Work Text:
Qrow has hickies on his neck.
This is not out of the ordinary for Qrow.
More particularly, Qrow has hickies on his neck that aren’t from James.
Also not a rare occurrence.
Yet, more particularly still, James hadn’t slept a second on the shuttle to Vale. He'd spent the journey at war with an unforgiving seat cushion, aggravating the familiar dull ache where his flesh half fused with metal, making his thoughts thick and sluggish, all culminating in mood that bittered into pissed-the-fuck-off when he walked into Ozpin’s office and saw Qrow had hickies on his neck that weren’t from James.
Ozpin is, hopefully, not saying anything vital because James can’t tear his attention away from Qrow who, as far as James can tell, hasn’t noticed his observation. Glynda has given up trying to prod him into attentiveness with the point of her heel.
Qrow spins the top of his flask open with one ringed finger, baring the pale straight of his throat, marked with red-violet, as he tips his head back to drink. James is closely acquainted with the way Qrow bruises. Last night, if he had to make an educated guess.
Qrow was coming straight off a mission—a long one. Though unsure what Ozpin has him doing, exactly, James does know that Qrow doesn’t typically have a chance to (how had he put it once?) “get railed during recon across enemy lines, Jim.”
He thinks about Qrow, in all his scarred and angular glory, spread out beneath someone else. Trying to muffle those needy noises behind his long fingers. Trying to pretend he’s not desperate after so long alone with his hand. Trying not to come while someone else wrings the pleasure out of his body.
There’s a burst of iron on James’ tongue.
He breaks his stare to wipe his bloody lip.
...
The elevator fills up quickly with professors leaving for the day. The ones who aren’t too tired to notice him give him polite smiles and respectful nods, which he returns in kind. As they cram in, Qrow is jostled back against James, who turns slightly, caging the hunter against the side wall.
It’s partly to keep Qrow from the crush of the crowd. It’s also a chance for James to stare down unabashedly at Qrow’s neck, expression cool and somewhat pointed. One eyebrow raised in silent challenge.
Qrow glares up at James. Slight pink colors his cheeks under the examination, and he looks away first.
“Fix your staring problem,” Qrow grunts after they shuffle out of the elevator onto the floor where Ozpin hosts them.
“Please. You’re practically begging for the attention.” James follows a pace behind Qrow. “I’m quite sure Ozpin would loan you a scarf. The man has an abundance.”
“Now why,” Qrow mocks deep offence, “would I want to deprive anyone of my collarbones?”
James doesn’t bother to ask why Qrow hasn’t activated his aura to speed the healing process. The only time Qrow’s aura was up was when he was active—alone—in the field.
They’ve reached Qrow’s room, but he doesn’t reach for his keycard, just leans against the jamb with his arms crossed, suddenly smug.
“You certainly didn’t mind the view during the briefing. I’m not catching you up on what he said, by the way. You’ll have to ask Glynda for that,” he adds with barely contained glee.
Little, James is reminded, gets past Qrow’s senses, even when he’s compromised by 50% ABV.
Ignoring him, James flicks open the first button on Qrow’s shirt with one hand and tugs the fabric aside. Qrow shivers at the cold brush of metal fingers but doesn't pull away.
His muscular chest is marked up with more bruises. To James’ utter annoyance, there’s a fierce, red bite mark around one of the barbells through Qrow’s nipples—one of James’ favorite ways to shut Qrow up when he’s mouthing off.
Which is most, if not all, of the time.
James releases his shirt collar with a scoff. “What did you do, spread your legs for the first person you saw after you landed?”
“Showered first.” Qrow winks, making no move to redo the button. “Why? Wishing I waited for you?”
James ignores the simpering faux-pity and doesn’t dignify this with a response.
“I think he was bigger than you,” Qrow says conversationally.
That sends a searing stripe of anger down James’ spine. Such a stupid thing to get hot over, but then, Qrow has always had the uncanny ability to get under James’ skin faster than anyone.
“He wasn’t.” James commends his own ability to keep his voice steady.
“Maybe,” Qrow admits. “It had been a while.” Then, with a mocking and purposeful moan to his words: “Filled me up so easily.”
James makes up his mind not to be nice about this.
Qrow thumbs open his flask, but James snatches it before he can take a swig and crowds him back against the wall. He grips Qrow’s jaw in the other, metal hand.
“Open.”
Qrow doesn’t move. His eyes flicker up to James’, defiant beneath his long lashes.
James works his fingers painfully into Qrow's cheek muscles until Qrow allows his lips to be forced open. James spits onto Qrow's studded tongue, upends the almost-gone flask of whiskey in after.
With supreme satisfaction, James sees, Qrow holds it in his mouth without being asked, waiting until James commands, “Swallow.” Then, his mottled throat bobs and the sick cocktail disappears.
“You,” James says at the bottom of his voice, leaning forward to graze Qrow’s ear, “do not make yourself particularly difficult to fill.”
James drags his hand down around Qrow’s throat, savoring Qrow’s attempts to keep still when he scrapes his thumbnail over the sensitive marks. Qrow’s pulse pounds like prey, eyes red and cornered, the bits of yesterday’s dark eyeliner blurring from the burn of the alcohol.
He'd put on makeup for this guy.
Grabbing the long strands at the nape of Qrow’s neck (he had the time to fuck a stranger but not to get a haircut, it seemed) James tugs Qrow’s head back hard. At this, Qrow’s pained hiss ends in a hitching of breath.
James throbs in his trousers.
After marking over some of the hickies with his own darker handiwork and biting an original into the meat above Qrow’s aforementioned collarbones, James says, “You aren’t going to remember his name when I'm finished.”
Qrow shudders and spits, “Jealousy’s a bad look on you, Jimmy.”
“I assure you, it’s not jealousy, Branwen,” James snaps. “I just don’t like seeing my things used.”
Qrow twists his wrists in James’s grasp, throat working, a redly desperate flush rushing to his cheeks. He won’t look at James.
He says, “Not yours,” which is a stupid thing to say, and he knows it when James pins him face-first into the wall.
Because Qrow doesn’t do repeat performances in the bedroom—with one exception. And while they’ve never sat down to dissect why, exactly, they keep circling each other, trading moth and flame, it always comes back to this.
“Do you need a reminder?” James’ voice is cool, the other question implicit.
“Yes,” Qrow gasps, to both.
…
Glynda has her own place in Vale. When they’re in town, it’s just Qrow and James staying in the guest wing. Far too many rooms for just two men who often wind up tangled in each other’s sheets.
Despite the silent hallways around them, Qrow keeps his lips pressed together in a tight white line, relegating his groans to hitched breaths that die in the back of his throat.
“Oh, now you’re interested in being shy.”
Qrow is still against the wall, hands pinned behind his back, but now James has Qrow’s pants around his thighs and two self-lubricating metal fingers teasing him open. James’ mood is turning around terrifically.
“We’re in the—fuck—fucking h-hallway, you bastard.”
James barks a laugh. “Are you seriously going to try and convince me that if someone walked down that hallway right now,” he nips at Qrow’s jaw to get him to look, “and saw you bent over like this, getting finger-fucked by the general of Atlas, that you wouldn’t come on the spot?”
Qrow hides his face against the wall, but his ears go scarlet, and he can’t stop himself from clenching around James’ fingers.
James snorts. “I thought so.”
Something muffled from the man beneath him.
“Pardon?”
“Hurry up and—ah—just fuck me already.”
James stops moving his fingers.
“Branwen,” he says, voice low with controlled emotion, “I haven’t seen you in months . And when I do, you’re covered in—you’re—” he pauses, collects himself. “And you have the audacity to demand I hurry up and fuck you already?”
Qrow grins, wry and sideways. “That a no?”
James does not smile. “You should beg like you mean it.”
By the time James gets around to adding another finger, he’s released Qrow’s hands in favor of supporting the smaller man with an arm wrapped around his torso. Qrow’s legs are shaking so hard James isn’t sure he’d be upright without it.
The downside: with his hands free, Qrow has resorted to covering his mouth to stifle the noises forcing their way out of him. The upside: at this angle, James has torn open the remaining buttons on Qrow’s shirt to play with his nipple piercings, which is part of the reason Qrow is having such a time staying quiet.
James sends another gush of lube out of his finger as he slides the third in. Qrow squirms against James, making a sound that’s half-satisfied, half-pained.
“You’re joking,” James says scornfully. He pauses, letting Qrow adjust, but can’t resist taunting, “You’re tapping out at three, and you think he was bigger than me?”
Qrow’s hand falls away from his mouth as he braces his forearm against the wall. “Jim,” he rasps, somehow maintaining the air of explaining to a very dull child, “not sure if you’ve noticed, but you have these huge fucking sausage fingers—”
James seizes the opportunity and works his fingers against Qrow’s prostate. Qrow moans, the first genuine, unrestrained sound he’s made—and it’s the best thing James has heard in six months.
That’s right, James thinks in a far-off part of his brain. I know what you need, baby.
What he says, scathing, is, “Gods, you sound like a whore.”
“Please.” Qrow’s voice has a desperate, cut-glass edge to it. He turns enough for James to see the leftover eyeliner smudged down his cheeks, eyes glossy.
He says, panting, “Please,” and “James,” and “I'm sorry, please—”
And James finds some mercy in his heart.
…
When he has Qrow’s ass to him like this (over a bed or a counter or, in this case, against the wall) James likes to slide his metal cock between Qrow’s cheeks. To tease, yes. But also, though he’d be loath to admit it, to feed his ego.
Lube drips obscenely out of Qrow, slicking James as he rocks his hips. Against Qrow’s tailbone, tip reaching nearly halfway up Qrow’s spine, his cock gives new meaning to the rather crude metaphor of “rearranging guts.”
Qrow makes an impatient noise. James reddens his ass with two sharp slaps, then lines himself up and pushes in with only a second’s pause between as warning.
The breath leaves Qrow with a gasp, but James doesn’t give him time to recover, drawing out and slamming back in. With their height difference, he has to support Qrow almost entirely, leaving Qrow’s toes dangling an inch above the ground.
“Ah—ah—fuck—ah—James—” The noises are punched out of Qrow with every thrust.
“That’s—hah—that’s right,” James snarls in Qrow’s ear. “You’re mine.”
Qrow can’t do much besides moan brokenly.
“Can fuck as many people as you want. Spread—hah—spread your hole for whoever you like.” He’s starting to lose the reins, the words spilling out of him as his hips snap faster, harder. “But why bother? We both know—hah—I’m the only one who fucks you like you need. Like the little—fucking—cockslut you are.”
Qrow sobs, “Please—ah! James—ah—please, I need—ah?!”
One of James’ favorite things about Qrow: he can’t come without a hand on his cock. Well, at least, James thinks he can’t. He has tried, extensively, to prove otherwise; those memories (of Qrow’s weeping red dick bouncing, heavy and untouched, against his lower stomach) are some of James’ favorites to revisit in Qrow’s long absences.
James is about to tell Qrow to keep his hands away from his crotch if he knows what’s good for him when he hears a sound down the hallway.
The distinctive whir of the elevator opening.
Hand over Qrow's mouth, James muffles the needy whimper when he pulls out with a wet sound. He catches Qrow, whose legs bow and quiver like a baby deer's.
“Key,” James hisses.
Even fucked out and hard, Qrow's hunter senses kick in and he lunges for his cargo pants.
“Fucking! Pockets!”
Qrow fishes out his keycard on the fifth try and slaps it against the reader.
The door beeps triumphantly; they stumble inside just as the footsteps approach around the corner.
“Who the—?” Qrow presses his face to the peephole, giving James a not-unappreciated view at the slick mess between his brightly rose-colored asscheeks. “Oh. Housekeeping. Never thought about that, but, I guess. Always assumed Oz had some, like, magic set up for it, or something.”
He pauses, eye tracking movement in the hallway. James hears footsteps, a cleaning cart squeaking to rest, and a door opening just a few rooms down.
“He’s doing your room.” Qrow’s voice lowers a little. “Probably coming here next.”
Not one to be distracted, James roughly tugs Qrow backwards by his shirt collar and shoves him toward the bed which, notably, does not appear slept-in. “You’d better make sure he doesn’t hear you, then.”
He likes the idea of Qrow waking up in someone else’s bed about as much as he likes the idea of Qrow getting fucked by them.
Qrow bounces down on the mattress. He leans back on his elbows, unbuttoned shirt showing off the scars across his lithe chest, most faded white but at least one or two dark with healing.
“You’re not serious,” Qrow says, eyes sweeping James’ face. He tries and fails to hide his grin. “Oh, poor Jimmy. You’re pissed pissed.”
“Shut up.”
James kicks fully out of his pants, but not before grabbing his belt. He hauls Qrow onto his stomach, removes his shirt, and manhandles him into a face-down, ass-up position. It’s not hard—Qrow is made of fat-starved muscle and hollow-feeling bones—nor is it hard to cinch Qrow’s forearms together with James’ black leather belt.
“Okay?” he asks, voice as normal as it gets between them.
“Could be tighter,” is Qrow’s response, so James knows it shouldn’t be.
He knocks Qrow’s thighs further apart with his knee. The flesh hand, James twists in Qrow’s hair, pressing his cheek into the mattress; with the metal, James grips Qrow’s hip hard and drives into him.
Qrow makes a sound somewhere between a scream and a sigh as James bottoms out. It is decidedly unquiet (though realistically, not loud enough to alert someone rooms away).
“You just can’t help it, can you?” James pulls out slowly, eliciting a low moan from the smaller man. He sets a languid pace and says, “You really need everyone to know what a good—little—slut you are for me,” snapping his hips lazily to punctuate the words.
Qrow is coming apart with every thrust, but he manages, “’M not—!”
“Oh, you’re not?” James really leans into the condescension on that one. “You’re like this for everyone?”
James loops his arm around Qrow and pulls him upright, flush against James’ chest. James feels across Qrow’s muscular abdomen, finds where Qrow’s stomach distends slightly when James slides slowly to the hilt. Qrow groans, eyes rolling back, head falling against James’ shoulder.
“Sure,” James chuckles, point proven.
The cleaning cart rattles, on the move. They freeze in tandem, and a beat later, there’s a knock on Qrow’s door.
“Housekeeping.”
James nips Qrow’s shoulder when he’s a moment late in responding.
“Oh—uh. Come back later. Please?” Qrow’s voice catches on the last word, and James snorts against his skin. He gives the most minuscule, exploratory thrust. Qrow elbows him.
“Need fresh towels?” the housekeeper asks.
“You are pretty wet,” James mouths against Qrow’s ear.
“Good!” Qrow shudders. “I’m good, yea— ah. ”
That was another, proper thrust from James. The housekeeper doesn’t seem to notice.
“Alright.”
They both listen to the cart and the footsteps fade down the hall. James loses it after that, but Qrow relaxes a moment later when he assumedly picks up the sound of the elevator. He shoots a reproachful look over his shoulder at James.
“You’re a real cocksucker, y’know that?”
“Not tonight.”
With the threat of an audience gone, James resumes in earnest, aiming for Qrow’s prostate and desperately trying not to come. Qrow—flushed, cheeks tearstained, and almost completely limp as James fucks into him—is making the last part of that mission difficult. He’s using the last bit of his strength and sense to struggle against the belt. Trying to touch himself, James' brain helpfully supplies.
“Hah—ready to admit it?” James asks.
“Wuh—ah? ”
“That you should’ve waited,” his sentences are incomplete, rambling, hips stuttering as he tries to form coherent thoughts. “‘Til—hah—I got in. ‘Til I could fuck you—like you needed. ‘Stead of some—fucking—stranger—”
Qrow gasps and says, like it’s being pried from him, like a confession: “P-pretended he was you.”
Holy fuck. James growls, arm tightening around Qrow reflexively as his pace speeds, unbidden. He feels like some kind of feral beast whose chain has snapped. That's certainly something he’s never gotten Qrow to admit before.
“‘Course you did, baby.” This time, the pet name slips out before James can come up with something appropriately cruel to say instead. “I—hah—I got you.”
James pumps his metal hand firmly around Qrow’s cock until he sobs James’ name and comes in streaks across his chest and James’ hand. Everything goes out of him—a taut line cut slack—but James doesn’t let him fall, groaning as Qrow clenches around him.
Qrow’s eyelids flutter, expression blissed out and cockdrunk. “In me,” he murmurs. “Please.”
It drives James over the edge. He snaps his hips once, twice, and spills inside Qrow with a cry.
…
Qrow gives a very far-away whimper when James lays him gently on the bed and slides out of him. James commits to memory this vision of Qrow—satisfied into silence, James’ cum dripping from his hole. Then, he undoes the belt from Qrow’s arms and retrieves a wet washcloth, towel, and glass of water from around the room.
By the time he’s clean-ish, Qrow has come back to himself enough to drink the offered water.
“Fuck,” he sighs after draining the glass and collapses back on the bed. He doesn’t quite look at James.
This is not out of the ordinary for Qrow—not after they do this.
James stands and begins experimentally stretching his hip so Qrow doesn’t have to try so hard to avoid eye contact. The angry burn in his joints informs him they are not as pleased with his afternoon activities as James himself is.
As he collects his discarded pants, James does ask carefully, “Are you okay, Qrow?”
“Yeah.” Qrow drags a hand down his stubbly face and surprises James by elaborating. “It’s just—it was a long one. The mission. Been almost half a year since I saw the girls or Tai, or even y—” Qrow cuts himself off.
“Got in last night, and I just—I needed some human connection. Felt like I was going to lose it.” He smirks but it’s softened slightly by a bashful tilt to his lips. His eyes finally meet James’. “Glynda said your ship wasn’t getting in until today.”
“I’m here until tomorrow evening,” James says quickly. The shuttle is due to depart for Atlas in three hours, but in this moment, he would reschedule a meeting with the Brothers themselves for Qrow.
Qrow smiles and reaches to stop James from redoing his belt. “Good.”