Work Text:
It started as a mistake. That’s all Illuga will ever recognize it as, even if this singular mistake has somehow become such a pivotal part of his life.
One night, instead of being in bed, he was at the Flagship. He didn’t drink nearly as much as his comrades, but they assured him a night of drinking was a good way to chase away his worries. If getting a full night's sleep every day wasn’t working, then it was at least worth a shot, he had reasoned.
And then, he was there.
In the shadows, a dark corner next to the jukebox, materialized from nothing as he stepped into a light too warm and golden for his icy demeanor.
Vice Captain of the Knight’s 5th Company, Lohen.
The face was familiar, the name slightly less so. Illuga had seen the man before– Sparingly. He was a face across the table at meetings, and occasionally, an excuse for a lightkeeper to skip their patrols, because ‘A knight with mint hair cleared the route already!’
He never paid the man much attention, but at every meeting, he couldn’t help but stare into those eerily frozen blood drops people call eyes at least once.
Those same eyes had looked at him that night like he’d been waiting for it, noticed the immediate stance change the knight had, from casual to hunting, when he set eyes on the ratnik.
That night, Illuga learned the man was a sweet talker. His voice had a saccharine-edge to it that didn’t exist in professional meetings. It was dizzying– One moment he’d been discussing diplomacy with the knight, the next his hand was on Illuga’s leg, leaning closer than he’d remembered.
He still remembers exactly what that knight had said to him that night, and half-wishes he’d done something different, half-knowing if he were in that situation again, his response would remain the same.
“You seem awfully pent up tonight, Squad Leader.”
The faint purr in Lohen’s voice shook something deep in Illuga– it rattled his bones uncomfortably, yet those same feelings demanded he lean in. So he did.
“Well… yes. I’ve been told alcohol is a good fix for that.”
He gestured vaguely to their surroundings, and the glass he was still on.
Lohen tilted his head at him, blinking sweetly as he did so. “Doesn’t seem to be working for you, does it? Three glasses down and you still want to talk politics with me.”
Illuga chuckled in embarrassment, feeling flustered, unsure whether that was because of getting called out, the alcohol in his system, or Lohen’s proximity.
“I suppose not. Guess I’ll have to try something else.”
The other man had suddenly leaned back, crossing his legs with keen interest in him. From where Illuga hunched and Lohen’s extra few inches on him, the knight towered over him. The warm light washed over his face, but it only highlighted where it was dark.
“Say–” He snapped his fingers, voice mellowed and sweet. The sharp smell of alcohol on his lips wafted to Illuga, fruity, sugary, tempting. “I think I’ve got a fix for you, Sir Illuga. Come to my room, won’t you?” His eyes were narrowed and smiled only at the edge, lips twisted into something resembling a friendly grin. But his teeth were bared.
“I wouldn’t want to intrude–”
“Nonsense!” Lohen grabbed his thigh harder, which Illuga only then remembered the hand was still on him. It tingled weirdly where he held it.
“Come with me,” he urged between his teeth. “I’ll fix everything for you. What’s one night of experimenting, Captain?”
“Well…” He paused to think about it, but Lohen’s logic was sound. It was the same logic that got him to this tavern, anyways– All things are worth trying at least once. Whatever the knight’s Vice Captain had planned, maybe it’d help.
He’ll keep repeating it, the first night was a mistake. They were both drunk, and Illuga was desperate. Lohen took his clothes off, and Illuga didn’t stand a chance trying to resist what he desperately wanted at that moment. Especially not when Lohen was right– It did make everything go away. But only for that night.
Illuga can forgive himself for that first time.
Everything after?
Guilty.
-
“Leaving so soon?”
Lohen stared up at him from where he laid in Illuga’s bed, a messy pile of limbs, blankets, and tangled torn-up hair. His voice was something subtle, yet held obvious disdain for the situation at hand.
“I’m busy today,” he mumbled offhandedly while pulling on his pants.
Lohen scoffed, offended. “Fucked me dry, and you’re still thinking about work?”
He paused where he was buckling his belt, very slowly turning his head to the bed-laid knight in controlled annoyance.
“I do my work,” he snipped with a pointed edge.
Lohen rolled his eyes, stretching in such a feline way that Illuga couldn’t help but eye the way his back arched so perfectly, just as he did earlier. “So do I. I just also do things besides work.”
“Like getting yourself in trouble and danger?”
“No, having my time wasted by a lightkeeper who can’t even last 5 minutes.”
Illuga’s eye twitched.
“Can’t make me scream his name, can’t make me come untouched, can’t make m–”
The ratnik was back atop him in an instant. Lohen smirked like he was exactly where he wanted to be.
“Why are you like this?!” Illuga hissed, half dressed and pants slipping with an unbuckled belt. “Are you such a brat on purpose?!”
“My purpose is to get the results I want,” Lohen sneered with obvious defiance.
Illuga prided himself on being reasonable and levelheaded. He’s survived the worst life can throw at him– His fellow lightkeepers love and believe in him. He is regarded across all friendly Nod Krai as a trustworthy figure, a light-bringing guide amidst eternal darkness.
Something about being around Lohen stripped all of that away. Whatever he was, under everything he’s spent his entire life building– That’s the kind of unwelcome fire Lohen ignites in him.
“What we want doesn’t align,” he responds coldly.
“Could be if you weren’t a coward,” Lohen retorts without hesitation.
His heart tightened with cruelty. Memories of running across a field laden with the dead bodies of his former squadron, finding that his attempt to get backup was nothing more than a ruse to keep himself, and himself alone alive.
“I’m. Not. A. Coward.”
The guard in Lohen’s eyes dropped. He’d noticed that the knight seems to do that whenever his voice drops low enough. Behind the mask, was pure, unfiltered insanity– The kind that’d drive you insane too, if you looked too long. It didn’t even look like desire. Illuga didn’t feel wanted. He felt needed. Which, somehow… was better.
The distinction doesn’t feel obvious at first. But while the people of Nod Krai want, Lohen is the only one who needs. Friends and strangers alike shower him in praise, status, gifts, in return for all the good work he does– Lohen takes takes and takes, and what Illuga gets at the end of the day are bites across his body. But the knight doesn’t pretend it’s anything else. His motives aren’t hidden. The exchange doesn’t come with hidden expectations. His ‘rewards’, if something so depraved can even be called as such, are something genuinely tangible, and, as ashamed as Illuga is to say it… useful. Any soothing teas or appreciation gifts haven’t quelled his mind nearly as much as Lohen’s body.
He’s real.
A cold hand reached up to cradle his face, the same hand that inflicts the scars down his back.
“Prove it,” Lohen whispered.
Whatever Lohen was– Illuga fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker.
His lips tasted like blood, and his body felt like a trap. Despite it, Illuga pushed himself into the knight’s body once more and wills himself to forget the screams of the people who depended on him before he fled the scene, only to preserve his own life.
Lohen’s not going anywhere. It’s not the familiar cool steel of his polearm in his tight grip but resistant yet willing flesh, Lohen’s wrists pinned above his head. His dick slips in easier than the first time, already stretched and additionally lubricated with release from round one. The way he whines when Illuga hits that sensitive, weak spot in him– Louder than the voices from that battlefield, louder than his thoughts.
“Ah, Ill–Illuga!” Whatever Lohen has to say, he gets it out between each of Illuga’s forceful movements, which shook both him and the bed. “You can– ngh! D-do better, c-cah– can’t y-you?”
“Shut–” His mind swirled with myriad things he wanted to say. This doesn’t feel right, was his first thought. He always thought, if he ever found time for a partner, he’d treasure them. Treat them like he does the rest of the world– With consideration, kindness, and as something to protect. He doesn’t necessarily object to the idea of being exactly that to Lohen, either. It’s more like Lohen himself rejects it. In fact, the knight is far from needing his protection.
Lohen is the only one who craves destruction from him.
“Shut up!” He finishes.
Illuga leaned down and clamped Lohen’s lips between his teeth, piercing where skin was already broken. The sharp metallic taste of blood soon flooded his mouth, refreshing the taste that already clung to Lohen’s lips. Illuga hated the smell of blood. He hated being the cause of Lohen's pain– But the moan the knight had let out in response suggested anything but pain, he’d nearly kicked Illuga square in the face as he writhed in pleasure.
The man only subdued if Illuga got forceful. He whined as the ratnik pressed him forward, hefting his legs to bend him in a perfect V, accessing him just that much deeper, plunging his cock right in.
“Mmmfh–”
Lohen tried to mumble something with Illuga at his lips, which he regretfully let go only with one more swipe at the tender chaffed flesh, gagging at remnant saliva-mixed blood.
He’d gasped the moment Illuga let go, arching his back and nearly causing the ratnik to fall when he tried to jolt his arms, somehow forgetting how tight a grip was on them.
Lohen coughed before he spoke, drawing up a splatter of pinkish saliva. “More,” he demanded immediately. “Illuga, more.”
He didn’t have more to give. He didn’t know what Lohen wanted. But he was close– and so was Lohen, by the look of things. For all the taunting he was doing, Lohen was a mess. Sweat slicked him all over, tainted in glorious red flush from face to cock, it looked like his whole body had been weeping. He didn’t move with him properly, already too tired from their first round, but he had his tongue and his audacity, and that’s all he needed to get exactly what he wanted from the ratnik.
Illuga finished first– Lohen cried so sweetly for someone so deadly and it seeped deep into his head, down to his dick, inside the man’s body. He shuddered through the release, not caring if it got messy or spilled a little as he fucked through it. Lohen’s eyes went wide and he begged with that same quiet insanity Illuga had seen earlier, he abruptly pulled out as soon as he was done and choked Lohen down his throat.
The burn was immediate– How the hell Lohen did this to him that night at the bar, he has no idea. Surely the human body wasn’t made to accommodate a full length down its throat– or maybe that’s just Celestia’s way of telling Illuga he wasn’t made for this. Either way, Lohen didn’t care. He came just about the second Illuga swallowed him down, pathetically hacking out all the knight had to offer.
As soon as he was done, Illuga shoved the man off him.
Lohen barely moved, barely even made a noise. He curled up on his side like a wounded animal, inspecting the red marks on his wrists and licking at the irritation. Something muffled and whiny lingered in the air as Lohen winced every time his body moved.
Illuga felt awful about it. What he’d done to another person. At least during sex he could mute those feelings– Confronting it afterwards was much harder.
“Do you need me to, um…” He hesitated, thinking about how ironic the question was– “Stay and… help you?”
Lohen narrowed his eyes at him distrustfully. He laid in Illuga’s bed defiled and worn, but he still felt like something dangerous. Any creature in a weakened state would be. It felt like the exact moment a fragile animal decides you are danger, not salvation. If he had ears perhaps like a rabbit, they would surely be pinned back, fur spiked, dangerously unknown between fight or flight–
“What’s in it for you?” All the syrupy sweetness in his voice evaporated. It soured into something flat and monotone. “You get out all that shit you repress– I get used like I want.”
“It just doesn’t feel right, I did this to you–”
“I asked for it.”
His voice had left no room for argument.
“You can drop that little ‘Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes’ act around me. It’s sickening.”
Illuga didn’t know if his heart had been struck by a poison-tipped arrow, or if Lohen had forcefully ripped it out of his chest and squeezed it dry.
“I don’t want that fake shit,” Lohen continued with a bite in his voice. “You give me what’s real, and I like that. Don’t ruin this, birdie.”
What’s real… isn’t that the same thing that drew him to Lohen in the first place?
With that, Lohen gave him a very obvious look. It told him to scram.
Despite it being his own home, Illuga understood when he was no longer welcome. He quietly slipped on his clothes, and left Lohen to tend to his own wounds. Physical, or metaphorical. If Lohen didn’t ask, then… neither would he.
-
The first time is a mistake. The second is a good time to step back, and realize it’s time to stop. The third time is also a decent time for this. The fourth time… is pushing it.
The fifth time does not hold much chance for recovery, does it?
Because why didn’t he at least consider throwing the letter out when it arrived in his mailbox, a message directly from the Knights of Favonius’s very own Vice Captain Lohen? A message telling Illuga to come visit that same Vice Captain at his own tent?
And why doesn’t he even bother resisting when Lohen pulls him into a chair, then uses his own lap as a seat?
Well, he doesn’t resist because clearly, something here works for the both of them.
Lohen’s fingers wrapped around his collar, hard enough to bruise and make him dizzy– Or maybe that was for other reasons, like one particular knight who smelled of rusted blood and a faraway suggestion of floral.
Illuga had little to do but whine and rut his hips up as best as he could while Lohen rides him like his life depended on it.
A sharp nail pricked at the underside of his chin as his head was forced to tilt up, looking into the dark eyes of the Favonius knight.
“My dear, dear little birdie,” he sang with the sick note of a loon. “Why, whenever I tried to come visit the past few days, I could not find you?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but not before Lohen went down on him once more and he lost focus. “We had a stakeout,” he mumbled. “I’m–I’m sorry Lohen, I’m sorry–”
One of his cold hands traveled up his neck, tingling the scar there, cradling the back of his head. Illuga leaned into it, seeking affection, which he momentarily found. Then Lohen ripped into his hair and pulled down. In an instant he was looking at the ceiling, and Lohen’s forehead pressed against his.
“A week,” Lohen said, dangerously cheerful. His eyes glimmered in a way that most definitely was not peaceful. “I didn’t get this, for a week. Do you know what that does to a man, birdie?”
He ground himself into Illuga’s cock, making everything all fuzzy in his brain as a rush of pleasure clouded his thoughts– Lohen practically jumped him the second he approached the Favonius Keep, dragging him off to his tent. The ferocity of his actions had been unmistakable, and, if Illuga wasn’t reading the deranged man wrong– Desperate.
Illuga couldn’t claim to be much better. An entire week hearing the Wild Hunt whisper in his ear, reminding him of all his failures and the things he’d lost… There'd been more than one night he thought about Lohen, what he’d do to the knight, and what the knight would do to him.
Turns out, what the knight does to him is ride him dry.
“You should’ve taken me with you,” he mumbled incoherently, dropping himself on his dick. “Used me whenever you needed it– My poor, poor birdie. Did you get lonely without me? Miss my body? Your fat cock in my slick, warm hole?”
The grip on him tightened and Lohen leaned in, their lips almost touching.
“Tell me,” he breathed.
He never stopped thinking about it. Every battle, every wound, every whisper in his ear from the corrupted abyss– Somewhere along the days when sanity began to dwindle, Lohen was his biggest reason to keep going. Avenging his past, protecting the people he cared about is still important to him, it’s just!– The results of his efforts are a lot more immediate in this tent.
“Your waist,” Illuga confessed, wrapping his hands around the body part. “It’s– You’re so small, I can just–” He easily lifted Lohen with barely any effort, and speared him directly back down on his cock.
Lohen’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as he let out a loud cry, legs giving the faintest of tremors saddled against Illuga’s hips.
“This mouth,” he continued, prying Lohen’s jaw open with no resistance. He thumbed at the edges of his lip, before slipping his thumb in to play with the sharp canine teeth there. “You say a lot of rude things, you know that? And you just love to bite with these teeth.”
Illuga replaced his thumb with three fingers, and instead held Lohen’s head in place with his thumbnail digging into the knight’s jugular.
Lohen looked at him desperately, eyes shaking, begging.
“I like it better filled. It’s too bad my cock’s occupied filling you elsewhere, isn’t it?”
Obediently, Lohen closed his lips around the digits. Illuga thrusted them in as far as he could, and felt a wet tongue lapping at the underside of them.
The knight rocked back and forth on him, chasing his high. Illuga cupped the flat curves of his ass, and he stopped with a whiny mumbled complaint.
“And down here, this useless little thing–”
Lohen cried softly around him as he ran a single, teasing finger down the knight’s hard length.
“Why do you even have this?” Illuga asked mockingly. “It’ll never be used. All you’re good for is this hole–”
He could feel Lohen physically tighten up at his words, clenching so sweet and obedient around Illuga’s thick length.
“I kept thinking about it. The first thing I’d do once my mission was over…” Illuga leaned in slightly, hand on the knight’s waist to encourage him to move. He whispered in his ear, “I’d find you and watch you make a mess of yourself on my dick.”
Slowly, he pulled his fingers out and instead clasped them around Lohen’s waist. The taller man had gasped, scandalized and still wanted more, more Illuga.
Together, they drained one another dry that night.
Illuga tried not to think about how he went home just that much lighter, mind free from the plights that’d consumed him that week he spent away from Lohen.
-
Every time Illuga thought he’d seen the extent of how crazy Lohen could be, he’d get proven wrong again and again.
This time, it involves Illuga’s pants coming off not 5 metres away from where they’d just slain a horde of Wild Hunt together.
“Now, Lohen?!”
Feelings mixed between being rightfully mortified at the situation, having his pants down and cock out in the open like this– And undeniably wanting nothing more than to stick it in the knight kneeling before him.
Lohen scoffed, all the while giving Illuga a few pumps to fill him out. His glove was still gritty with blood and dirt from the fight, though both were well beyond caring. Lohen didn’t even need to touch him– Illuga was hard the second the knight got on his knees, conditioned like some basic mutt.
“You think I’d let you get away with being distracted on the battlefield like that?” He mocked in a high voice. “Listening to the Wild Hunt more than me? Pathetic. You only know to let go when your dick’s stuffed in something, don’t you?”
The knight’s harsh words struck something true in Illuga’s heart. However painful, Lohen was scarily perceptive of his feelings and thoughts in the way that could’ve made the man a genuinely caring and loving lifelong partner– Which he’s made abundantly clear he never will be. And Illuga is alright with that. In a way, Illuga is quite grateful for it. He’ll never ask for more than what they already have. Lohen understands the battlefield, and how sometimes it follows a soldier home, into their dreams… whether the knight himself suffers from this too or something else entirely, Illuga doesn’t know. He has his suspicions, but he’s sure Lohen’s already fully figured out what plagues him.
He also understands the remedies.
Illuga swallows his pride as he can no longer resist, he wants the man at his knees, and he wants the lingering whispers of his enemies to go away.
He presses his hips forward, nudging his hard length against Lohen’s lips, begging with action, not words. The knight smirked up at him with that same crazed expression he wears on the battlefield, and parts his lips.
A hefty, guttural sound resonates in his throat as he pushes past the lips, sinking deep into Lohen’s mouth. The knight sits obediently for him, even as Illuga pushes in far enough to hit his gag reflex, he looks up to Illuga challenging him to do more.
Without a word or even the ability to attempt speaking, Lohen takes a hold of his inner thighs and pulls them apart, spreading the lightkeeper’s legs. Illuga can only watch in genuine amazement of the human body’s limitations and sheer arousal as Lohen takes him in down to his roots, nose deep in the scraggly hairs of his unkempt groin.
Lohen blinks up at him and moans a sweet, inviting noise around his cock that hums along his length.
Whatever the Wild Hunt said to him earlier– That is the farthest thing from his mind right now.
He runs his fingers through Lohen’s seafoam hair, digging into a strong patch of the soft fluff and giving an experimental tug, feeling Lohen slip off his dick with the movement.
“Oh,” Illuga says with a light exhale. “You… are going to be the death of me.”
Starting slow, he pushes himself back into Lohen’s wet inviting heat, feeling the man hum casually as he does, sending vibrations directly into Illuga’s body. He swears he hears Lohen’s cocky voice in that hum, saying ‘That’s all you got?’
“Lohen… Lohen, Lohen, f-fuck–”
He sped up as Lohen had no complaints for him, no attempt to stop him or move off. He took it like he was made for it, accepting each of Illuga’s thrusts even as they started to get rougher as the ratnik eventually accepted that the knight would take anything given to him.
Illuga forced Lohen down deeper with every thrust, snapping his hips to meet the back of Lohen’s throat as he pulled the man onto him. It’s good, so good, but the adrenaline from battle is still pumping through his veins and something crazed in him wants more yet.
“Teeth, Lohen– Just–” He stutters, but he should be well past getting embarrassed around the knight now. “Not too much. D-don’t rip it off! Just a little–” Illuga gasps as he feels the edge of Lohen’s sharp canines dip in slightly, “–sharp!”
On second thought… maybe the crazy one isn’t Lohen.
There’s a subtle mix of pain with the pleasure and Illuga’s mind goes cloudy as his release comes suddenly after the bite, emptying his spend right down Lohen’s throat. The man chokes quite a bit but doesn’t make any effort to get off, so Illuga doesn’t bother either.
As his cock gives its final spurt, Lohen abruptly pushes Illuga out and starts hacking, holding his throat gasping for breath. Illuga should be worried about the state he’s put Lohen in, but all he can focus on is the creamy white on Lohen’s tongue, slowly dripping past his lips as he heaves and coughs…
“F-fuckin’ hell,” Lohen says weakly, voice hoarse and well used. “You did not cum that much the first time.”
“Hmm,” Illuga hums innocently. He crouches to brush some hair off Lohen’s sweaty face, getting a good look at his high flushed cheeks and the excess release running down his chin. “Too much for you to handle, doll?”
Between coughs, the knight’s expression split into something maniacal with glee.
“No,” he says quite sweetly, tilting his head to look up at the ratnik. “I’m expecting more later, birdie.”
-
“You come into my house,” Illuga mutters in his ear, “and disrupt me from work at my own desk.”
He leans in, accentuating his words with a firm palm of Lohen’s ass, slipping down his pants just a little more from where he’d pull them down only enough to finger the man from behind.
“And think you can get away with that?”
Lohen shivered from where he laid bent over Illuga’s desk, hole flinching around the fingers stuck in him but took them with familiarity.
“You want me here,” Lohen earnestly protested, still trying to remain dignified with three fingers against his sweet spot. “You– Ah– Would spend a-all your life here working if I didn’t s-show up!”
Illuga curled his fingers inside him to tease, shutting the knight right up with a heated groan, chin falling to the table in an audible thump.
He loathed to admit it, but Lohen wasn’t wrong. There were a lot of reports to write today, he probably wouldn’t have gone to bed for at least another few hours. Lohen wasn’t going to make it go faster but… hard to overthink and stress with a knight bent over your desk begging for more.
“If you’re so desperate for me,” Illuga muttered heavy and low, “You can sit on my cock and wait for it. You can even do your own work while you wait– Don’t say yes or no. Toys don’t get options.”
Lohen looked at him incredulously, opening his mouth clearly to retort with something witty or bratty– only to think better of it.
“...yes sir,” he says instead.
Illuga rearranges his desk from where it’d gotten all messy, resuming his work, now with the not so subtle difference of a warm, wet vice around his dick. Lohen isn’t very good at sitting still, shifting and trying to get comfortable where ‘comfortable’ doesn’t exist. Any tiny movement spent sparks of pleasure through both of them, though Illuga thoroughly limited Lohen’s movement to just small shifts with an arm around his waist.
As promised, he gave Lohen a spare blank paper and pen, while he continued working on his own reports.
The knight seemed genuinely bewildered as Illuga got to work, then looked to his own blank paper.
“Birdie, you can’t be serious–” He gaped, gesturing wildly at the papers, forgetting where he was sat and wincing as Illuga brushed against his sweet spot. “Don’t you ever want to, like, relax?!”
“Hm? Lohen, my sweet… you don’t think having you on my cock is relaxing? You’re doing great, baby… just stay like this until I finish, and I’ll take good care of you. Deal?”
His voice absolutely did not sound like Lohen had a choice.
Defeated, Lohen picked up his pen and braced his arm on the table for balance. He couldn’t even lean in without flinching, the sensation of Illuga buried deep inside him being too much to tolerate any movement. “You… are worse than me, Illuga.”
“Lohen,” he trilled, nuzzling into his neck in a way that seemed less affectionate, more possessive. “We both get what we want, don’t we?”
“How– how is this productive for you in any way?!”
He tilted his head to look at Lohen from the side. “You clear my mind. I’m just applying it to a new situation.”
“ ‘Lua,” he whined pathetically, shifting on his lap. “Just– Just let me get you off, then I’ll leave and–”
“No,” Illuga said firmly. His grip around Lohen tightened. “Do your work. I still need you here, Lohen. That’s the deal, right? You take my mind off, and I stuff you full? The Knight’s Vice Captain would do anything to be stuffed full of me, wouldn’t he? Why, it’s not like he comes to my door every other day begging for it!”
Lohen looked away– He looked down, actually. With a wobbly hand, he put his pen to paper.
“...He would, because he’s a whore for the lightkeeper’s squad leader,” mumbled the knight.
Illuga pressed down on Lohen’s stomach, feeling the faint bulge where he was inlaid in him and making the knight squirm, bracing against the table to not make a sound and yet failing, letting out a sharp gasp from the intense sensation.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you,” Illuga pressed sweetly.
He leans in to kiss Lohen’s neck, nicking the edge of his teeth toying with the black choker there. The knight freezes in place, going rigid in his lap.
“...I’m a toy and a whore, I want to be stuffed full of you and I want to be used and treated like the tool I am!! Happy?! You’re actually worse than me, Illuga. Worse!!”
“Glad to be on the same page,” he croons soothingly.
Then, they both go back to paperwork.
Illuga actually finishes the stack of reports quicker than he usually would, not overthinking or stressing nearly as much as he usually does. He doesn’t know about Lohen’s work, the handwriting is shaky and barely legible, but he has to give the Vice Captain credit for valiantly attempting to do actual work while being a cocksleeve. Though all that time saved is ultimately lost, bending Lohen over his desk a few more times before the night is over.
-
“Turn,” Illuga commands rather simply. Lohen eyes the trinket in his hand warily, but still obeys, back facing the lightkeeper.
With deft, calloused fingers, Illuga undoes the clamp on Lohen’s choker. It’s a soft fabric thing, clearly well worn with evidence of time in how it’s stretched, fibers strained where it clearly used to be a much tighter fit around the neck. Beneath it is pale skin, faintly indented from where the fabric sat, unusually smooth and soft compared to the rest of Lohen’s scarred and bruised body. He runs a thumb along the back of the neck, feeling the fuzzy distinction between hair roots and skin– Lohen shivers faintly, as if Illuga wouldn’t notice. There’s yet another hidden mole here.
He leans in to kiss it– Then leaves with a soft, kittenish lick.
Lohen jolts, but doesn’t say anything or turn around. If anything, his head tilts down a little more, baring more of his neck to the open.
The most vulnerable part of the human body– and Lohen is showing it to him naked. Presenting it. Illuga can’t help but worry that Lohen might be putting such misplaced trust in other people just like this, or if it’s only him privy to such a sight. Selfishly, he hopes it is the latter. It’s the only part of Lohen’s body he hasn’t seen bare, which is remarkable considering how many times they’ve ripped each other's clothes off. His neck is so surprisingly slender and lovely, it’s no wonder why he hides it behind a choker and layers of clothing. Men would go to war for a sight like this– Perhaps Illuga would too.
He runs his hand across the indented skin next, feeling the exact trail which Lohen previously had this area covered. He snakes an arm across the knight’s shoulders, following the trail to the front of his neck as well– and experimentally squeezes.
Lohen makes a high pitched noise, somewhere between a wail and a moan. Powerful neck muscles push his grip loose, though Illuga saves that knowledge for another time.
Finally done exploring this new area of Lohen, he takes the gift he had prepared earlier– and wraps it around Lohen’s neck, covering it back up.
He makes sure the leather is tight, but not enough to restrict airflow, even if Lohen might like that. The clasp clicks into place, creating space for a tiny lock to be slipped in. He twists the key to close, then tucks it back into his coat pocket.
It’s very similar to Lohen’s old choker, he wouldn't compromise the knight’s style like that. It’s not even super obvious that it’s a collar. The lock looks more like a fun charm, the extra rings are fashionably decorative, and the lacey frill details are remarkably subtle.
“...Why,” Lohen questions, tone not entirely objectionable.
“It comes from me,” Illuga chirps back. “A gift. Do you like it?”
Lohen moves a hand to fiddle with his new collar, experimentally tugging on it– It barely budges. The lock jingles nicely at the movement.
“...Yes,” he decides.
-
Before he can second guess himself, Illuga steps into the open tent. He’s fully expecting to have to wait around a bit, but surprisingly, Lohen is in his own tent, seemingly in the middle of polishing his weapons.
In hindsight he should’ve announced when he entered, and Lohen has a weapon in hand, so naturally Illuga dodges the arrow that now finds itself embedded in Lohen’s tent opening.
The knight eyes him up and down, putting away his crossbow to walk up to Illuga.
“...You don’t come to me,” he points out, stating a true fact. In every encounter, it’s always been Lohen who comes to Illuga, or invites him over, or annoys him until he snaps and fucks the knight stupid–
“You’re right, I… I don’t. But–”
Lohen shushes him, leaning in close. He cups Illuga’s cheek, wiping away the thick purple blood of Wild Hunt coating his face, down to his clothes.
“My poor, poor birdie, flown in from the battlefield,” Lohen mutters so close to his lips. He teases the edge of a thumb against Illuga’s chapped, broken lips, before pulling away with an alluring smirk. “Come to me for help?”
He doesn’t elaborate what kind of help Illuga needs. By now, it’s obvious to them both.
“Let’s get you out of those dirty clothes, shall we?” He purrs seductively, already dragging Illuga to bed.
Instead of a good night’s rest and hoping the voices go away on their own, Illuga seeks out the one thing he knows for sure shuts it up tonight. Just as a one time thing, of course. He doesn’t come to Lohen, he just happens to be willing every time Lohen comes to him. If he were to choose to go find Lohen every time the nightmares became a problem, then of course that’d be cowardly and avoiding his issues, so therefore he’s never going to–
-
“Shhhh,” Lohen whispers to him. “My my, I didn’t take you for the ‘midnight romp’ kind of guy… Now what would my Grandmaster think if he knew a lightkeeper was sneaking in at night to deflower his precious knight?”
“‘Deflower?’ I’ve been inside you too many times for that term to apply, Lohen.”
The man chuckled faintly, lighting yet another lantern to partially illuminate the dark tent. Every other knight surely had to be asleep by now– Except those on nightwatch, which Illuga had skillfully avoided while making his way to Lohen. He… didn’t feel like explaining why he needed to visit the Vice Captain this late at night.
“Eh, details,” Lohen shrugged. “Still, I didn’t peg you as the risky type. That bad tonight, birdie?”
“...”
“...Well,” he pressed on, ignoring Illuga’s silence. “If you can keep quiet– I’d never say no to you, birdie~”
-
Illuga watched Lohen walk off with a limp, allegedly heading back to his own camp, but part of him wonders if the knight is going to get distracted and go off hunting again. There has been an increase in Wild Hunt activity around the area recently.
…it wouldn’t do to have Lohen fighting any enemies in this state. He’s… temporarily handicapped, a nicer way to describe what had just occurred in Illuga’s tent. What if he got hurt because his movement wasn’t fully up to speed? And it was Illuga’s fault he got ‘hurt’– He’d never forgive himself if Lohen got injured or even killed trying to get home.
With that, he resolves to follow the knight back to his camp. Just until he gets there. Just to make sure he’s safe. Lohen doesn’t even need to know he’s there! He’ll just– He’ll make sure Lohen gets home alright, then leave him alone… just so he doesn’t get hurt.
Not on Illuga’s watch.
-
“...Do you ever look at the sun, and think maybe it’s not real?”
“Pfff, what? Next you’re gonna tell me the moon isn’t real!”
“No– I mean, maybe– I just mean… does it really keep shining all the time?”
“Oh, birdie… we just finished and you’re overthinking again. You don’t change, do you?”
“I… I guess another round would be good.”
“Sure, sure– Just one thing. We’re going back to camp. NEVER on the grass again. If you want to break my back you break it on a bed from now on, Illuga.”
“...Noted.”
-
“Illuga. I need you. Now.”
Sharp words lingered at the tip of his tongue, their game where Lohen goads him into action and Illuga pretends that he finally has control over something in his life– But something in Lohen’s voice stops him. He’s not demanding, he’s begging. Illuga struggles to even begin imagining what brings a man like Lohen to his knees unprompted. The knight looks at him like he’s the answer to an otherwise meaningless world.
“...birdie. Please.”
-
A successful joint mission between the Knights and the Lightkeepers is cause for celebration at Piramida– Those celebrations that never feel joyful.
Perhaps him pressing Lohen up against the wall, just around the corner where they still faintly hear colleagues between grieving and sobbing, is their own celebration.
His fellow lightkeepers choose alcohol and good company. He chooses Lohen.
-
Privately, Illuga watched the young knight bandage himself. Wounds Illuga himself had inflicted, both in their spar and the sex that occured afterwards. Lohen didn’t ask for help dressing and Illuga didn’t bother offering. He looked like he could barely wrap the cotton around his back, arms shaking. Illuga watched the blood seep through.
-
“What are you staring at me like that for, birdie? You’ve been so hard at work recently, I didn’t buy this outfit just for you to not touch me, you know~”
Illuga felt the bob in his throat swallow, savoring the sight before him– And planning how to best rip the cocky bunny up.
-
“My my, do your fellow lightkeepers know their leader is secretly a–”
He covered the knight’s mouth, met with muffled complaints.
“No, Lohen. No they–”
-
“Toys don’t talk. All you have to do is–”
-
…I didn’t used to be–
-
…
-
It’s an awful, rainy day.
Where the grass is usually green with lingering mildew and animals roam about, all take shelter in the all-consuming storm. The winds aren’t happy today. They’re never happy in Nod Krai, but today they scream with a ferocity no one can tune out. It’s a hazy, delirious kind of day.
His legs hurt. They ache and they burn, the rain does nothing to quell the pain, physical nor mental. The ground does not respond to him with that signature spring that is indicative of a kuuvahki rich environment, it feels as if the ground shall split at any moment to take him away to the place all good lightkeepers will return someday.
Illuga must return to Piramida. He will perform his duties as a lightkeeper.
Then, he will find Lohen. He will find Lohen. Lohen.
People talk in hushed whispers and grievances even as Illuga runs into Piramida, the messenger bird they sent ahead of the battlefield clearly having reached the city already. Three lightkeepers gathered in a secluded corner as Illuga passed by.
“I can’t believe it… I know it’s foolish, but somehow, I never considered that one day, he would fall too…”
“If even the strongest lightkeeper can die in battle… What of the rest of us? We’re not like him, we’re–”
“Pull yourself together! The Lightkeepers have lost starshynas before, and we’ll keep losing them as long as we exist. It’s part of our oath.”
“I just– No one embodies the Lightkeepers like he did. He was courageous, dedicated, pure like the first golden ray of dawn…”
“...Yea. I agree. I’ve never even thought about us as Lightkeepers with a different leader, it’s been starshyna Nikita since the day I joined…”
“Hey, let’s try not to think about that. There’s gotta be someone suitable to take over the role among all of us… didn’t the starshyna have a son?”
“Oh, the young captain!”
“Yes! I’ve heard from his squadron, he’s everything a lightkeeper ought to be. Brave beyond all fear, charges into battle with a golden light, and with the purest heart of them all!”
“He sounds… too good to be true.”
“But just think about it– Doesn’t that sound like the very image of someone who should represent the lightkeepers?”
“Just ignore him. I agree!”
“You… agree with her?”
“Why not? He sounds right for the job.”
“The hell you mean ‘agree with her?!’”
“C’mon, stop being such a skeptic. Think about it– Doesn’t ‘Starshyna Illuga’ have such a nice ring to it?”
It’s like they’re trying to replace him already.
Starshyna Illuga.
Oh, his father is dead and they think he must become the new sun.
He tries to run into the grand hall, but a woman at the entrance blocks him. He thinks it’s one of the many senior lightkeepers who helped raise him as a child. The rain is foggy and he can barely think of anything except Starshyna Illuga and Lohen, it doesn’t matter.
She shook her head at him. “Go home, child. I will not have you report on your own father’s death. There are others who can tell me what happened. Go home.”
Go home, Starshyna Illuga, Lohen.
Rain pattered against the harsh metal of the floating city. His feet drag behind him, soaked to his bones, suddenly feeling older and heavier than they used to. His body is heavy. So, so heavy. He walks through the door of his abode, and locks the door behind him.
Lohen sits in the small, circular living area.
“So, uh–” He throws up his hands and waggles them with fake enthusiasm. “Surprise…!”
Illuga stares at him with all the dead weight of today.
Starshyna Illuga, Lohen.
Lohen abruptly stands up and starts pacing the room, occasionally casting Illuga a nervous glance. “I came to ‘visit’ because y’know, that’s what we do… then I hear that the Starshyna’s dead. So. I’m assuming you’re not exactly in the mood,” he laughs awkwardly. “Hey, uh, the tea in your cupboards is pretty good. I made some because I was cold, from the, y’know, rain and all… Doesn’t matter! There’s still some in the pot, if you want so–”
Lohen.
In an instant, Illuga’s lips were on his, shutting him up. It happened so suddenly with swiftness usually reserved for the battlefield, like a bird of prey swooping in to claim their kill.
Lohen gasped in pure shock, body stilled to Illuga’s unexpected advances, but as the shock wore away he once again grew accustomed to the feeling of the ratnik’s hands running down his back, pulling him in for the kiss, prying his mouth open, and sharing tongue with him. Teeth clashed as the lightkeeper violently pushed forward, Lohen scrambled to reciprocate before he would pull away, then dive back in once more like an unpredictable storm not unlike the one pounding on the windows.
He pushed until Lohen’s shins hit the edge of his rickety couch, unrelenting even as they fell in a tumble of connected limbs and the knight let out an undignified yelp, caged under Illuga’s body.
“Birdie, slow–” His words were once again interrupted as Illuga pressed their lips together, breath heaving against Lohen’s as he nipped on the knight’s lower lip again, gnawing on the vulnerable flesh there and swallowing down his moans.
“Slow down!” Lohen managed to gasp between each of Illuga’s kisses, “W-what the hell is– mmngh– wrong with you?!”
Illuga barely pulled away with a huff, letting Lohen catch his breath while he moved on to quickly unstringing his corset, desperate to reach what was beneath already.
Lohen gulped. “Illuga, hello? Are you in there?!”
His fingers trembled horribly, cold from the rain barely able to grasp strings. For once, Lohen was much warmer than him. The heat radiating from his body was everything he needed. The strings fully came undone and Illuga cared little for it before immediately moving to his thigh high boots.
A weak hand battered at his own. “Look, if you wanna fuck I’m down, but would you just tell me what the fuck is going on with you right now?!” Lohen hissed, trying to get Illuga to back off, but he just ignored it.
Starshyna Illuga.
Lohen.
Starshyna Illuga– Lohen.
Lohen.
“Lohen,” he echoed. His voice was hollow, dead with nothing worth saving. “Let me have you.” It was somewhat a question, somewhat a statement, equally devoid of any kind of emotion.
The man beneath him gulped, and looked around as if he briefly contemplated a route of escape. Then, he looked up at Illuga. Really looked. Saw that insanity in his eyes, unveiled through the usual gleam of gentle, brilliant hope. The kind that’d drive you insane too, if you looked too long–
Why does that sound… familiar?
His eyes fluttered shut, and when they opened once more he saw that mix of quiet defeat and craze in the knight’s look once more.
“...Okay,” he whispered. “Have me.”
Illuga leaned down, and kissed Lohen’s forehead where he was warm. As an apology. What for… he doesn’t know. Maybe something in the past, before things got like this.
With that same desperation as before, he meticulously unraveled Lohen, piece by piece. The knight laid there and let it happen. He seemed to understand that it was not a day for fighting– That Illuga needed all control today. Just for right now. To feel what he didn’t have on those battlefields. To not have anything go wrong, in just this fragile moment of truce–
Once Lohen was bare, Illuga very half-hazardly tore off his gloves and undid his belt, just enough to let his cock spring out. Messes to be cleaned out of clothing seemed a very faraway and distant issue, anyways.
He didn’t bother with words or any kind of foreplay. In one rough motion he flipped Lohen onto his stomach without any protest from the other, and dove right in.
The feeling of sinking deep into another person was oh so familiar, and comforting. Lohen always prepped himself in advance for these meetings, but being filled in a single stroke must've still caused the knight some amount of pain judging by the way he cried out, hips subtly pushing up to meet Illuga’s own, still trying to take him deeper despite the hurt.
“Illuga,” he mumbled quietly. The cadence of his voice had taken on a strange, smooth lull that quieted his mind ever so slightly. Lohen’s head turned back to look at him, head tilted. “Does it hurt?”
“What an ironic question. Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“You know I like it that way. I’m asking if…”
Lohen’s voice trailed off.
“Nevermind. Take what you need, Illuga,” he said with a small smile.
Complete submission. That’s what Lohen was offering him. The kind of thing you don’t come back from.
Illuga started at the back of his neck, the exact point where that lovely black collar met skin. From there he traced down, feeling the warm tingle of life beneath him, around him, as Lohen quietly endured the exploratory touch.
His finger traced the spine. The faint protrusion of bone at the shoulders through thin skin, the lower back where Lohen, as if without thinking, bended further to the curve of his now flat palm. Around the waist, tracing where clothes typically obfuscated the slender thing, then back around the other side with his spare hand.
“All of this?” He questioned, voice flat. “For me?”
Lohen pushed himself up just slightly, bracing himself on his arms and angling his hips up, making it easier for the both of them. Then he rested his head in his arms, ready for whatever Illuga might choose to throw at him. His eyes were earnest, the softest they’d ever been as they peaked out from the curtains of his bangs.
“All of this,” he echoed. “For you.”
His restraint ended there. Illuga pulled right out, and started their pace rough.
Lohen moaned like a whore and tightened up like one too, absolutely shameless to anyone who might hear through the thin walls. Or maybe that was Illuga’s fault for being too kind, or perhaps too mean– The two things would seem like opposites usually, but with Lohen it was often the same.
The flesh was firm to grab, willing and familiar, as Illuga put his hands on the staggering junction between the hip and waist, curved elegantly and oh-so sensitive as his nails dug in, pretty red indents already predetermined from the last time his hands were here. It gave Illuga the leverage to piston himself faster, chasing that high from the knight’s supple body, already well trained and attuned to the shape of him.
Of how little he saw of Lohen’s face, it was cherry red. He could just make out his mouth, seeing the slow unravel behind his quickening breaths. A whine physically showing on his face if he hit the knight’s sweet spot just a little too hard, then did it again just to see how Lohen will slowly become an unrecognizable face of pleasure, more a doll than a person of conscious thoughts.
They didn’t last long like that. He was already long gone from saving the first time Lohen came on his cock, the 4th, 7th, whatever-th time this is now isn’t all that much different.
The knight’s body shook violently as he trembled through his release, nearly falling over if Illuga didn’t hold him so tightly while he plunged himself deep, finishing inside and keeping it in.
A strange kind of buzz settled throughout his body. Not satisfied, but just beginning to quell the– No. Not really quell. More like… change. The bruised poppy-tips of his heart had been nothing more than the first sparks of a storm. He felt… muddled.
“Ah… Illuga?”
A voice cut into his thoughts.
Lohen weakly called to him from where Illuga left him panting and finished, voice unusually tender. “Are… is it… better?”
The question was genuine, but Illuga still felt cold.
“...Lohen,” he tested the words on his throat. His voice sounded so… dry. He was keenly aware of the uncomfortable feeling in the back of his mind, that something about the situation didn’t feel right… he didn’t feel right.
“Do you love me?”
The bearer of the name didn’t look much surprised. If anything, he looked like he’d always anticipated this question eventually. His eyes were steady as they looked back at him, unwavering in those uncanny bloody eyes.
“I love what you do to me,” he answered plainly.
His heart twisted with that ugly, familiar feeling again.
“Do you love when it hurts?”
Lohen dragged himself up, struggling through the aches but persisting anyway. Illuga wrapped a single hand around his arm– When Lohen nodded, he pulled the knight in, dragging their bodies together.
“I do,” he confessed. His body fell limp into Illuga’s lap, looking right at him as he continued, “You’re the only one who treats me right.”
That kind of trust in a person’s eyes– Illuga has seen it in so many people, always directed at him. Always with expectations. But it’s different when Lohen looks at him that way. It’s different.
“And you trust me,” he said, feeling a queasy sensation somewhere within him.
He hesitantly cradled the soft cheek of Lohen’s head.
He surely expected to be rejected. He surely expected him to turn around and be like all the others. He surely expected, such a precious thing as Lohen was too good to be true.
“I do.”
Instead, Lohen leaned into the touch. Warm, gentle skin bleeding into the cold between his fingers.
“Like no one else.”
“Is–” Illuga hesitated, wondering if such a thing was really alright to ask. But this was Lohen, right? Lohen accepts him. All of him, he just just said so– Everything about him, kind and cruel, confused and twisted, gentle and rough. It’s Lohen.
“Is it enough to stay? Do you love and trust me enough to stay?”
“Enough to…” Lohen echoed his words like he didn’t fully understand them. He nuzzled into Illuga’s cold touch anyways. “Yes. I’m staying, Illuga. I’m staying.”
For the first time that day, Illuga felt something akin to joy in his heart. A raw, more primal form of satisfaction than he’d never felt before.
Someone who stays.
Isn’t that all he’s ever wanted?
Swiftly, he scooped Lohen up into his arms. The man whined at the feeling of Illuga pulling out, release slowly dripping down his thighs, but he didn’t think it mattered when he’d be making sure Lohen can be happy and as filled as he’d like for the rest of his life.
He took them to his room, gently lowering Lohen into bed, and leaving him with a chaste kiss before heading over to the box he kept on the bottom shelf of his dresser.
Inside, he kept a few toys from a variety of other sessions. But the thing Illuga was after was shiny and new– He’d bought it some time ago intending to try it out with Lohen, but never got around to it.
It felt heavy in his hands, like the object itself questioned his resolve. But Illuga had made his decision, and he wasn’t about to go back on it.
Lohen peered at him curiously, eyes going wide as he examined the heavy metal in Illuga’s hands.
“What…? What are you doing with th– What the hell?!”
With a firm clink as the lock turned, Illuga took the metal cufflet, and locked it on his own wrist.
Stunned to silence, Lohen stood perfectly still as Illuga approached. He leaned back slightly trying to create distance as Illuga’s hand reached over a little too close, until his back hit the headboard and there was nowhere else to go.
The chain and lock in his hands was cold, but so was his body. Did it really matter, in that case?
“Lean your head back a bit,” he whispered.
He watched the bob of Lohen’s delicate neck as it swallowed. His red pupils shook slightly as they took in the sight of Illuga, holding the very chain connected to his own wrist up to his neck. He blinked once, and those eyes slowly mellowed down to that same blind faith Illuga saw earlier.
Lohen’s head tilted back, just enough to reveal the collar Illuga placed on him so long ago now.
Metal clinked as he looped the other lock around one of the rings of the collar. Then, the chain.
Illuga pulled back and watched Lohen immediately take to looking down. His hand trailed to the chain connected to his neck, feeling and exploring the metal lead that now connected the two of them together.
Then, Illuga took the key, and placed it between his teeth.
“...What are you doing,” Lohen questioned sharply.
He bit down.
The metal warped between his jaws, misshapen and ugly. The key to separating them had become useless in an instant.
Realization washed over Lohen like the first chill of a thunderstorm, his body stilled in abject horror as he stared at the broken piece of metal, watching as Illuga carelessly tossed it aside. It landed somewhere off to the side, never to be looked for again as its purpose was no longer needed. And he looked back at the ratnik again, his cufflink– Then at himself once more, physically chained together.
“There’s– There’s a spare, right?!” His voice was high with stress and disbelief, a firm grip on his own collar, tugging lightly, then harshly as if it were just an illusion that needed breaking. All that did was choke himself, coughing when the air did not rush to return.
Illuga moved in, allowing the short excess of metal chain to drip across now their bed, stinging cold against Lohen’s bare, naked thighs.
“Why does it matter?” He asked soothingly, reaching out with that same cuffed hand to cradle the smooth cut of Lohen’s jaw, feeling the minute tremors beneath his skin, a natural disaster waiting to unleash. Or, perhaps less threateningly, a fragile glass ornament just about to tip over the table. It remained to be seen which Lohen would be, but more often than not, he felt tame recently compared to the ravenous storm Illuga used to deal with. “You’re staying.”
He closed in further, ever so slightly. The bed dipped beneath him, pulling him in until he could see the awful strike of violent red in Lohen’s shaky pupils.
“That means you stay with me. I’ll keep you safe! And I’ll fill you up whenever you like it– It’s better for both of us like this, isn’t it?”
“You–” Lohen stuttered. Slowly, as if with sick realization, his head started shaking back and forth, either pure astonishment or the deep-rooted sense of fear and wrongness only those who have experienced life as prey would have. “What– What the actual f– Illuga, WHAT IS THIS?!”
He rattled the chain between them, a new and melodic clinking to their new connection. It swayed with little hurry, dissimilar to the one whose collar it locked onto.
“I’ll protect you,” he murmured, frowning slightly. It was saddening Lohen did not see eye to eye with him, when all he wanted was the best for the both of them. Wouldn’t it be a cruel fate to both of them if he let Lohen go, only for him to someday end up hurt in a place Illuga cannot reach? He’ll never perform as Starshyna if he lets the one most beloved to him get hurt like that. And, well, he’ll never perform at all without the only functioning comfort in his life.
Illuga comforted the startled knight with a brush of his thumb, the sharp of his unevenly cut nail faintly pressed into hard, dry skin that nearly cut from how brittle.
“You can’t ever get hurt if you’re next to me, Lohen.”
His mouth gaped. A small, dead noise came out, but nothing else. His eyes darted around again, then at Illuga, the chain, and back to Illuga again–
“Lohen,” he called gently. “Lohen, it’s okay. Just me. Just birdie. See?”
The other man seemed conflicted. The chill of Illuga’s storm-weathered fingers spread to his cheek as he stroked it gently, but it was still Illuga.
“. . .”
With a shaky sigh, Lohen leaned for the second time that day. Strangely, it’s the closest Lohen has ever allowed him to get in a way that didn't involve their bodies coming together. His eyes fluttered with submission, quietly accepting the affection Illuga gave. From his trembling lips came a low whine, like he was begging for something only the ratnik could give.
“Illuga…”
He perked up in response. Lohen sounded much better now.
“Yes?”
Lohen breathed slowly, coming up to rest his body entirely against Illuga’s chest.
“I stay… that means we’ll never be apart?”
His heartbeat felt faster. He wondered if Lohen could hear it through his body.
“No,” he responded quickly. “Never.”
“...and you’ll continue loving me the way you always have.”
With distinct judgement in his eyes, Lohen leered up at him, searching for Illuga’s resolve, testing if he was genuine.
“I promise, Lohen.”
“Then…”
He picked his head up to properly look back at Illuga. The chain in Lohen’s hands rattled slightly, as he took a portion of it and placed it over Illuga’s closed fist, prying it open to drop the chain in his hands.
“...keep me safe and well cared for the rest of our sad, pathetic lives, Illuga.”
Illuga teared a little. Without warning, he threw his arms around Lohen and pulled in him, leeching the delicious warmth from his body and turning them both cold.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Lohen–”
Finally. Someone he’d never have to worry about losing.
Not willing to waste a second, he flipped Lohen onto his back. The pretty black chain connecting them both drew such a tantalizing line down his neck, contrasting pale fair skin that just made him all the more stunning. Illuga grabbed the chain in his hands and pulled, forcing Lohen to lift his head as he met him halfway in a kiss.
Lohen coughed slightly, unexpected pressure on his throat and breath stolen away as Illuga pressed their lips together, licking into his mouth as Lohen half-heaved, and half wasted what little breath he had moaning for more. He gasped when Illuga let him go, dropping the chain and allowing his head to hit the mattress. Without skipping a beat Illuga was attacking his neck, sucking at the skin just below his collar, minding the metal stuck to his neck.
A growl rumbled in Illuga’s throat as he felt blood rushing south already, too worked up on the idea of providing for Lohen what they both desperately wanted. The man beneath him cried wantonly, between tiny kitten-coughs arching his back and rubbing his own thighs together.
“...Lua,” Lohen called weakly. He tilted his whole body slightly, no longer paying the chain any attention as he grabbed into Illuga’s arms with practiced, familiar impatience.
“You promised you’d keep me filled.”
He sighed fondly, then did something the knight didn’t expect. With one hand, he quickly flipped to grab Lohen’s wrist and restrain that hand. With his other, he grabbed at the chain again, and pulled until just slightly taut. Not enough to choke. Just enough to control.
“I will, I promise. But we have all the time in the world now, don’t we?”
Starting at the delicate taper of his abdomen, he felt along the dry skin there– Brushing past the faintest of soft baby hairs, practically invisible and doing nothing to hide the bruises, the scars, and all his lovely beauty marks. He feels the bruising specifically on the side of his waist, mirrored on both ends. It matches his palm and the grip of his fingers perfectly. Maybe he accidentally caused it earlier, or it lingered on from a different day.
Lohen looked at him expectantly.
“Will you make it worse?”
He sounded hopeful.
Illuga smiled slightly, “If it makes you happy, I will.”
What a gorgeous sight Lohen was. His body still held scars and bruises from other fights, perhaps on an actual battlefield, but Illuga plans to treat them with care until they fade, and make sure Lohen never gets hurt in battle again at all. He’ll feel more at ease if he knows the only blemishes across Lohen’s skin come from him.
He’s the only one who knows the correct amount. If he didn’t chain Lohen up, perhaps he would get himself killed out there, trying to chase the thrill of pain. It’s safer to keep the knight with him. It’s better, better for both of them.
Lohen let out a gorgeous moan as he kneaded into the purpling flesh, leaving it with a kiss as he traveled down once more.
Faced with the knight’s lovely thighs, they’re a sight to behold every time Illuga has the pleasure of ripping his clothes off– It was one of the few places Lohen seemed to have any meat on his bones, all thin and lithe muscles, but down here was softer. A slight bit of plump, and strangely unmarred. There’s another faint indent where the band of his thigh garter usually sits, and for a moment Illuga considers, he must get a second chain and cuff to put exactly there– And perhaps hold his legs open as Illuga breeds him full.
At the center of it all, on the high end of his thigh, Lohen had a completely inconspicuous and dainty little mole, drawing him in to the channel between his legs, a shallow valley of pure temptation. He fell to this temptation hard, and kissed the soft skin there.
Lohen shuddered slightly, feeling Illuga kiss so close to where he was aching and wet.
“Why?”
His question was simple but pointed, obviously running out of patience.
“I should know the body that’s mine to protect,” Illuga responded simply. He eyed the delicate channel of Lohen’s legs, as they drew leading lines into the beautiful erectness of his cock, already flushed and ready for him. Without thinking, he laved his tongue along the skin there–
“Illuga!”
Lohen kicked him. He clutched a hand to his chest like some scandalized Fontainian noblewoman, eyeing him with utter disdain and disapproval. Illuga only licked his lips, not exactly remorseful.
“Really, you draw the line there?” He humphed lightly, leaning in closer to the knight. “Oh, Lohen… if I’m keeping you here with me for the rest of our lives, won’t you let me feel a little? Won’t you let me worship the body I ruin every night? Can’t I be gentle, while I hurt you like you beg?”
“NO!!!” Lohen hissed, face delightfully flustered in a full face scowl. “That’s not how this works, you fuck me until I can’t think and I–”
“Why do you think you get to decide that?”
The knight’s eyes blew wide, mixed with something between shock and fear.
Illuga pressed on, pointedly taking Lohen’s length into his rough grip. With calloused hands as gently as he could, he stroked up and down, watching in real time as the fight in Lohen’s gaze wavered.
“I thought I made myself clear. Nothing happens to you unless I do it.” He smiled at the quiet whimper that fell from the man’s lips, taking his leaking tip and spreading the liquid down his length, drawing only more small noises from him. “Good, or bad. Pain, pleasure, anything in between– Don’t worry, I think we both know each other very well now. You’ll get anything and everything you want! So be a nice little doll– You get what I give you.”
Lohen’s voice cracked under the pleasure Illuga offered him, squeezing his eyes shut tight whenever it was too much, a hint of wetness at the corner where tears threatened to dribble.
“I-I thought it’d help you,” he protested weakly. “My body was w-worth something–”
“It is.”
Illuga smiled warmly as he finally stroked the knight to completion, his body falling under his touch with a loud, enduring wail. Lohen was barely a cohesive thing pinned beneath him, shaking aggressively as if Illuga’s touch had unwound the very existence of his body, smaller pieces of psyche tearing itself apart– Awaiting to be put back together by him.
With reverent care, he kissed Lohen’s forehead while he sobbed, hips bucking into his hand chasing whatever pleasure Illuga was willing to give him. He rode out his orgasm all messy and disheveled, Illuga was all too delighted to know that this would be a much more frequent sight for him now. It felt like Lohen got easier to tame every time, surely now that he had him for life that trajectory would continue. How long until Lohen accepted his care and his love without question or fight? It had him all giddy inside– He pulled on the chain lightly, getting the knight’s attention back on him with weepy, defeated eyes.
His words were all too breathy, barely cohesive as he chattered with the mindless pleading only of a man who’s been slowly broken down, used, ravaged, and loved like the sharpest knife on the weapon rack.
“Why, why?! What are you going to do to me, Illuga–”
He did not dignify Lohen’s questions with a response. Instead, he yanked on the chain.
In an instant his words had cut off, the knight choking against the heavy leather of his collar being pulled by Illuga’s firm touch. The pull had lifted his head off the pillow, closer to Illuga where he leaned down to meet Lohen halfway. Recently shed tears were still in his eyes, diluting the harsh bloody reds and aqueous jade into something foggy, but undeniably full of shameless desire.
“Open up,” he muttered sweetly.
He nudged his throbbing member obsessively against Lohen’s wet and swollen entrance, rocking between the cleft of his cheeks as he demanded entry within. With Lohen sufficiently attended to, it was hard to ignore how much he wanted the man crying for him– How he longed to care for him, and give him everything he’d ever need… Yes, because Illuga finally had someone who accepted him and all the care he had to offer. What a beautiful man Lohen was, stuttering for his air yet obediently parting his legs, showing off what made him so good, Illuga could hardly imagine a reality of his life without it.
Accepting the knight’s invitation, slowly, he sunk back into the trapped warmth. He was unbearably hot inside, yet his body hadn’t yet relaxed from his recent climax. Twitching, beckoning him in further, Lohen truly was made for his pleasure. A silky groan resonated in the deepest part of his throat, looking down at the bashful sight of the handsome man, shadows cast down his face where his face had softened to something pliable, cracked under Illuga’s pressure.
Testing the give of his body, Lohen was undeniably loose, unable to hold his body together. A nerve twitched in Illuga. He pulled out carefully, then slammed back in.
Lohen’s reaction was immediate. He tightened up beautifully around Illuga, back arched erratically as he let out a semi-pained, semi-pleasured moan, “Illuga–!” His body balanced precariously, before falling flat with too much effort to keep standing, sending the man of the name a desperate, pleading look as his body tried shriveling on itself. “No, no, too soon– It hurts…”
“Mmm? But Lohen–”
He thrusted in again, making sure to hit the sweet spot as Lohen cried out again, even higher with delirium.
“You like the hurt. You asked for it so nicely, too– Didn’t I promise I’d give you everything you could possibly need?”
The man beneath him whimpered, and the very first tear trailed down his cheek. Illuga cooed at the poor trapped bunny rabbit, leaning down to lick away the tear. At the same time, he rolled his hips into Lohen’s groin, drawing a heated groan from both of them.
“You lay here,” he murmured softly, brushing a finger against his eye to wipe away the next tear. Lohen leaned into the gentle touch– Or maybe that was forced movement from him tugging the chain again. “And let me take care of you.”
“F-fuck–” Lohen hiccuped, unable to resist pressing his hips back onto Illuga’s dick, willing him to move despite the overstimulation rushing like violent quakes through his body. “I want it Illuga, I want it, I want it so bad–!”
The admission only made Illuga more certain of his decision, that this truly was the best for both of them.
“...then take it.”
Slowly, he pulled out again, watching Lohen’s expression change in real time. And with practiced movement, he thrusted back in.
Lohen’s insides were unbearably hot, slick with previous release and long molded to the shape of Illuga, and Illuga only. The knight held his own legs open for him, but it still didn’t feel enough. Illuga wanted to be closer. He wanted Lohen’s sweet cries, his bloodlust, his body, his entire existence–
Fuck… what would it be like to have him his whole life?
When he’s home, he’ll keep Lohen chained to him… when he isn’t, he’ll keep the knight lovely and safe in the bounds of his house. What a lovely thing it’d be to come home to– Oh he’s sure Lohen isn’t cooking him dinner or preparing him a bath, but that doesn’t matter when his body is this pliable and good and irresistible–
He can practically hear it, feel it, so easy to imagine exactly this in a hundred– No, thousand scenarios, an entire lifetime of them he’ll pick apart one by one, and figure out which would crack Lohen down the most… In bed spread out by chains where he couldn’t possibly resist, up against the wall where he’ll gag the knight to keep down his pleading, under the desk while he’s reviewing reports– If choking doesn’t hurt enough, would a shock collar be adequately pleasant for him? A whip might be better– Or he’ll take Lohen out for a spar, fight until they're both painted in bruises and red, then take him right there where it hurts most? How far can he objectify the little hare, buy him pleasant outfits only to tear them apart in a single night? Suits, dresses, costumes, all lace and a little more leather? Something that reveals the thighs and hugs the waist, and gives him easy access to the backside– Everything on show, and him as a private audience?
His attention is only swayed by the pained groan coming from beneath him, realizing then how his hands dug into the bruises on Lohen’s waist, bringing him the pain he promised.
“I-Illuga,” he chokes out, sounding more a plea of mercy he’s heard on the battlefield. “You still didn’t–” Lohen gasps when he leans in to hear his words, only pressing against his prostate harder and causing the knight to grit his teeth in stubborn determination, “Tell me what the fuck’s w-wrong with you!”
“Does it matter, sweet bunny?” He muttered, leisurely slowing his pace while dragging against Lohen’s walls, savoring how it made him claw and gasp, fighting hard to form his own words when all Illuga needed was his body.
It was almost impressive, the fight in him, gritting his teeth all the while whimpering against the wet noise of skin on skin, “D-don’t,” he mustered up. “Don’t try to– ah~h– distract me! I deserve to– ngh– know!”
“That’s kind of a cruel thing to say to someone after their leader dies, you know?”
“There’s always more to you!” He hisses. The genuine mix of concern and hatred gave Illuga pause for a moment, peering down at the feisty man around him.
Not a lot of people ever bother trying to understand him.
“That wouldn’t get you l-like this by itself! What makes someone like you become worse than someone like me? Something so awful and irreversible, you have no choice but to t-turn to me? You don’t just forget you’re Nod Krai’s rising sun, d-do you?!”
His mind stills to a halt.
The rising sun, it echoes.
He’d taken for granted Lohen’s docile and willing nature earlier, for as submissive he was with his body, clearly his mind was an entirely different thing. His gaze did not waver as it stared him down, even while his body occasionally tremored desperately trying to pull him back in, denying both their pleasure for the sake of finding clarity in his new reality. It was admirable, incredibly so.
“Lohen,” Illuga offered slowly, while sinking his body back into the knight. His lashes fluttered faintly as he accommodated the length in his body, but otherwise did not respond. “Why did you start this arrangement with me at all?”
The air just about stilled as Lohen narrowed his eyes at him, taking in his question.
“Answer for answer,” he demanded firmly. “You get my honesty, and I get yours.”
He was shocked by the resolve in the knight’s voice, though he didn’t doubt it.
“Deal.”
Lohen swallowed, adjusting himself to take Illuga better before giving his answer.
“I needed someone willing to hurt me. You… seemed like someone I could mold into that role.”
…Oh.
Illuga thought about it quietly.
The weight of the metal down his cuff became suddenly a very obvious, oppressive sensation within him. A scuffed key he had tossed somewhere carelessly aside– Every bruise on Lohen’s body, red lines and a scar that once drew blood, he caused and he liked it.
Was it always a part of him?
Or had Lohen carefully trained him into it, without him ever realizing?
Their chance encounter at the bar– Was it really…
“...You planned this.”
Illuga expected confirmation, or denial, just– Anything at all to suggest whether he was out of his mind as much as he felt, but Lohen gave him nothing. No guilt, no self-appraising smirks, just– Those eyes, empty, staring back at him with indiscernible melancholy.
“I got more than I asked for.”
And I became worse than I thought.
His body shifted uncomfortably. Illuga spent a long while, looking at the chain between them. The physical act of locking them together had been all him from the very conception of the idea to following through on it, but what could be said about the way Lohen had him wrapped around his finger since the very beginning?
“Hey,” a sharp voice cuts at him, though Illuga did not miss the subtle edge of something brittle to it when it shook. Like prey negotiating with death, acting fierce in its last stand, because it has no other choice.
“Your turn.”
Illuga sighed, if only to slightly delay his answer. He’d never get away with it with someone as stubborn as Lohen, but he did enjoy how the knight’s body responded to him when, with unspoken fragility, he resumed their movement.
“Lohen,” he asked lightly, being gentle in how he tore the other man’s body apart. He took it well, even as Illuga’s hold on him tightened.
“Would you let me use your body, while I make calculations to send men off to battle, inevitably to die?”
His bloody-blue eyes widened, as he spoke in obvious confusion, “Illuga, wha–”
“How about under the table at a meeting, where no one can see your mouth stuffed full with my cock?”
He ground himself right up against Lohen’s sweet spot, making him cry with something sweet, effectively shutting him up to just listen.
“When people look up to me to be their new sun, will you be there for me at night so I can fix myself and my deepest fears before sunrise?”
“...”
Despite his wrecked visage, Illuga only wanted more from the knight. Lohen had no words for him, busy between processing what Illuga was trying to stay, and the torrential pressure within, ready to burst at any moment. His body barely held itself together squeezed around Illuga’s cock, crystalline ice atop a frozen lake liable to crack at any moment– Plunging all above down, down, down, to an endless cold surely neither of them are to surface…
When he looked down he barely remembered, Lohen was already beyond overstimulated the first time he came. His body didn’t have much left to give, but his own cock stood erect and untouched, steadily leaking at the tip where it had gone neglected. Hot shame flooded Illuga’s body, how could he treat what was now his to protect so poorly? Gingerly, he took Lohen into his own hand, his other slowly rubbing at the sharp, now red indents of his waist. The lavish moan he’d drawn from the knight was well worth it, as Illuga bucked his hips, almost to his own climax.
“Illuga,” he cried softly, a tear rolling down the side of his cheek. Arms looped themselves around his neck, pulling the ratnik in closer until the water in Lohen’s eyes almost gave him the light in them he was always missing.
“What is it, Lohen?” He leaned in willingly to the knight’s desires, “Harder? Slower? What is it, Lohen? How do I take care of you? What will it take for you to not leave? Anything, anything– Just don’t leave, I need you. I’ll make it better, I’ll–”
For the first time, he felt the pull of a chain. Lohen grabbed it with one hand, biting his lip staring up at him trying to stave off his own climax, just a little longer for the sake of his answer.
“Am I going to be your dirty little secret? Something you keep locked up, because it’s convenient? More a tool, than human?”
His eyes narrowed, looking at him for truth, and nothing but the truth.
“The Starshyna’s attic wife?”
Illuga sobbed, propelled into fucking Lohen’s body with reckless abandon as he contended with the bare, ugly truth Lohen had finally surmised, “Yes, y-yes,” he confessed, tears rolling down his face. “Don’t hate me, or do, I don’t– Just don’t leave, I-I can’t do it without you, I can’t protect anyone, I can’t–”
A sudden knock on his head jolted him from his words, Lohen pressing their foreheads together. He was suddenly so much closer now, Illuga could see the exact trail his tears traveled, even the fuzziness on his cheek mole. He wondered if Lohen could do the same.
“And that’s all I’ve ever wanted, Illuga,” he whispered.
In that same breath, Lohen kissed him.
A maelstrom of feelings surged through him at Lohen’s own confession, someone he’d never have to worry about losing– Though all became secondary to the fire in his gut, moaning into Lohen’s lips as his hips stuttered, emptying himself into Lohen while he accepted it with his own whimper, hole contracting and squeezing around his dick making it all that more pleasurable while he rode out his own high, accepting the ratnik for all he was worth, and all his wrongs too.
Lohen held him like a lifeline, like the world would collapse if he let go, like everything would all end in an instant– Illuga had no plans of ever letting Lohen go, now that it was clear how much they both needed this. Needed each other. He never imagined that the thing to fix all his problems would be to become like this– But as long as Lohen exists in his life, which he intends to be forever– The knight will be his one exception. The stable body he needs, even if neither of them are very stable, perhaps they will cancel one another out. Maybe, if anything, they are fixed when they are together. It’s such a beautiful idea, Illuga’s heart can’t help but flutter at it.
Lohen finally pulls back, their lips separating with a heavy breath, lingering, festering mutual confessions that now bonded them far beyond the chain.
A strong force acted on him suddenly, pushing him on his back as Lohen climbed atop him.
“Again.”
He reached up with a hand to cradle the knight’s face, chain clinking along his wrist as it went. Lohen leaned into it readily, more than happy at their new connection.
“Again,” he repeated with more fervor. “Give me your pain, and put it in me instead– Starshyna Illuga, again.”
He winced at the addition of a new title, Lohen being the first to ever directly address him as such– It was still too raw, too painful, but he gets the feeling Lohen intended for it to be that way.
“Lohen,” he chided, helping the knight to sink back down on his length, sending an uncomfortable tingle through his body at going again so soon already, which he promptly ignored. “Don’t make yourself that obvious, doll. You’re going to make me want to wreck you, again.”
To that, Lohen only snorted, bracing his legs against Illuga’s hips as, slowly, he began rocking back and forth.
“You can try,” he snarked. “But I have never been a vessel for your good intent, have I?”