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It’s been two months since Scaramouche last saw him when he finds Sethos sitting by the door to his house.
Recently, Scaramouche has noticed that connecting with mortals has helped him understand the effects of time in their daily lives a lot better. A week may be too much or too little, according to context — two months, for some, will feel as long as a lifetime, while for others it might be better in comparion to a whole six. For someone who has lived their fair share of centuries, it gets a bit hard to tell which is which.
But here is something he does know: ever since he entangled himself in Sethos’ daily life, to be apart from each other is an eon in its own right. It feels a bit ridiculous to admit it, so Scaramouche has taken to becoming a master of deception. Instead of I missed you, or why did you stay away for so long, what he greets the man on his porch with is:
“What happened to your hair?”
Sethos raises his head sharply at the sound of Scaramouche’s voice. His green eyes light up with something like relief, something like fondness; something else that Scaramouche doesn’t feel entirely equipped to pick apart.
“Hey,” he greets, standing up. Scaramouche is struck by the weird thought that his voice sounds just like he last remembered it. “Long time no see, huh?”
That’s when Scaramouche notices: there’s a trickle of blood running down the expanse of Sethos’ left arm.
“You’re bleeding,” Scaramouche states, extremely peeved. “Why the hell are you bleeding?”
Sethos barks out a laugh, too loud and too quickly. “Oh, this? Yeah, it’s nothin’, really. Just ran into some feisty Rishbolands on my way here! They caught me off guard, so I couldn’t run fast enough—”
“You ran here?” Scaramouche asks flatly. “After being attacked?”
“It was a bit of a hassle to get rid of them,” Sethos explains sheepishly. “But I wanted to get to you as quickly as possible.”
“Couldn’t that wait for after you sought medical help?”
Sethos shifts on his feet. “...I could seek medical help from you?”
“Do you have a death wish?” Scaramouche deadpans. Sethos laughs again, which only serves to cement his point. “No, really—have you gone insane? In exactly what capacity do you see me as a healer?”
“None,” Sethos replies easily. Scaramouche blinks at him.
“So you want to bleed out and die on my front porch.”
“Preferably not?”
“Then why are you here?” Scaramouche stresses. It’s all worry, really, but he doesn’t know how to wear his tongue sharp without cutting. “Do you take amusement from playing me as a fool? Is that your weird idea of a joke?”
“No, dude, it’s just—” Sethos sighs, having lost some of his snark, and the sheepish turn his voice takes is so unlike him it sends Scaramouche’s head reeling. “So, Tighnari, um… On our way back, he offered to do it. I told him I didn’t want to waste the herbs he’d collected during the trip, and he said it wasn’t needed. That first aid is an obligatory class for all darshans. So I thought…”
He’s bleeding all over the porch as he speaks. Scaramouche’s frustration raises steadily, just shy of boiling over the edge of his tongue.
“I thought you could probably do it.” Sethos shrugs. “And I’d rather have you than anyone else, so.”
And just like that, because Scaramouche really is that easy, every ounce of anger in his body simmers down.
A brief silence follows; one that tells him there is more to this story than Sethos is letting on. Scaramouche doesn’t push, mostly due to that weak, addled part of his brain that has been tamed by Sethos’ physically being there, flesh and bone, right in front of him. Alive, despite everything. This side of him bridles the unnerved one.
He enters the house without another word. Sethos follows dutifully behind him, satisfaction visible on the hop to his step.
“Let me see it,” Scaramouche demands, tossing his hat onto the dining table and pulling out a chair for Sethos to sit on. “But be aware that I will not spare niceties. You want me to patch you up, then I’ll do it as I please.”
Sethos grins as he slips off his scarf. “Gonna roughen me up?”
“Keep talking, and it won’t be in a way you’d enjoy.”
“There’s no way you can know. I’m more open to new experiences than you might think— ouch!”
What Scaramouche meant to do was yank Sethos’ shirt off of him, just shy of cruel enough to get him to shut up. He isn’t expecting how it clings to his scapulas so viciously, making a horrid, rip-like noise as the meek inch of skin that the strength Scaramouche exerted was able to reveal peeks from behind the fabric in a raw, blood red.
Scaramouche’s stomach goes cold. He glances at Sethos, whose lips are pressed together tightly, his eyebrows pinched in concentration. He’s gripping the backrest of the chair with enough force that the knots of his fingers have nearly become green.
“You should’ve told me it was this bad,” Scaramouche mutters in lieu of ‘I’m sorry’. “Raise your arms and hold your breath for me.”
Sethos laughs breathily, in stark contrast to the crisp of his lips. “Ah, so now you wanna be gentle?”
Scaramouche stares at him for a solid five seconds. It takes six for Sethos to relent. When Scaramouche makes to lift his shirt again, his whole body seizes.
“Hold your breath,” Scaramouche tells him again, and Sethos closes his eyes and breathes in deep.
The fabric is glued to the wound like a secondary layer of skin, tinged vermillion beyond salvation. Peeling it off is meticulous, foul work — Scaramouche feels as if he’s skinning an animal, and the way Sethos stills and shudders does nothing to repel the mental image at all. Most of Sethos’ hair has also been tainted by the blood, some of it still fresh, some of it hardened to the consistency of a frail twig. The wound itself becomes fully visible once he gathers the last strands stuck to Sethos’ nape, keeping hold of his hair in a bun at the top of his head.
It’s horrible: a scar that stretches all the way to the small of Sethos’ back, thinning out in each extreme and widening right at its middle. Fortunately, it does not show bone or flesh, though it has enough depth to ooze out a continuous, concerningly voluminous amount of blood, so considerable it is a wonder how Sethos has not yet blacked out due to the loss.
Well, he is a Vision bearer. One would suppose it’d take more than claws to kill him.
(Scaramouche wonders, sometimes, if he thinks about this too much; what it really takes to kill when he himself has never died in a way that matters. For Niwa, it didn’t take much — a hand to his heart and some niceties to soften the blow. What about the Traveler, then? What about the Dendro Archon? What about Sethos?)
It takes some time to find his voice again. He tosses Sethos’ shirt aside, somewhere on the floor, and, once Sethos sits, attempts to pin his hair up to the best of his capacity; there’s a lot of it, and it’s quite hard, but Sethos is nothing if not patient.
“How on Teyvat did you let this happen?” he asks, eventually, once he finally becomes sick of the quiet.
“What?”
Scaramouche sneers, “You know what.”
“Do I?” Sethos hums. The urge to slap him across the head is stemmed by the fact that he is still very much bleeding all over the floor. “Oh, right. I mean, it’s not like I had time? And nobody does my hair like you, dear.”
“That’s not what I—” Scaramouche begins. Then his brain latches onto the last word like a leech, a broken record: dear. Dear. Dear, he said.
Has he ever called Scaramouche that before?
Nahida had explained the concept of pet names to him briefly, right when Sethos had first ‘asked him out’ (as she would so vulgarly put it). Something that entails adoration, a moniker to those who are important to your heart. And Scaramouche is not stupid. He knows what it means. The weight it carries might be unfamiliar on his shoulders, but it is not unknown; hasn’t had the chance to be ever since Sethos first kissed him.
It’s just odd to be referred to in such a manner. Dear. Dear, as in, you are dear to me. As in, I love you.
“What’s got you so quiet?” Sethos asks, after a moment. “My back’s too hot for you to handle?”
The lull back to their usual bickering is reassuring — safe, in a way. This is something he knows how to navigate. It’s easy to take the reins in antagonizing people for sport, to feel like he’s in control. He can’t say the same for displays of affection.
“I don’t think you’re in any place to talk,” Scaramouche scoffs, pinching the side of Sethos’ neck to further his point. “It looks hideous, if you’re wondering. Did you willingly throw yourself at the tiger’s mouth just for an excuse to come see me?”
Sethos tips his head backwards, heedless of Scaramouche’s complaints, likely to get a good glimpse of his face. Whatever he sees there must amuse him, because his eyes spark dangerously.
“Dear,” Sethos repeats, and it's frustrating, really, the way sparks drizzle down Scaramouche’s spine. Frustrating, and crystal clear to Sethos’ gaze. He smirks. “Huh. What, that throws you off?”
“ What? No,” Scaramouche stresses, and it’s clearly a lie — well, not in general, but certainly to Sethos, who in the expanse of the last few months has unfortunately learned to read him like a book. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Mmh.” His forehead knocks against the innermost of Scaramouche’s bare wrist. “Your hands are shaking.”
“You know, I’m starting to believe you are physically unable to shut up.”
“I can’t help that my mouth gets all loose and stupid around you,” Sethos says, and Scaramouche makes a point of shoving his head forward. “Ouchie!”
“Would you keep still so I can finish?”
“Yessir,” Sethos salutes, and for the record, really does keep still while Scaramouche goes about his work.
It's a deep enough wound to need stitching, which Scaramouche will definitely not provide, but he manages to do surface damage control: Sumeru Roses to numb, Lumidouce to accelerate cicatrization, Snapdragons as a disinfectant. Once it is clean — still disgusting, yes, but with a much lower risk of putrefying —, he wraps a thick set of bandages around the expanse of Sethos’ back, then over his shoulder and around his waist to secure the binding. It looks a bit overdone once Scaramouche is finished with it, but Sethos had willingly asked for someone with a shallow comprehension of first-aid to do this, so this is what his bidding will get him.
“There,” Scaramouche says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as strained as it feels. “It’s done. Are you happy?”
Sethos rolls back his shoulders carefully, the bandages wrinkling along with the motion. Scaramouche nearly reaches out to smoothen them before he stops himself. A loud pop echoes through the room, and Sethos sags back into the chair with a prolonged sigh.
“Woah. I don’t feel a thing. ‘S like I’m born again!”
“Yeah, right.” Scaramouche tears his gaze away to busy himself with the aid kit, stuffing the leftover bandages and salves back into the case with much more diligence than it was probably needed. “Since you decided to be stupid, you’ll probably need to get that stitched in the future, and I’ll sure as hell not be the one doing it. Get yourself another errand boy to sew your skin back, or whatever.”
“Aw, shucks. But you’re the only errand boy I’ve got! What should I do then?”
“Die, maybe,” Scaramouche suggests lightly, then makes the mistake of looking at Sethos again.
Sethos has tipped his head backwards once more, making the loose bun Scaramouche had poorly tied atop of his head come undone, his hair curling down the backrest in a cascade of chocolate browns and sunlight beige. His eyes are trained on Scaramouche’s face, watching him intently, something molten and suffocating pinning him in place.
It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking now. It’s usually not; Sethos is of the sort to wear his heart on his sleeve for those who have been let in.
“I’ve missed you,” Sethos tells him, soft, quiet. Ah. So that’s what it was.
Scaramouche’s hands twitch around the case. After some feeble, internal discussion, he decides to reach out.
His fingers rest on Sethos’ forehead, and Sethos flutters his eyes shut. From there, they wander: Scaramouche traces his eyebrows, then slides down to his temples, then walks a line along the bridge of his nose, fingers caressing the slopes of his cheeks. Some flakes of skin come out in their wake.
“Your face is peeling off,” Scaramouche mumbles. “Didn’t the fox from Amurta give you a lotion to fend off the sunrays?”
Sethos laughs, something genuine kicked from deep within his chest. “Oh, sunshine, I was born and raised in those parts! What use would some florest lotion have?”
“You—” Scaramouche starts, and it must be quite obvious that the nickname is what makes him choke mid-word, because Sethos giggles. He briefly contemplates snooping into Irminsul just to erase himself from existence again. “Shut up.”
Sethos sighs. It’s fond, and wistful and exasperated all at once. He cups Scaramouche’s face in his calloused hands, battered by the sand-winds, and traces the arch of his cupid’s bow with his pinkie.
“I really did miss you,” he whispers.
Their eyes meet, and Sethos’ glint with something sharper than wistfulness, more wanton than adoration. For a moment, it becomes hard to breathe.
“You really must’ve gone mad,” replies Scaramouche, because love stirs restlessness in his stomach, flame both warm and ruthless. His hands are shaking badly again, so he takes to tying off Sethos’ hair back in its usual ponytail.
“I wish you had come with us,” Sethos goes on, whining. “Tighnari and Cyno are awesome people, for sure, but they wouldn’t stop making bed eyes at each other all the time. Like, I’m here too, y’know! I can see you!”
“I hardly believe that big brother of yours could stand to be in a room with me for longer than 10 minutes.”
“It’s not like that. You’re just… Well, you’re kinda, like…” Sethos clicks his tongue. “It’s hard to explain.”
Scaramouche huffs, “Utterly wretched?”
“Hey, don’t say that.” He sneaks a glance at Sethos’ face; he’s pouting. “You’re not wretched. As far as I’m concerned, I happen to find you the loveliest guy in a hat around. Ever, actually. You’re the prettiest guy in a hat to have ever crossed the Akademiya’s gates. You know what? I think they should start studying you—”
Possessed by some horrid, lovestruck entity, Scaramouche kisses him very lightly on the temple. It makes Sethos laugh, breathless and surprised.
“What was that, all of a sudden?”
There are many things he could say to that. Because this is the first time he has loved something without breaking it. Because this is the first time someone has seen him so bare, has made a hummingbird out of the gaping hole in his chest — has made him believe, against all reason, that it might not be so empty after all.
Scaramouche has never wanted anything measuredly before. The gnosis, power, love; he still wonders, sometimes, if it’s something he can come to learn, how to care for something and not sunder it, how to keep his emotions steered rather than letting them consume him. It was hard then, so hard it nearly killed him, but now, at least regarding this, regarding Sethos, it feels different. A pressure that builds up from his throat, strong enough to cloud his senses, yet not so intense as to smother them: a comfortable weight curling itself around his make-believe heart, like a cat stretching around the sun.
Instead of replying, he presses his nose to Sethos’ hair and breathes the sea and the sand and something like sunlight, if sunlight even has a scent, a tinge of coal underneath it all. It hasn’t changed from the couple other times he has done exactly this. Two months may not be a lifetime, after all.
(Scaramouche wonders if he'd ever be able to wait that long, a lifetime, and figures affection must've really made a fool out of him.)
“Hey,” Sethos whispers, one hand patting Scaramouche’s cheek, “let me see you.”
Scaramouche pushes Sethos’ nape down, forcing him to bow his head with a low oof.
“No. You’re going to say something cheesy and terrible and ruin this for both of us.”
“Should have taken that into account before going all sweet and needy with me, but okay!”
“I was not being needy,” Scaramouche scoffs.
“Were too,” Sethos sings. Once Scaramouche has let go of him, he leans back again, and grins up at him smugly. “‘S okay, yeah? I love it when you act like that.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.” Sethos puckers his lips. At Scaramouche’s deadpan silence, he cackles. “Gods, I’ve missed you!”
“Jeez, I know, you said that twice already—”
“Honey.”
And the way he says it, it’s — it’s something terrible, really, just as Scaramouche had predicted, all dragged syllables and tender intonation, his eyes fervid, swallowing him whole like quicksand.
Sethos raises his arms towards him with grabby hands, and it looks quite odd considering he’s facing upside down, but not odd enough to strengthen Scaramouche’s will to deny. Not that it had any force to begin with. When it comes to this, he’s as pliant as pliant can get.
“C’mere?” Sethos coaxes, oh so tentatively, and well. It’s sort of the nail in the coffin.
Usually, he likes to pride himself on his resilience. Nahida will instead call it stubbornness, yes, and the Traveler’s companion often refers to it as ‘block-headedness’, but it does not change the fact that Scaramouche can be an immovable object when he so desires. Today is not one of those days.
Today, he is weak and a man in love, which might as well be synonyms, and so he goes easily when Sethos finally wraps his hands around his forearms and tugs.
“Ah, I knew it,” Sethos chimes, so obnoxiously self-satisfied as he guides Scaramouche to straddle his lap. He doesn’t sit just yet, just to be annoying, which seemingly amuses Sethos to no end. “You love pet names, don’t ya? Makes you all sweet and earnest!”
“I hate you,” Scaramouche grits out. A part of him prays Sethos doesn’t notice how hard he’s pinching the back of his thigh, just to keep himself from reaching out and doing something he’ll likely regret later. “You’re disgusting.”
“Mhm, I’m sure.”
“I should’ve left you to bleed out outside,” Scaramouche goes on, under his breath, because Sethos has suddenly taken upon himself to map out the full expanse of his neck with his lips, one hand sliding down to cover the one Scaramouche had on his thigh. “And die— ah, die alone.”
“You should have indeed.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Yeah,” Sethos breathes against his throat, sucks the skin red and tender, “whatever you say, love.”
Love, he says, and Scaramouche shudders as if he’s been slathered in Cryo essence.
As if to inspect the damage, Sethos settles back on the chair, lips reddened and moist. He looks like an asshole, truly, wearing smugness as his coat of arms, legs spreading Scaramouche’s open so he doesn’t have the chance to hide. Scaramouche kind of wants to give him a beating. Many kinds of beatings. Very specific kinds of beatings.
He has never wanted anything measuredly before. He looks at Sethos now, his bright green eyes peeling Scaramouche's layers one by one, open and expectant, and finds that, once again, yearning simmers and boils and melts away all of his defenses.
Sethos’ eyes flicker with resolution. Soon, his hands have found their way to Scaramouche’s face.
Careful fingers grace his forehead, then hover down softly, so softly the touch is barely present, all the way to the arch of his nose, underneath his lower lip. Sethos dips his thumb in, digging into the plump flesh. There, it lingers, warm, scorching. He tugs down ever so slightly, testing how it gives.
Scaramouche does the very thing he knew he would regret: he wraps his lips around it and sucks.
“Ah.” Sethos laughs weakly, hoarse like he’s making an effort to speak. His eyes are shimmering. Scaramouche feels as if he’s going to drown. “You’re really something, aren’t ya?”
Perhaps Scaramouche really hasn’t changed. He takes, and he takes, and he tears it asunder.
“Why did you come back?” To me, he doesn’t say. Instead, he adds, “To the forest.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“What’s in it for you?”
“Mora, for starters,” Sethos starts, and at each word his fingers slide one inch upwards under Scaramouche’s shorts, “experience. The Akademiya, too, though that’s kinda debatable.”
Meanwhile, his other hand deftly unties the obi around Scaramouche’s hakama. He makes quick work of it, somehow, which happens to be both puzzling and embarrassingly hot; once it falls to the ground, his shorts immediately loosen, becoming naught but a bunch of fabric around his pelvis held up solely by the hands Sethos has on him.
“Doesn’t sound like much of a bargain to me,” Scaramouche grits out at the same time Sethos fully wraps a hand around his thigh.
“You, too,” Sethos hums, leaning down slowly, slowly — and then he’s mouthing at Scaramouche’s lower belly, and it takes him a full body effort not to gasp out loud. “Wherever else would I be, love, when you’re right’ere?”
He darts his tongue out and traces a steady line down, down, downwards; past the hem of Scaramouche’s underwear, both fingers hooked in the seams, sliding it off as he goes. Scaramouche’s shorts bunch around his heels, and he has no time to try and cover himself before Sethos takes him into his mouth, all at once, without warning.
“Shit—” Scaramouche gasps, throwing his arms around Sethos head to steady himself as his legs seize and shake. One of his hands curls over Sethos’ scapula, against the rough surface of the— the fucking bandages, because they’re there, of course they are— “Idiot, you’re— ah, fuck, you’re hurt—”
Sethos slides back all the way to the tip, letting it rest heavy on his tongue, then mouths at the side of his dick, all the way to the base. “Not’n my mouth,” he mutters there, and the vibrations reverberate down Scaramouche’s spine.
“As if you’ll—” Sethos does some horrible, twisting thing with his fist, and Scaramouche bites hard on his tongue so as not to wail. “Fucking wait— as if you’ll stop there!”
"Mhmm. If you ask nicely.” Sethos peeks up at him. He looks beautiful even battered down, his eyes a forest of their own. His hands begin to wander upward, inquisitive — proselytizing, converting Scaramouche’s hesitance into eagerness with the very pads of his fingers. “‘S hard to get enough of you, is all.”
Scaramouche raises his eyebrows. “Did the desert melt your brains out? When did you become so—”
“Debauched?” Sethos asks, grinning.
“Insufferable,” Scaramouche bites back. Sethos’ hands finally reach their target, which so happens to be Scaramouche’s undershirt. His haori has already slipped down more than halfway down his back, and without the obi tying it together, it flutters easily to the ground behind him. “I must thank you for continuously proving me right. Will you get off me now?”
“I don’t hear you complaining!”
“That’s quite literally all I am doing—” His voice breaks into a moan as Sethos’ hand slips under his shirt and tweaks at his nipple. When Scaramouche blinks, coming back to himself, the shirt has slipped off him altogether. “Fuck.”
“Not anymore,” Sethos adds cheerfully. In a grand, spectacular moment of weakness, Scaramouche laughs through his nose.
He doesn’t get a chance to pretend it never happened, because Sethos’ eyes go wide and large and surprised. Like a string snapped taut, in one quick, practiced motion, he grabs hold of Scaramouche’s waist and sits him roughly on his lap, then snakes a hand within his hair and pulls him down for a bruising kiss.
It’s all teeth, then all tongue, then some messy, dizzying thing in between the two, one that makes every hair in Scaramouche’s body stand on end. Sethos licks at the roof of his mouth, at the innermost of his gums, and, once he’s managed to come to his senses, Scaramouche responds with double the effort, taking hold of Sethos’ jaw and yanking it open to suck hard on his tongue.
Sethos shudders, his whole body rattling in a low growl. Scaramouche grins against his mouth. It feels a bit too satisfying to give him a taste of his own medicine, for once.
“See— you’re worse off than I am,” Sethos tells him weakly. Scaramouche can feel Sethos’ hard-on poking at leg, so he doesn’t bother replying.
He tries going for another kiss, but Sethos pulls him closer by the waist and presses his lips to his clavicles. It’s then, distantly, that Scaramouche remembers the bandages around Sethos’ own body, and makes a meek attempt at pushing his shoulder.
“Wait— you’ll jostle your wounds,” Scaramouche breathes out, arching into the way Sethos nuzzles his chest, teeth grazing in-between his pecs as if meaning to bite his way into his heart. “They’ll— ah, they’ll open up and get even uglier, and I won’t patch you up even if— even if you ask nicely.”
Their foreheads pressed together, Sethos looks at him mirthfully. He looks so candid like this, pupils blown out, slick-lipped, flush-faced. You wouldn’t guess he was ready to tear Scaramouche apart at the seams.
Scaramouche kind of wants to eat him alive. He feels like the prey and the hunter, all at once.
“You’ll do other stuff, though?” Sethos’ hands gingerly travel to Scaramouche’s ribs, tracing light circles that reach just short of his nipples. “If I ask nicely?”
Scaramouche knows he’d actually do anything — it is not something he’s particularly proud of.
“I’ll think about it,” he says instead, and dives for Sethos’ mouth again.
They both gasp when his bare dick comes to contact with the bulge on Sethos’ pants, a large, wet spot draped over the tenting fabric. Sethos pinches Scaramouche’s belly like he’s embarrassed. If he didn’t know better, Scaramouche would call it adorable.
“Do you have—” Sethos tries to say, intercepted by Scaramouche biting his lower lip, “ah, Scara, wait—lube?”
“Vaseline,” replies Scaramouche, “in the med kit.”
Sethos blinks. “Is that even safe? Or hygienic?”
It truly baffles him how this is the moment when Sethos chooses to be prudent. Scaramouche bites down hard on his neck, earning him a sharp groan.
His patience is wearing thin, chipping him off from the insides. He’d rather die again than admit that he’ll likely throw a fit if he doesn’t get Sethos in him within the next 10 minutes or so.
“Make me wait another second and I’ll kick you out right now,” Scaramouche mutters instead, and Sethos laughs.
“Now, now, let’s not be hasty.” He starts to lean forward, but Scaramouche tugs back at his ponytail demandingly. Just to be a brat. “Ouchie. Alright, princess, I got the memo. Hold on tight, now.”
Scaramouche blinks. “What—”
Sethos stands up, lifting Scaramouche along, and strides to the table where the first-aid dutifully lays. With Scaramouche hanging off of him, supported only by a hand Sethos has on his asscheek and Scaramouche's shins hooked around his back, he fishes out the bottle of vaseline from the bundle of utensils, then walks until the back of his knees hit the bed; there, he scoots backwards until he's leaning against the bed frame, Scaramouche still straddling him, sat snug on his lap.
“There you go, mooncake,” Sethos says cheekily, too cheekily for someone who has both hands hooked around Scaramouche’s ass and just paraded his personal strength like it was nothing. “Was that too hard for you?”
Scaramouche’s eyes dwell on a single vein that had popped up in Sethos’ left arm due to the exertion. Not trusting himself to retort coherently, he opts for rolling his hips roughly onto Sethos’ crotch instead.
It entices quite the satisfactory reaction. He snatches the bottle to himself, and dribbles a significant amount over his fingers.
“Spread me out,” Scaramouche demands, and Sethos makes a punched sound from the back of his throat. He obeys, because of course he does, and they gasp in tandem once Scaramouche’s hole is fully exposed. “Mhm. Now hold it, just like that.”
“Lemme do it?” Sethos mumbles into his hair, swallows the gasp that escapes Scaramouche once he gets the first finger in. “Please?”
Astoundingly, he’s worked up enough that the second finger slips in just as seamlessly as the first. This is both very convenient and absolutely mortifying. Sethos’ grip tightens around his ass cheeks, and Scaramouche grunts.
“No.” He scissors himself dutifully, hips jutting forwards the deeper they reach — just short of perfect, not nearly enough. There’s enough vaseline that the slide is nearly ticklish, and it drips all over Sethos’ clothes.
That fact seems to do something to Sethos’ integrity. He lets out a sound between a groan and a plea, his hands spasming. “C’mon. Please? You can’t just make me watch all the time.”
“That’s— exactly what I’m doing,” Scaramouche sighs. He leans forward to rest his forehead on the crease of Sethos’ neck, propping his ass up and burying his fingers as deep as they can reach, which happens to be just what he needs, right where he wants it. He adds a third, and they brush against his prostate delightfully. Scaramouche moans right into Sethos’ earlobe, tiny sighs of pleasure that slip out of him in tandem with his prodding.
“You’re really…” Sethos starts. He laughs, not at anything in particular; he’s breathless and a bit delirious, and Scaramouche feels all too self-satisfied because of it. “It’s— You’re being super unfair now, if you wanna know.”
“Am I?”
“Scara.”
He’s all serious now. Scaramouche could preen, if only he had the strength to. Sethos is pulsing like crazy in his pants, though, and he’s stretched out enough to feel annoyed about it.
It’s with some testiness that he slips Sethos’ pants off, and with some restlessness that he douses vaseline all over his cock, far too gone to care for the mess anymore. Sethos laughs at that, then stops laughing when Scaramouche holds him up, rubs the crease of his ass against the shaft just to ease himself into it.
“Hold your breath for me,” he croaks out, and starts sinking.
They groan when the tip presses in, the slide tortuous and addicting. Sethos helps him go down, inch by inch, pressing into his hips upward gently, an idle hand climbing up each knob of Scaramouche’s spine as he bottoms out with a loud cry. Two months isn’t a lifetime, but it sure feels like it as the weight settles within him, everywhere all at once, nowhere near enough. He’s so full, it almost feels like Sethos could spear right through him.
He rolls his hips in circles, once, twice, testing the pressure. Sethos feels so deep. It’s enough to leave him breathless.
“Need a moment?” Sethos chuckles, as if he’s not barely hanging there himself. Very well then, Scaramouche thinks drunkenly. He lifts his hips up, just shy of Sethos’ dick slipping out, and drops back down unceremoniously. “Fucking shit.”
It goes both ways. Scaramouche cries out, fingers digging into Sethos’ shoulders, while Sethos fuck upwards without meaning to, his whole body seizing for a whole second before he steadies himself with a deep breath. Need a moment, Scaramouche wants to say. He can’t really find his voice.
“...Please move,” Sethos begs in a whisper. And since he asked so nicely.
It’s a full body effort to bounce on Sethos’ lap when it reaches every lovely spot within him, working his hips up and down, up and down, the echo of skin slapping skin so loud and obscene it ignites him from the inside out, a hearth and a boiler and liquid warmth bubbling up his belly. Sethos’ cock rubs his prostate raw to live wire, Scaramouche grinding back into the spark until the skin of his ass turns bright red, until he can do little but mindlessly seek after the pleasure.
“Pretty little thing,” he groans into Scaramouche’s throat, palms his torso down to the crease of his ass, upfront to his dick, “so pretty, love, you take it so well.”
“Don’t touch me,” Scaramouche gasps, tangling his hands with Sethos’ shakily. He’s afraid it’ll tip him over the edge, with how pulled taut he feels. “Watch.”
Sethos’s eyes are trained on his face. They’re so green, Scaramouche wonders if there’s something wrong with them. There’s something wrong with him, surely, for getting so riled up by the way they watch him. It’s less that he’s been torn apart from insides, and more like he had already pried himself open to Sethos’ pleasure from the start.
“You’re beautiful,” he says. Sick, hot-white satisfaction shoots up Scaramouche’s spine. “Really.”
He wants Sethos to sing prayers.
He does not sing, but the praises he presses on Scaramouche’s open mouth strike him relentlessly, wave after wave after wave, as if each cord in his gut is attached to one in the cadence of Sethos’ voice. Scaramouche’s pace grows to a point where it becomes hard to kiss, or think, or do anything but sink deeper and harder, just to feel his body light up a little more, just to hear Sethos pleading a little louder.
Sethos yanks his mouth open with two fingers pressing down his lower lip. Scaramouche doesn’t have to think about it for longer than a second. He relaxes his throat, and takes the knuckles all the way in.
Through his lids, he holds Sethos’ gaze and moans. The way he melts is nearly funny.
“Scara,” Sethos croaks out, his voice a cloud and a storm — it’s tangible in the way he moves, how he fucks upward thoughtlessly, digging rashes onto the fair skin of Scaramouche’s waist on the attempt at steering himself, “Scara, honey, c’mon, please —”
It’s so rare to see him like this, so restless, so out of himself his eyes overflow. Scaramouche burries his fingers into Sethos’ fringe and tugs it back, and Sethos buckles up with a hoarse cry, sliding further down the bed frame and burying himself so impossibly deeper, so much so Scaramouche’s whole body singes.
“No,” Scaramouche gasps, circumventing his hips slowly and sinking back down at each turn, “not until I do.”
“Then lemme help. Y’know I can make you feel good, love.”
His hips stutter. Scaramouche settles back with a groan. “Stop that.”
“You like it so much,” Sethos intones with a smirk, all lilted and unbearable. “Your body’s super honest, y’know that? You tighten up so good when I say it—”
Scaramouche clenches down with purpose. It shuts Sethos up, that it does, but he claws at Scaramouche’s back hard enough that it makes him hiss.
The ache is delicious. Still, Sethos presses butterfly kisses all over his face, apologetic, just so fucking earnest, mumbling, “‘M sorry, honey, ‘m really sorry.”
His hands are shaking when he brushes back the hair that is matted to Scaramouche’s forehead with sweat. He’s heaving like he’s just come up for air after drowning, desperately, and still, he doesn’t push. Just sits there, pliant, beautiful, sucking in deep breaths that shudder out like sobs, mapping out Scaramouche’s body in trails of red and white, patching him up everywhere he has held onto hard enough to bruise.
He’s done so well. Scaramouche supposes he has won it by now, the poor thing.
“Go on.” Scaramouche places Sethos’ fingers where his cock disappears into his hole, spit-slick, loose and pliant. “Take what you need, little bee.”
Just like that, it’s like a switch flips. Sethos moves like a man possessed.
He slips out, the loss leaving a gaping cold in its wake, and Scaramouche topples back on the bed, decidedly unwrapped and thoroughly disgruntled. Sethos just looks at him, for a moment, each arm on one side of his hips. He lowers in between Scaramouche’s thighs, slowly, slowly, biting a reddened path downwards, and presses his nose to the coarse hair that trails happily to Scaramouche’s weeping cock.
“Gods,” he whispers, right there, “you’re lovely.”
Scaramouche hiccups, clenching around nothing. It kinda hurts, and it’s lonely, and Scaramouche didn’t know he was this susceptible to becoming a little whore by simply being loved the way he wanted.
“Come on, asshole, do something.”
Sethos chuckles. “You’re so mouthy. It’s kinda adorable.”
He climbs up and captures Scaramouche’s mouth in a kiss before he can advocate. His head is spinning, just distantly registers how the tip of Sethos’ cock slips twice before catching on his rim, then flares up once he starts inching in, less gentle than before, much more urgent. When Scaramouche pulls his hair again, long loosened from the ponytail, he slams forward without a warning.
Scaramouche barely has time to navigate the new angle as Sethos takes, and takes, and takes, hoisting his leg upwards so it rests on the curve of his neck and pounding forward until Scaramouche hitches upward in the bed, until his voice cracks as he attempts to regain control of something, anything. Sethos’ eyes never leave his face, and whatever he sees compels him to fasten his pace ruthlessly — he pulls Scaramouche’s hips to meet his thrusts, tiny ah, ah, ah’s escaping his mouth before he can even help to register them.
It feels like he’s constantly being filled, like he’s dying and resurfacing and sinking back down, helpless to do anything but take it.
“Sethos,” Scaramouche warns under his breath, and Sethos’ hips stutter.
“Didn’t think you knew my name,” he breathes out, laughing when Scaramouche groans into his cheek. “Yeah, I know. I’ve got you, love, ‘s okay. I’ve got you, hm? Let go.”
Sethos wrings one hand in his nape and the other on the small of his back, hoisting him forward so they’re chest to chest, and Scaramouche is half-sitting on his lap. It hits deeper than it had before, so deep Scaramouche can swear he feels it on his throat — his whole body tingles with the sheer intensity of it.
He cries out, and everything goes numb. He’s going to fall, he’s sure of it; he’s going to fall, and fall, and keep falling until he breaks—
“You take it so well, honey,” Sethos shifts him snugly in his lap, and Scaramouche’s hands and heels craft chains around his torso, “let me make you feel good, okay?”
Scaramouche hangs to his shoulders like a lifeline, scrambling to gather his bearings as Sethos’ pounds him deep and deep and deeper, Sethos whispering wet into his ear, let go, love, I’m here, I’m here and then a burst of cotton filling his senses. His orgasm hits him like a wave, crashing into his body all at once and draining whatever force he was exerting not to fall backwards and take Sethos along with him.
That’s exactly what he does, each member of his body twitching as Sethos makes him ride it out, slowly and languidly, dragging Scaramouche up all the way to the tip before slamming him back down in one swift move. It’s too much, it’s too little, it keeps on coming. He tries to run away from it, but Sethos holds him down and presses right where he needs it, the blunt head of his cock molding Scaramouche’s whole body to its shape.
“That’s it,” Sethos whispers, but he’s pinning Scaramouche down even as he trashes in oversensitivity, his kindness all bite and bark, “that’s it, you’re doing so well. So much’s coming out, honey.”
The nickname is a low blow. Scaramouche cries out loudly; it feels like he comes again, like it’s wrung out of him mercilessly, making him arch his back violently and grip the sheets hard enough that they creak in protest.
“Sethos,” Scaramouche breathes onto his cheek, “inside.”
That’s all it takes, really.
Sethos’ thrusts lose their rhythm, and his body curls in towards Scaramouche like moth to flame. His face pinches like he’s in pain, mouth agape, brow furrowed — he makes a low, languid noise that rumbles from his chest upward, his body seizes and shudders, and then he’s coming deep inside of Scaramouche, riding it out so desperately some of it gobbles out and rivets down his thighs.
“There it is, little bee,” Scaramouche tells him quietly, rubbing their noses together, “you did well.”
Somehow, that act in itself feels more intimate than anything they had done before.
Sethos buries his head on Scaramouche’s neck and sucks in a wet breath. Slowly, his hips stop stuttering, and he loses strength right there. Which means he promptly drops onto Scaramouche’s equally weak body.
“Get off,” Scaramouche drawls, giving Sethos’ shoulder a weak push. “You’re suffocating me.”
“‘M not. Don’t be cruel— I think I’ll die if I move right now.”
Scaramouche feels the same, obviously, but it’s not like he’ll let it show after the extensive display of vulnerability he just showcased. Well. He supposes it’s okay to rest for a moment. The weight isn’t really smothering, just grounding, which is — which is worse, actually, by far.
He takes to playing with the knobs of Sethos’ spine absentmindedly.
After a couple of minutes, their breaths even out. Sethos doesn’t lift his head from where he has buried it on Scaramouche’s stomach. It’s when he flattens his hand against Sethos’ scapula that he notices it is humid with something other than sweat, something thick and sticky and coppery in scent.
Scaramouche sighs. “You’re bleeding out,” he says. Sethos grunts. He doesn’t make a single effort to raise his head. Doesn’t look the slightest bit bothered. “Did you even hear me?”
“You’re so mouthy,” Sethos whines, resting his chin on Scaramouche’s belly. “Why aren’t you all quiet and fucked out? I thought I had done well?”
Scaramouche’s cheeks burn. “Shut the fuck up.”
“We’ll just clean it up again, it’s fine,” Sethos continues his argument. “You disinfected it very well!”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“You don’t—”
“Honey,” Sethos chides. Scaramouche’s mouth falls shut with a painful click. Sethos’ whole face lights up. “Oh my God. I feel like I just discovered some ultra-hidden, game-changing government secret. Look at your face!”
“I’m going to kill you with my bare hands.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been waiting to see you try,” Sethos rests his head down again. They lull into a comfortable silence for a solid minute, Scaramouche mentally cursing his past-twenty-minutes-ago-self’s lack of self-restraint for making his current self eventually re-do the bandaging, Sethos playing with the innermost of Scaramouche’s thigh. That is, until Sethos breaks it with, “...love.”
Scaramouche’s hand fly to his face. He groans at the same time Sethos bursts into laughter.
(And that pretty much sums how Scaramouche’s heart sings for him.)