retriever that had been kicked and was now seeking extreme emotional compensation. "Why are Matthew and some man I don't even recognize having sex in room D1923?!"
"What?" The hairdryer cut off abruptly. "What did you just say? Where are you?"
"D1923! The room number you gave me, D1923! I swiped in and I saw Matthew, he’s—he’s currently—oh my God, I don't want to describe it a second time—"
There was a two-second silence on the other end. Then, Arthur Kirkland spoke in a tone Alfred knew all too well—the one reserved specifically for dealing with the intellectually challenged.
"Are you in District D?"
"Yes! D1923! Just like you said!"
"B," Arthur said coldly. "B1923. I said B1923. B as in Bravo. B as in bloody hell are you deaf? B as in bollocks, you absolute fucking walnut."
"Impossible!" Alfred shot back instantly. "I’m positive I didn't hear it wrong—"
"B!!!" Arthur roared through the phone, practically grinding his molars. "B!!! I cannot believe that a man who can recite thirty-seven articles of international arbitration at a negotiation table could possibly confuse B with D. How on earth did you survive the LSATs? Was your Harvard-Cambridge dual degree chewed up and swallowed along with a double cheeseburger?! Or has your pathetic brain capacity been so consumed by plotting for territory that your basic functions for human carbon-based conversation have suffered severe regression?!"
Alfred grew even more frantic under the verbal assault. "I’m telling you, it’s your pronunciation! Your British accent swallows half of every consonant—"
"Get your ass over to B1923. Now. Immediately. I’m counting to sixty, and if you aren’t at my door, I’m locking it and you can sleep in the hallway tonight."
With that final ultimatum, the line went dead.
Alfred slowly pulled the phone away from his ear, staring blankly at the Duration: 47s on the screen. Then, inch by inch, he turned his stiff neck back toward the disaster zone of reality.
On the bed, Matthew had successfully mummified himself in the tangled duvet. He was huddled at the headboard, his face—which shared eighty percent of Alfred’s DNA—now a shade of red that could rival the most vibrant Quebecois maple leaf in October. Meanwhile, the nameless stranger was pulling on his trousers with a speed so desperate it almost bordered on pathetic.
"My bad." Alfred blurted out. His emotional state transitioned seamlessly from a total breakdown to an eerie, artificial calm, like an AI that had just been force-rebooted and was trying its best to simulate a normal social module.
"My bad, my bad, my bad. This was just a small, insignificant, entirely negligible communication error. You know, a little mishap with the alphabet. After all, B and D are perfect mirror symmetries, so from a deconstructionist philosophical perspective, they are essentially variants of the same spatial form—"
"Will you just get the fuck out?" Matthew hissed, every word dripping with murderous intent.
"Right, right, right. Going. Leaving. I’m out."
Alfred began a frantic reverse-walk. His back slammed into the doorframe, and his hands fumbled blindly behind him for the handle. Even as he beat a hasty retreat, his mouth continued its uncontrolled output:
"Carry on, pretend I’m not here, I was never here! My hippocampus has already initiated a formatting sequence to wipe all cache from the last three minutes! From a clinical neuroscience perspective, this kind of immediate memory suppression in response to severe traumatic visual impact is scientifically sound—"
"LEAVE!!!" A pillow came flying toward his head.
THUD!
The heavy electronic door slammed shut, missing Alfred’s nose by a fraction of an inch.
The hallway fell into a deathly silence. The deep gray plush carpet dutifully swallowed all sound from behind the door. The warm yellow wall lamps continued to glow peacefully every three meters, their soft halos illuminating the face of the Supreme Ruler of District 1—a face currently wearing the vacant expression of a soul that had just survived a localized psychic nuclear blast.
Alfred stood there like a statue for three full seconds. Then, he spun on his heel and bolted toward the elevator. He desperately needed to throw himself into the arms of his clean, dry-haired, sixty-second-countdown-holding British lover to wash his soul.
During the short sprint to Block B, his high-performance brain was working at full capacity on a task it was exceptionally bad at: Forceful Forgetting.
He tried to violently pulverize the images of Matthew’s arched back, those sugary whimpers, and the sight of that stranger's hands on his brother's hips. However, Murphy’s Law was in full effect: the harder he tried to delete them, the more those images looped in his mind in 4K Ultra-HD resolution with Dolby Atmos surround sound.
"FUCK..." Alfred swore a desperate oath in his heart as he sprinted down the hall. Starting tomorrow, he was going to force Matthew to upgrade every master key card in this hotel to a triple-biometric system with fingerprints, retinas, and vein recognition! And it would absolutely require at least two ultimate security questions!
And the first question would, without a doubt, be: "Are you absolutely sure you can tell the difference between B and D?!"
Finally, Alfred F. Jones stood before the door of B1923.
He stared dead at the brass room plate inlaid to the right of the dark walnut door, his gaze focusing and refocusing on the letter B and the numbers 1923. Barring any unforeseen miracles, there was absolutely no way he could get it wrong this time. Yet he remained rooted to the spot, glancing down at the coordinates Arthur had sent on his phone screen, then looking back up to glare at the doorplate like it was a mortal enemy. He even took a neurotic half-step back to perform a third verification: the damn letter on the plaque was indeed a B, and not anything his traumatized visual cortex could misinterpret as a D.
The one with the bellies bulging to the right. The one that was a perfect mirror symmetry of D.
Just to be absolutely foolproof, the usually ruthless and decisive Ruler of District 1 extended his index finger and traced the strokes of a B in thin air, looking exactly like a kindergartener just learning the alphabet.
Then he pulled the master key card from his pocket, held it up, looked at it, looked at the door, looked back at the card, and finally shoved it back into his pocket.
He chose to knock. With his knuckles, three times, evenly spaced, moderate force—knocking like a normal, civilized human being who did not barge into other people's rooms to witness things that should never be witnessed.
The moment the door was pulled open from the inside, a wave of damp heat washed over his face—the slightly bitter Darjeeling tea notes of the body wash, a hint of bergamot top notes from the hotel’s top-tier conditioner, and the warm, rich scent that belonged exclusively to Arthur Kirkland’s skin, amplified by the high-temperature steam.
Arthur stood behind the door, loosely draped in a pure white hotel bathrobe. Because the sash was tied with such half-hearted effort, the collar gaped generously, revealing pale, straight collarbones and a tiny dermal piercing nested there, catching the dim light of the hallway sconces. His sandy-blonde hair was still half-wet, a few stubborn strands dripping water, clinging tamely behind his ears and at his temples. The flush from the hot shower spread from his cheeks down to his neck. Stripped of his usual punk-rock spikes, he appeared relaxed, languid, and fragrant—looking exactly like a pet cat that had just stretched by the fireplace and was now arrogantly surveying its territory.
And the expression on this cat right now was one of undisguised schadenfreude. Arthur leaned against the doorframe, one hand resting casually on the handle. His beautiful emerald eyes were brimming with the reflection of Alfred’s disheveled state. His gaze traveled leisurely from the tips of the American's slightly reddened ears down to a face that screamed "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," and the smirk on Arthur’s lips grew wider and wider.
Arthur opened his mouth, his lips forming the starting shape of a word—most likely a perfectly calibrated, scathing insult.
But that insult never got the chance to turn into soundwaves. Alfred stepped right over the threshold, his right arm rudely bypassing Arthur's hand on the doorknob to cup the back of the Brit's head. Calloused fingers dug deep into the damp, soft blond hair, pressing roughly and eagerly into the sensitive spots behind his ears. Simultaneously, his left hand scooped up that supple waist wrapped in the bathrobe, violently yanking the man away from the doorframe and flush against himself.
His lips crashed onto Arthur’s, applying gentle pressure as his warm breath fanned across Arthur's cheek. For the first few seconds, the kiss was more akin to an act of clinging out of a desperate need for psychological comfort. Arthur was kissed so hard he tilted backward, his spine nearly hitting the other side of the doorframe. He let out a brief, nasal hum, then released the doorknob, resting his hand on Alfred's shoulder.
The door swung shut behind them, assisted by a kick from Alfred's foot, closing with a definitive thud. The only light left in the room was the bedside lamp dimmed to its lowest setting. The amber, suggestive glow painted every silhouette in a honey-colored blur.
"Mnn... chu... oh... God... Arthur..."
"...Nn... hmnn..."
Alfred kissed Arthur deeply while guiding him backward into the depths of the room. Because all his brain capacity and sensory systems had been fully delegated to their connected lips, the American's footwork was entirely chaotic. Arthur, forced to walk backward, stumbled even more; the loose hem of the bathrobe tangled between their calves, nearly tripping him multiple times. Fortunately, Alfred’s iron grip was locked around his waist, pinning Arthur's center of gravity firmly against his own scalding body.
Amidst their clumsy progression, the kiss rapidly deteriorated into something deeper. Alfred's slick tongue parted Arthur's lower lip, driving straight into the hot, wet cavern of his mouth, immediately brushing against the metal tongue stud hidden at the tip. The cold hardness of the metal intertwining with the softness of the flesh made Alfred let out a heavy, muffled sigh against their locked lips. Like an addict, he viciously sucked and rolled the tiny metal bead.
The backs of Arthur’s knees finally hit the soft edge of the mattress. Yielding to the momentum, Alfred pushed him down. As they collapsed onto the massive bed together, Arthur’s bathrobe fell open at the waist, exposing a stretch of pale lower abdomen and a sapphire navel piercing that caught the lamp's light, looking like a tiny blue star embedded in the flat expanse of skin.
Alfred sank his elbows into the soft mattress, caging Arthur beneath him as he ducked his head to continue kissing him. It was slower this time. His lips trailed from the corner of Arthur's mouth to his jawline, from the jawline down to the side of his neck, lingering for a second at the upper edge of his studded choker, before returning to his lips.
When the oxygen-depriving, drawn-out kiss finally came to an end, Alfred practically collapsed, shedding all his strength. He buried his burning cheek deep into the crook of Arthur’s neck—which still smelled of body wash—and let out a profoundly genuine, miserable wail. "Oh my sweet God... Arthur, I have suffered irreversible psychological trauma. I feel like there are certain images that simply shouldn't exist in any human hippocampus. This is not the survival experience natural selection prepared us for."
Arthur lay sunk into the soft bedding, his hair scattered messily across the pristine, high-thread-count pillowcase. He tried his absolute hardest to piece together a look of elder-statesman sympathy on his face, but really, he couldn't help it—he couldn't suppress the gloating smirk on his lips. His beautiful green eyes sparkled, brimming with overflowing amusement. He raised a hand and patted the back of Alfred’s head, currently buried in his shoulder, like one would soothe a large dog. His long fingers wove gently through the honey-colored locks.
"Hmph. Serves you right for loving that master key so much. One thousand four hundred rooms in this building, and you just have to wander around swiping a card that opens every single door. What, do you think you’re patrolling your territory?"
"That card was designed for management convenience!" Alfred pulled his face out of Arthur’s neck to protest loudly, sounding incredibly wronged. His azure eyes were pooled with puppy-dog grievance and lingering horror. "Who could have predicted that when I used it to find my boyfriend, I would encounter this—this biological terrorism—"
Halfway through his complaint, another frame of the unbearable memory seemed to flash in his mind. The American groaned and violently buried his face back into the comforting embrace of Darjeeling tea. He tightened his arms, locking the silently laughing Brit beneath him seamlessly against his chest.
"I don't even know how I'm going to face Matthew after this," Alfred continued airing his grievances. "The moment I think of him, my brain automatically loads that image. His expression. His voice. His waist—no, no, no, I refuse to think about it anymore."
Arthur finally broke down and laughed out loud. "Heh... hahaha... All right, all right, you will be fine, okay? Do you remember that time on the yacht?"
Alfred lifted his head from Arthur's neck, his expression twisting in a very subtle, complicated way.
"That time, he retreated before the door was even fully open," Arthur continued, gesturing with one hand to illustrate the narrow width of a door crack. "He didn't see more than you’d find in a porn site pop-up ad. And has the dynamic between the three of us changed at all since then? We still have dinner together, we still play cards. He still makes you that coffee with five sugar cubes, clearly trying to murder you via hyperglycemia—"
"It’s not the same!!!" Alfred blurted out. "That time, he just pushed the door and saw a silhouette before slamming it shut. This time, I was standing in the middle of the room for at least five seconds, processing a full-blown cinematic composition! There was visuals, there was audio, there was… there was motion! You know!"
"What’s the difference?" Arthur said calmly. "My ass was being filled by your cock back then, too, and I was wearing a pair of goddamn bunny ears."
Alfred opened his mouth to retort, but found that on a purely logical level, Arthur had described an undeniable objective fact.
His argument crashed and burned before it could even take flight.
"Uh, I don't know, but it’s just… the vibe is different. It makes me feel uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable. A kind of discomfort I’ve never experienced before!"
He suddenly bolted upright, his blue eyes startlingly bright in the dim light. He grabbed Arthur’s arms, staring at him with an expression of intense, desperate gravity.
"Arthur, if you knock me unconscious right now, is there a chance I’ll get amnesia?"
"You’re far too thick-skinned for me to manage that," Arthur rejected the proposal without even blinking. He reached up and slapped Alfred’s biceps lightly. "Honestly, punching you is exhausting. The last time we sparred in the training room, my wrist ached for three days."
"God!" Alfred let go of his arms and flopped onto his back, his long legs dangling off the edge of the bed. He covered his face with both hands, beginning his grand indictment of cosmic injustice. "I really want to delete this memory! I’d trade three months of my Coke quota for the superpower of selective amnesia! Why would Matthew sleep with a stranger?! Who even was that guy?! I can’t even remember his face!"
"I don't know which part you’re obsessing over." Arthur said, rolling onto his side. He propped his upper body up with one elbow, watching Alfred wail like a stranded whale. His bathrobe slipped further down his shoulder, exposing the sharp line of his collarbone and those dermal piercings that caught the faint light. "Is it the fact that your brother is having sex that’s unacceptable? Or that you don't recognize his partner? Or that you barged into someone else's room? Because from where I’m standing, the only thing you should be agonizing over is the last one."
"Don't tell me you wouldn't feel awkward seeing your brother getting down with someone?" Alfred peeked at him through the cracks of his fingers. "Like, if you saw Scott—"
"Ugh!" Arthur’s reaction was visceral. His face contorted in 0.2 seconds into the expression of someone who had just bitten into a lemon seed. "Gross! Stop! Don't make me face that! That image is in my head now, are you happy, you absolute menace?!"
"Now you understand my pain!"
"I understand your pain, but that doesn't make it rational!" Arthur shivered, violently exorcising the uninvited mental image from his brain. "That’s his private business! Who he sleeps with has nothing to do with me! And nothing to do with you! Consenting adults, for God’s sake!"
"I’m just… I find the phenomenon strange," Alfred said, removing his hands from his face and crossing them over his chest. He stared at the unlit chandelier on the ceiling. "I can’t believe even Matthew would just have a casual hookup. I thought with his personality, he wouldn't want to expose himself like that. I thought he’d be more… I don't know, cautious?"
"I thought 'dating culture' was your thing over here," Arthur replied lazily, propping his head on his hand. "Please, Alf. People have needs. It’s normal. Did you think the entire world requires a three-month background check and a psychological evaluation before getting into bed?"
"I don't know?" Alfred said, his gaze shifting from the ceiling to Arthur. His blue eyes were filled with a confusion so clear it bordered on naive. "I just find it hard to understand. Because I only want to fuck you. I have no feelings for anyone else—never have. So it’s hard for me to empathize with the mindset of sleeping with someone who isn't... that special."
Arthur stared at him. His lips parted slightly then closed again. His expression went from being stunned into silence, to searching for something scathing to hide behind, to giving up on the facade entirely as the corners of his mouth twitched upward uncontrollably. A slow gradient of heat, moving from pale pink to rose red, began to burn at the tips of his ears. He looked away toward the cold cup of Darjeeling on the nightstand, his Adam's apple bobbing in his pale throat.
"Er, you’ve… left me at a bit of a loss for words," he stammered. "Thank you for your loyalty? My puppy."
"You’re welcome!" Alfred grinned.
Arthur rolled his eyes, but a moment later, his expression shifted. The flush of romance was tucked away, replaced by a sharp, calculating look. "Hey... Alf." This smile usually meant that Arthur Kirkland’s brain had just completed a deduction Alfred was not going to like.
"Have you considered that the reason you were so triggered by this..." He began to trace an aimless circle on Alfred’s chest with his index finger. The sleeve of his bathrobe slid down to his mid-forearm, revealing pale, bony fingers and a faint tracing of blue veins. "...is because seeing Matthew being taken like that made you subconsciously associate it with yourself?"
Alfred’s expression froze. He was experiencing a system-level information processing overload. His blue eyes locked onto Arthur’s face; his pupils neither dilated nor constricted, and his lips remained slightly parted. He was in a state of high-fidelity standby, like a supercomputer that had frozen its front-end interface to run a massive data analysis in the background.
Arthur savored this rare sight for a second before pressing on.
"Considering you two share the same face," his finger moved from Alfred’s chest to his jawline, hooking his chin gently. "The same bone structure. The same proportions of the eyes and brow. When you saw him pinned to that bed, did your brain automatically perform a face-swap? Did it project your own face onto his? The discomfort you felt—the weirdness you can’t quite name—isn't actually embarrassment. It’s that you hate seeing a vulnerable version of yourself. You can’t stand seeing someone who shares your exact genetic code making those sounds and wearing that expression under someone else. Because it’s the equivalent of seeing yourself… completely opened up."
Arthur cupped Alfred’s face, his thumb and index finger playfully tugging at his reddening earlobe.
"Am I right?"
The silence lasted for about four seconds.
"I don't know??" Alfred rebooted from his standby state, his brow furrowing and then smoothing out as his lips quirked several times. "But I just... hearing Matthew make those kinds of... sounds."
He paused, as if even recounting it caused a subtle ripple of unease.
"Those sounds, and his expression. It was so..."
"Pleasurable?" Arthur filled in the word for him, his smile now completely undisguised. In the dim light, his green eyes looked like two polished opals, light dancing across their surface.
Alfred didn't deny it; he simply remained silent.
Arthur chuckled, leaning in until the tip of his nose almost brushed Alfred’s cheekbone.
"Did it make you curious?" he whispered, his breath fanning over Alfred’s lips. "Curious about what it feels like to be the one on the bottom? To be filled, to be opened up? To experience the kind of ecstasy that makes you lose control over your voice and your face?"
His index finger slid from Alfred’s earlobe down to his chin, finally resting on his Adam’s apple, giving it a ghost-light press.
"You know, if you want it... I’m willing to cooperate."
"Ha-ha," Alfred let out a laugh—one that was a fraction too bright, designed to shut down a topic he had no intention of exploring further. He reached out and caught the finger Arthur had pressed against his throat, enveloping it in his broad, warm palm. "No."
Alfred drew Arthur’s fingers toward his mouth, pressing his lips against the fingertips. He extended his tongue to lick the thin layer of callus on the pads, then trailed kisses down the curve of the fingers to the inner wrist. The skin there was so thin that the network of faint blue veins was visible beneath. He grazed the skin with his teeth, feeling the pulse beneath his lips beginning to quicken.
He released Arthur’s wrist and moved to untie the bathrobe. The white cotton sash was only tied in a loose knot; with a single tug of his thumb and forefinger, it fell away. The robe slipped from Arthur’s body like a flower losing the support of its petals—first the shoulders, then the upper arms, then the elbows. The fabric retreated along the curves of his body, exposing more and more of the landscape Alfred never grew tired of.
Arthur’s skin, fresh from the hot shower, still held a faint trace of dampness, appearing as a shade somewhere between ivory and pale pink under the warm lamp. The metal bead of the collarbone piercing reflected a tiny spark of light off the thin film of moisture, looking as if someone had dipped a needle in starlight and touched it to his chest.
Alfred pulled the robe completely out from under Arthur and tossed it to the floor. His hands covered Arthur’s sides, palms tracing the curve of the ribs as he pushed upward. He felt the skin, softened by the hot water, yield slightly under his palms before springing back. He buried his head against Arthur, inhaling deeply. "Oh my God, you smell so good. I fucking love this."
"Have you ever considered that you’re actually a dog—ungh!" Arthur’s snark broke the moment Alfred’s lips made contact with his left nipple. The rest of the sentence was swallowed by an uncontrollable nasal hum.
The heat of Alfred’s tongue flattening against the skin made Arthur’s abdomen tighten instantly. Then, the tip of the tongue began to trace circles around the areola, slow and patient. Only when the tiny nub had stood fully erect under the stimulation of heat and saliva did Alfred close his lips over it, taking it into his mouth to suck gently, flicking the sensitive tip with his tongue.
Arthur’s fingers tangled into Alfred's hair, his nails lightly scraping the scalp. Alfred could feel the chest beneath his lips rising and falling faster now. He gave the reddened nipple a sharp, tiny nip with his teeth, forcing a breathy "ah" from Arthur’s throat—more air than sound. Then he moved to the right one, taking it in the same way, while his left thumb remained behind to knead the wet, ravished peak. The dual stimulation caused Arthur’s hips to twist slightly against the mattress.
Alfred’s right hand slid down Arthur’s midline. As his fingertips passed the sapphire navel piercing, he intentionally pressed a circle around it. The base of the piercing was embedded in the skin, making the surrounding tissue more sensitive than anywhere else. Arthur’s stomach recoiled at the pressure, a muffled groan escaping his nose. Alfred’s hand continued downward, moving past the lean lines of muscle to cup Arthur’s semi-erect length.
In its partially aroused state, Arthur’s cock was long and elegant, a pale pink with the glans mostly exposed. Alfred’s palm closed around it—the weight was hot and heavy. He pressed his thumb against the prominent vein on the side of the shaft, pushing upward once, letting the foreskin glide back and forth over the head.
"Mnn—" Arthur’s thigh muscles tensed for a moment, his hips hitching upward. The organ in Alfred’s hand swelled a fraction more.
Alfred maintained the rhythmic stroking, his thumb applying intentional pressure as it passed over the frenulum. It throbbed beneath his fingers as pre-come slowly seeped from the meatus, wetting the web of his hand. He used his thumb to smear the fluid over the glans, rubbing in circles. The friction became slick and visceral. Arthur’s breathing took on a sharp, rhythmic edge; when Alfred’s thumb grazed the urethral opening, Arthur could only gasp, trying to exhale the moan he was desperately suppressing.
Alfred let go of his length, his fingers—slick with a cocktail of pre-come and saliva—probing further down. He bypassed the taut skin of the perineum and touched the entrance of the hilled opening. Having been carefully prepared, the soft tissue was elastic and yielding. Alfred’s middle finger pressed against the folds of the entrance and slid inside with almost no resistance. The sphincter muscle gave a sluggish, warm contraction, welcoming the intrusion. The internal temperature was far higher than outside; the walls were wet and velvety, still slick with remnants of lubricant.
Evidently, Arthur had prepared himself. Before Alfred had even arrived, he had already opened himself up on this bed.
Alfred’s middle finger curved inside, easily joined by his index finger. The two fingers were swallowed together by the hot, pulsing walls. Arthur’s thighs trembled slightly against Alfred’s arms, his lips clamped over his lower lip as he let out a muffled "nn."
Alfred pushed his fingers in to the second knuckle and hooked them, his pads searching for the spot he knew by heart. His index and middle fingers alternated pressure against the soft internal tissue. With every press, he felt Arthur’s walls contract in response. And then, he found it.
The moment his fingers pressed against that slight, firm protrusion, Arthur’s hips bolted upward. A moan he had no hope of suppressing burst through his teeth.
"Ah—!"
Alfred gave him no room to breathe. His two fingers remained fixed in that scorching position, beginning a rhythmic upward grind. His pads crushed precisely against the center of Arthur’s prostate, lingering for a half-second at the peak with an added, heavy knead before drawing back.
"Nngh, ah—ah—fuck, fuck—" Arthur’s hips bucked uncontrollably, the muscles at the tops of his thighs trembling. He was fully erect now, his length twitching against his lower abdomen, the glans swollen into a deep, bruised pink. Pre-come leaked steadily from the slit at the tip, a single transparent thread trailing down to the skin near his navel. With every thrust of Alfred’s fingers, his entrance clenched, sucking the intruders deeper.
He could feel Arthur’s internal walls spasming around his fingers like a second heartbeat. Every time he ground over that spot, the tract secreted more warm fluid, spilling out over his knuckles and leaving a messy, slick trail between Arthur’s seat and the sheets.
"Ha... ah, nnh—don't just... don't just use your fingers—" Arthur’s moans were shattered into jagged pieces, his lower lip bitten into a deep crimson welt. He reached out to shove Alfred’s shoulder, then voluntarily spread his legs wider, knees hooked and pulling outward to expose the entrance—now slightly swollen and flushed from the fingering, a glistening, wanton mess. "Hurry up... get inside."
Alfred withdrew his fingers, drawing out a small gush of warm fluid and a tiny whimper from Arthur’s hole. He glanced down at his hand; two fingers were soaked from base to tip, shimmering with a lewd sheen under the lamp. He wiped the excess onto the inside of Arthur’s thigh, leaving a wet, bright streak on the pale skin, before straightening up to strip. His suit jacket had been discarded long ago; now he flicked open the vest buttons and tossed it aside, pulling his white shirt over his head before he’d even finished unbuttoning it. He revealed a honey-toned, solid torso—broad pectorals, sharply defined abdominals, and a V-line that carved deep into his hips. When he unbuckled his belt and lowered his fly, his length sprang free from the constraint of his underwear, fully engorged. Arthur’s eyes followed it instinctively.
"Mnnn... Alfred... oh, God..."
That thing. Arthur had seen it countless times, but his reflex was still to curse internally: This is ridiculous. Its dimensions lived up to the label of "American Standard." Thick veins snaked across the shaft, the color transitioning from a honeyed tan at the base to a congested deep red at the glans. But the most striking feature was the eight titanium alloy beads—two rows of four, staggered under the skin on both sides of the shaft. They created rounded mounds on the surface, making it look less like flesh and more like a bio-mechanical weapon, a piece of hardware designed for a specific kind of devastation.
"Can't wait?"
Alfred gripped himself, stroking from base to tip to confirm the hardness. He smeared a thumbful of pre-come over the glans as makeshift lubricant, the beads rolling slightly under the skin as his palm slid over them. Then, he pressed down.
As his body covered Arthur’s, he boxed the older man into the shadows. He braced one hand beside Arthur’s head, using the other to guide himself against the entrance. The tip of the glans forced its way between the sphincter muscles softened by his fingers. Upon contact with the heat and hardness, the opening gave a reflexive squeeze before being pried apart.
"I really do prefer making you wear an expression that's been completely demolished by pleasure," Alfred whispered into Arthur’s ear, his tone so tender it was a jarring mismatch for what he was doing. Then he thrust his hips, slowly, inch by inch, driving himself home.
"Ah... mngh...!"
Arthur felt every millimeter of the entry. First, the crown of the glans forced the tightest ring of the entrance open and slid through. Then came the shaft, so thick it made his breath hitch. His tract was stretched and widened inch by inch, the internal walls clinging tightly to the shape of the intruder. And then came the beads. As the titanium spheres ground past the edge of the sphincter, a bolt of electricity shot up Arthur’s entire spine. The hard metal rolling under the thin, soft mucosal tissue crushed against his equally soft internal walls. With every bead that passed, his tract spasmed and clenched in a violent squeeze, only to be forcibly pried open again. The second, the third, the fourth.
"Ahhh—nn-ugh—!" Arthur threw his head back, legs hooking around Alfred’s waist, heels digging into the small of his back. His fingers clawed into Alfred’s shoulder blades. The moment he fully swallowed the length, his body arched into a bow, every muscle from his shoulders to his toes vibrating.
Alfred paused for a few seconds to let him adjust, feeling Arthur’s tract—hot as a fevered mouth—wrapping around his entire length, the fine internal folds spasming against the contour of every single bead. Then, he began to move. He withdrew until only the glans remained hooked at the entrance, then slammed back in. Every full stroke forced those eight beads to roll across Arthur’s walls in sequence—four on the way in, four on the way out—like a series of precision gears grinding over the softest human tissue.
"You can spend the rest of your life being pinned down and fucked by me," Alfred rumbled, freeing one hand to find Arthur’s chest. His thumb and forefinger accurately pinched the left nipple, already swollen and congested from the sucking, and gave it a half-turn twist. "Kitten."
"Nnh, ahhh—yes, yes, yes—!" Arthur’s moans were completely out of control, shattered into wordless fragments. His rear emitted a wet, squelching sound; every time the thrust hit the bottom, fluid was squeezed out, trailing down his seat and onto the sheets. "Alf... fuck me... ahh... harder—!"
"Glad you like it, hm?" Alfred gave the nipple another twist, his hips accelerating. Every lunge ended with his pelvic bone slamming into Arthur’s seat with a solid slap. Arthur’s body slid several centimeters back and forth across the sheets with the force of the impact. His own length was trapped between their bellies, being rubbed raw; every time the glans brushed against the ridges of Alfred’s abs, his hips would hitch upward instinctively, nailing himself deeper onto that pearled cock.
Alfred leaned down to kiss him, lips locking, his tongue finding the metal stud to suck on it. Arthur’s moans were mostly muffled by the kiss, reduced to stifled hums from his nose, while their lower halves continued to collide violently.
It was at that moment that Alfred’s phone rang.
On the nightstand, the first four bars of a jingoistic US National Anthem remix blared out, sounding jarring and absurdly loud in a room filled with gasps, wet sounds, and the rhythmic slapping of skin on skin.
"……?"
Alfred’s movements faltered. His brow furrowed. His first instinct was to ignore it; his lips were still pressed against the corner of Arthur’s mouth, his pace only slowing by a fraction of a beat. But after six seconds, the ringing stopped—only to immediately start again. The same anthem remix, the same caller, persistent as a death-knell that wouldn't stop until it was answered.
"Mnn... ah... your taste in ringtones is appalling..."
"Honey, it’s only bad right now. My taste is usually fantastic."
Alfred pushed himself up slightly. He kept one hand braced against Arthur’s hip, remaining buried inside him without pulling out or stopping entirely. With his other hand, he reached out to the nightstand and snatched the phone. The screen glowed blindingly bright in the dim room.
The caller ID displayed the name "Mattie" next to a maple leaf emoji.
His hip movement faltered for about half a second, his length still buried to the hilt inside Arthur. His blue eyes locked onto the name on the screen, his face flickering through a state of total system conflict—as if his brain were trying to run "fucking Arthur" and "dealing with Matthew" as two mutually exclusive programs, and both were triggering critical errors.
"What the hell?"
"Ah-ah~"
Alfred reached out to swipe the call away, but Arthur was faster. His thumb danced across the screen to accept the call and hit speakerphone, hoisting the phone into the space between Alfred’s ear and his own mouth. His green eyes shimmered with a purity of malice that was, in itself, exquisite.
"Alfred!" Matthew’s voice exploded from the speaker. "You better give me an explanation, because thanks to you, the date I’ve been meticulously cultivating for two weeks just ran off after you kicked the door in! You ruined everything!"
"Uh, uh," Alfred sounded like a server undergoing a forced reboot, trying to execute a voice command before the OS had finished loading. His hips maintained an unconscious, slow grinding motion between Arthur’s legs—he’d learned from experience that stopping completely would make Arthur’s tract spasm uncomfortably due to the sudden rhythm break. "Dude, it’s just a misunderstanding, really. I didn't mean to, I thought the room was—"
"Right, yes, mnn," Arthur spoke up from beneath him, his voice impossibly languid despite being impaled. He sounded as if he weren't currently pinned to a pearled cock, but rather holding a teacup at an afternoon tea party. "Alfred is just a bloody idiot who can't distinguish a B from a D, mnn-ah... it’s nothing, really—ah!"
The final note was torn from him because Alfred, hearing him speak, had instinctively slammed deeper. As the beads ground over his prostate, Arthur’s hips bucked, and he nearly dropped the phone.
Silence hung on the other end of the line for a heartbeat.
"What?" Matthew’s voice suddenly dropped in volume, shifting from rage to the confusion of someone desperately trying to piece together a reality he didn't want to see. "Are you two in bed?"
"No—" "Yes."
Alfred and Arthur spoke in the exact same second, two diametrically opposed answers overlapping through the speaker. Alfred turned to glare at Arthur, who offered a wink so hypocritically innocent it could win an Oscar.
"Fine, yes," Alfred resignedly squeezed the correction through his teeth, his ears burning hot. "But that doesn't change the fact that I’m trying to apologize, I really—"
Arthur laughed, tightening his legs around Alfred’s waist. He pressed his heels down while intentionally clenching his internal walls. The sphincter gripped the base of Alfred’s cock like a feverish hand, squeezing upward. Every single bead was snagged by the internal flesh, and as the walls writhed, they forced the metal spheres to rotate minutely beneath the skin.
"Nn!—" Alfred had to admit, the sensation was so intense he saw stars. His consciousness briefly took flight.
There was another silence on the line, lasting perhaps two seconds. In that interval, the speaker faithfully transmitted the ambient noise of the room to Matthew: Alfred’s involuntary groan, Arthur’s soft, mocking laugh, and the rhythmic, frantic friction of skin against skin.
"I’ll talk to you later." Matthew said, sounding so utterly defeated—and so deeply tempted to strangle his own twin brother.
The line went dead.
Arthur tossed the phone onto the pillow. His shoulders were shaking so violently with suppressed laughter that his entire stomach and the tract gripping Alfred began to spasm in sync, his body shivering beneath Alfred like a reed in a storm.
Alfred, finally regaining his senses, looked down at the wicked cat beneath him who was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. The lamplight fell on Arthur’s face, flushed with a chaotic blend of laughter and lust, on his disheveled blonde hair, trembling lashes, and lips he couldn't seem to keep still. He looked as happy as a child who had just pulled off the perfect prank.
"You slut, you couldn't even wait thirty seconds!" Alfred roared, furious, grabbing Arthur’s trembling hips and flipping him over.
Arthur’s laughter turned into a sharp, surprised gasp—"Ah!"—as he was turned. His face slammed into the pillow; before his knees could find purchase, Alfred grabbed his pelvis and hoisted his hips high, forcing his waist to collapse into an agonizingly deep curve. The posture reminded him of the scene in D1923 about thirty minutes ago—Matthew’s waist had been arched exactly like this. But right now, he was using a speed bordering on violence to excise that association from his brain, replacing it with this entirely different, uniquely his reality.
"Alright! I’ll satisfy you now!"
He realigned himself with the slick, gaping entrance and drove in to the hilt. He didn't use the slow, restrained pace of before; the direct, brutal impalement made Arthur’s knees slide forward several inches across the mattress.
"Ahhh—fuck—" Arthur’s hands clawed into the edges of the pillow. His shoulder blades protruded like unfeathered wings beneath his pale skin; the line of his spine extended from the nape of his neck to his coccyx, dipping into two shallow dimples at his waist. In this position—fully opened from behind—his back presented a beauty so lewd it was almost artistic.
Alfred grabbed his right hip with one hand and pressed against his lower back with the other, beginning to fuck him. The angle of rear entry made the thrusts deeper than face-to-face; the beads ground against his prostate with a vicious, precise geometry. Each time he drove in, Arthur’s walls clamped down in a vice-grip, and as he withdrew, they clung with a desperate, lingering suction, creating wet, squelching noises. Fluid whipped into white froth at the entrance during the frantic in-and-out.
"Ah, ahhh, mnnn—there—right there, don't stop—give me more—ah! Ahhh!" Arthur turned his face from the pillow to gasp, his profile smeared with sweat and heat. The silver ball of his lip ring shivered with his jagged breaths. He began to thrust back, his hips meeting the rhythm of Alfred’s drives. Each impact made the sound of flesh colliding louder and denser, mixed with the wet slapping and their tangled, chaotic breaths.
"I’ll give it to you—mmph—clamping down on me like that, twisting your waist like a whore, nngh! Oh! God! Artie—"
Alfred leaned down, pressing his chest against Arthur’s back. One hand snaked from his hip to the front, seizing Arthur’s cock—which was dangling, deprived of friction by the position. He stroked him in sync with his own thrusts. His other hand seized Arthur’s chin, wrenching his head around to kiss him. Their lips met at an awkward angle, barely aligning; when his tongue snaked in, it brushed against the cold metal bead of Arthur’s tongue stud. Arthur’s tongue met his, wrapping around it, and their moans and gasps were swallowed into a sodden, desperate kiss. Saliva overflowed from the corners of their mouths, dripping down Arthur’s chin and onto the pillowcase.
"Ahhh! I-I’m about to! Ah!! Alf—" Just as Arthur began to vibrate at a high frequency, signaling the onset of his climax, and the internal muscle began to twist into an uncontrollable, frantic coil, a sound came from the door.
Beep.
It was the electronic chirp of the key card reader.
Followed by the slight click of a green light flashing.
Followed by the mechanical sound of the doorknob turning.
Alfred’s lips were still pressed to Arthur’s; his hips were still locked in that final, deepest thrust, buried to the hilt; his hand was still wrapped around Arthur’s cock. His eyes shifted—the only part of his body capable of rapid reaction—his blue gaze tracking over Arthur’s sweat-slicked shoulder toward the door that was currently being pushed open from the outside.