Scene 7: Carraway's rose gardens.

  Rafael follows Rich down the hall at the same breathless, ground-eating pace as before. By the time they get to the grand side doors into the garden, he's wondering if he's going to survive Rich “stretching his legs” if this doesn't count.

  Rich finally pauses at the threshold with a fidgeting discomfort clear in his massive body. “…Fuckin’ nasty,” he mumbles to himself as Rafael comes to a panting halt by his elbow.

  Rafael looks out past his elbow and sees only the familiar, meticulously-kept gardens, blooming bushes and flower beds, fountains and ponds.

  “I beg your pardon?” he says, and Rich gives a dissatisfied little rumble.

  “Y’know,” he says plaintively, and gestures down at his feet, as bare as any other boytoy’s. “It’s all dirt and grass and… bugs, and shit out there. But nah, yeah, nothing sexy about shoes.” He gives himself a bracing, uneasy shake and then steps out onto the grass with the hilarious dismay of a huge dog in unfamiliar booties. “Ugh.”

  Rafael has to smile, despite the stinging reminder—before this he hadn’t taken note of his own bare feet in months. Carraway himself prefers to go unshod unless he’s throwing a party or leaving his compound, as shoes would inhibit his ability to slip up behind his captives on lykoi-silent feet. And even if the master of the manor cared for shoes, what use have his toys for such a thing, after all? Whatever they were before, they’re house pets now.

  The sunset roses are a ring around a small hill topped by a quaint, utterly-unused little gazebo. Rafael is panting again by the time they surmount the hill, and grateful for the reprieve when Rich pauses to smell a rose. The air around them is warm and humid, even so early in the morning, and every damp breath is thick with the smell of rose blossoms.

  “At least the roses are real,” Rich says. “These gardens are the best part of the whole damn place.”

  “They’re beautiful,” Rafael agrees, because they are, truly. Even if the sight and scent of them is stained by years of empty despair, staring at the blossoms through the window of a prison. But here and now, in the early sunlight and the sweet-scented air, with an impossibly friendly Hastings standing there all in white and crimson like some sort of flower himself, he can find it in himself to appreciate the morning.

  Rich has already turned away, strolling off to the nearest water feature, where large fantail goldfish in white and orange and gold swirl through a pool of water lilies.

  He remarks, “Still don't really get keeping fish as just decorations. I mean, they're really pretty, but… he’s never going to eat them, is he? No one is.”

  “Perhaps some fish are better meant for the eyes than the tongue,” Rafael dares to suggest, and far from glaring or frowning at the gentle contradiction, Rich gives him a startled look and then laughs with unrestrained delight.

  “Well, yeah, I guess I've met a few of those,” he says, and touches a few fingers gently to the side of Rafael's jaw, not quite tipping his face up. “Man, your eyes are gorgeous in the light. Like, uh. Real deep water, when the sun goes through, that kinda brown. You’d have ‘em lining up at the railing for you in the Fleet.”

  Before Rafael can scrape together any sort of coherent response to this, there’s a glad call from across the roses and Connor comes jogging up, clad only in brief little running shorts, drawing the aching sweetness of Rich’s attention away. Connor is several inches shorter than Rafael and soft all over, almost plump, but in motion it’s clear that the softness is laid over a good deal of muscle, from his well-turned legs to his perfect peach of an ass to the capable flex of his arm as he salutes them with a smile.

  On his freckled chest, above his heart, is a single flowing line of script: You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

  “Grounds crew's mulching in the south garden,” Connor says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, oblivious to Rafael’s thoughtful eyes on his bare chest.

  “Right, we'll stay over here,” Rich says. “Mx Sayegh signed off on the books!”

  “Well shit, don’t that beat all?” says Connor, in startled cheer. “We oughta get a move on with the good ones, then. Better warm me up, Red!” And he darts forward and slaps Rich’s hip. “Tag!”

  They dart off, Connor leaping a bench and darting across the lawn at a dead sprint and Rich laughing on his heels.

  Rafael takes a startled running step or two after them, and then slows to a walk. This is obviously a game of theirs, and one he was not invited to play even if he was able. Too many days lying in bed, with only sporadic tumbling practice to keep any muscle tone at all. It's fine, he can go up to the gazebo atop the hill and see if he can watch them from there.

  It’s a children’s game, what they’re up to: nothing more than tag and a bit of impromptu wrestling. Rich is built like a draft horse but shockingly light and agile on his feet, free to stretch his legs full-length in his loose, brief kilt, and though Connor runs like a rabbit, dodging and tearing his way through the rose bushes, leaping over benches and swinging around statues, Rich quickly closes in on him each time. Then he picks Connor up, swings the smaller man over his shoulder, and carries him kicking and yelling to the nearest fountain to thoroughly dunk in the spray. Rich ends up nearly as soaked through as Connor, and Rafael finds himself smiling as he watches them splash and laugh.

  After perhaps half an hour, Connor starts to wind down. Rich catches him more and more frequently, and finally he doesn’t kick when he’s dunked in the fountain. He just lies there in the water panting, then catches the neckline of Rich’s shirt and tugs him down. The two of them kiss for a moment before Rich straightens up, wiping his face and laughing, and helps Connor out of the fountain.

  Connor stretches, shakes water out of his hair, splashes his wet hands at Rich, and makes some comment that has Rich laughing and shoving at him. Then the man slaps Rich’s hip and strolls away, back to the section of the compound with the boys’ wing. Rich watches him go, smiling, then rolls his shoulders, stretches his arms, and turns to make his way back to Rafael. He’s flushed all over now, his deep chest pumping like a bellows, and glittering beads of moisture are dripping off his heavy jaw as he crests the rise.

  “Enjoy the show?” Rich asks, and Rafael pulls his gaze hastily away from the broad pink strip of exposed stomach that Rich’s rumpled-up wet shirt has revealed, before realizing Rich meant the game.

  “It was nice,” Rafael offers. Then he realizes that sounds completely inane, and adds, “A most pleasing diversion,” which sounds both inane and pretentious. But Rich just grins at him, transparently flattered.

  “We’re gonna have to just run back to my berth, I need some dry things,” he says. “D’you mind?”

  “I—what? No, of course not.” He'll miss the way the wet fabric clings to all that muscle, but he’ll certainly have other chances to admire the man’s physique. Whether he likes it or not, in fact.

  The trip back to Rich’s quarters involves a brief and very businesslike pause at the entrance, where Rich unearths a package of cheap cleaning wipes from a nook and thoroughly cleans first his own feet and then Rafael’s, taking a knee with a startling unselfconsciousness. Then a detour back to the kitchens, and Rich comes back out with a sandwich the size of a shoebox and three mangos.

  “I’m already soaked,” Rich says defensively when he sees Rafael eyeing the food. “Might as well get sticky.”

  “Indeed,” Rafael says faintly. Rich has eaten everything but the last mango by the time they get back to his room, and sits Rafael down on the bed with a towel and the final mango. Rafael does his best to eat as much of it as he can, but is almost sick with fullness by the time he’s halfway through.

  “You okay?” Rich asks, coming naked out of the bathroom and looking him over.

  “Yes, fine, I just… I’m sorry, I don’t think I can finish this,” Rafael says, obscurely ashamed of himself.

  “Oh, man, it’s fine. I didn’t mean to give you a chore. I’ll have the rest.”

  Rafael practices drawing up his new screens while Rich happily devours the rest of the mango over the bathroom sink. He had assumed Rich meant the sandwich and fruit as a slightly early lunch, but when he accidentally opens a variety of clock settings, he’s startled to find that it’s barely mid-morning. At this time yesterday, Rafael hadn’t yet stirred in bed…

  “You need the head?” says Rich, poking his head out from around the door. There’s a glistening drip of mango juice at the corner of his jaw that he seems unaware of. Rafael considers how he might blush if it was licked away, and then dismisses the thought with a mighty force of will and shakes his head. “Aright, cool, I’m gonna wash up quick before we head in. Be right out.” And the door is closed behind him, leaving Rafael to sit in the quiet room by himself.

  The passage of time seemed too fleeting when he had nothing to do but lie in silence. At a loss, Rafael looks around and then picks up his notebook, painstakingly reading through the writing of the past five years.

  It’s a welcome reprieve when Rich emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later, because watching his decline spelled out in his own hand is both mundanely depressing and exquisitely painful. From bitter and fiery prophecies of Carraway’s destruction to odes on kindness despite cruelty, to a section of pages that have been violently scribbled away, the black marks haphazard enough for words and letters to escape—lost and gone and once, heart-stoppingly, Sam, pressed so deeply into the paper it almost ripped. Rafael closes the book abruptly, setting it aside, and gives Rich a pleasant, unruffled smile.

  “So damn good bein’ clean,” Rich says, and goes to rummage in his dresser with every sign of bright anticipation. “Just about time to get to the office.” He rumbles to himself, sorting through fabric; reaches for a neatly-folded pair of underwear and then catches himself and sighs. Reluctantly forgoing the briefs, he selects a pair of tight stretch jeans, which he has to carefully roll up over his broad thighs and gingerly settle around his hips. His t-shirt is no less an exercise in delicacy, the fabric straining, and for all Rich’s attempts to settle it comfortably it extends barely past his navel. It’s a fascinating process, and when it’s done Rich breathes out like a man who just set down a fragile load, palms irritably at the tautly constrained bulge at his groin, and gives a low saurian chuff of dissatisfaction.

  “I feel like a stuffed sausage in all this, but the boss doesn't think wraps are professional,” he sighs, rolling his shoulders uncomfortably. “Because parading my pole around left, right, and center is totally normal for sit-down work.” That stretching and flexing does good things for the massive, padded swells of his abdominals and pectorals, if very little for his t-shirt’s ability to cover either.

  “You can't possibly have gotten those from the wardrobe,” Rafael says, rather than drooling mutely.

  “Ha! Not the public store, nah, but it's the same catalog. Mx Saygeh’s done their best to order all the extra-wide whatevers, but I don't think it's meant for industrial quantities of boytoy. This is about as good as we can get.” He gives a rueful shrug, which immediately undoes all his tugging and picking at his hemline. “Oh, hey, you probably lose all your stuff every time you wash it too, right? Just put it in with mine, the laundry techs know my whole load comes back up here, I’ll make sure you get it back.”

  Truly, this place has made ruin of Rafael’s standards—that he would find a strange, prickling pressure at the back of his throat at the thought of clothes, however flimsy, that are his, that would return to him. He smiles as though the pain wasn’t there at all and says, “I would appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “No problem,” Rich says, waving the gratitude away. “I know there’s clothes that’d fit me around here, but it’s not like I can go out’n ask the other Hastings for spare fatigues even if Carraway’d let me wear ‘em. Most of them are all leg and no ass, y’know.”

  Rich has enough ass for a battalion. When Rafael daringly mentions as much, he gets a sheepish laugh and enough smile to light a parade ground.

  They make their way to the office in oddly high spirits, considering. But Rich’s enthusiasm is infectious, and the prospect of something to do, something new and even useful, is compelling. Rafael has whiled away enough endless days of idleness. It's high time for a change.

  Carraway’s office is a grand place on the second floor of the mansion, directly downstairs from the man’s personal suite. It’s more well-used than many of the other rooms of the mansion, although just as ornate; the desk is intricately carved dark wood, as many of Carraway’s fixtures are, but his huge chair is uncharacteristically comfortable. The large windows overlook one of the many courtyards surrounding the mansion, a stretch of neatly shaped bushes, perfectly trimmed flowerbeds and a winding, decorative stream glittering below.

  Rich has his own desk, a smaller and more humble workspace set off to one side, easily in view of Carraway’s desk but not given the same pride of place. Across from the desks, a deep, broad couch that Rafael distantly recalls from the past occasions he’s been called on to provide Carraway entertainment as he attended to his business.

  There’s no smiling monster at the desk right now, and no desperate boytoy writhing on the couch. The office is empty, papers neatly filed away, no lights except the oblique angle of morning sunlight falling across cabinets and curios. Rafael is reminded inexorably of a stage, set before a show. It’s not a stage he's been glad to tread—the actors unwilling, the director cruelly amused—but it's one he finds a reassuring familiarity in. He knows this set, he's played out this scene. He's ready for his mark.

  Except now, with Rich, it's different. Rich ducks into a further room and comes back with a folding stool, handsomely carved with oak leaves, and sets it beside his modest desk’s large but plain office chair.

  “Here, get comfortable. I’ll get you a better seat tomorrow if you like how today goes. Let's—you still remember how to start your rings? Great! Let's start off with spreadsheets. If you can work a spreadsheet the sky’s the limit. No one fucks with a guy who's got all his tables in order.”

  Rafael laughs a little helplessly, charmed by this ridiculous enthusiasm despite himself, and attends to spreadsheets. This leads to digressions into how to use a calculator function, how to convert decimals into fractions and then into percentages, and then a brief but oddly enjoyable break to learn how to solve sudoku puzzles and that quite a lot of financial organization works along similar lines.

  “Money is a lot like water,” Rich says blithely. “You think you know how it acts if you just have a little bit, but the more of it you gotta deal with, the weirder the math gets. I’m still getting my head around insurance, Sol’s been trying to teach me and I don't think I’m making it very easy for him. But crunching actuarial tables to see how likely a distillery is to get blown up can be pretty fun. If you get the decimals right. Carraway’s last secretary didn't, and one of our long-term clients was getting pissed that all his dock yards were like five thousand percent more likely to be on fire this year than last year. It's kind of validating that even landsiders get decimal disasters. You wouldn't believe how stupid a boat can get if an intern thinks one eighth is the same as point-eight. Or point-oh-eight, shit. I fixed a lunch boat once that accidentally ordered enough ketchup in that it sank itself. By the time I got there it had been dredged back up and was ordering more pallets of ketchup to the tug. Let's go over converting fractions again, okay? We got enough ketchup here for anyone.”

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  Carraway doesn’t make his appearance for another fifteen minutes. Rich continues coaching Rafael through the basics of using his rings, and is in the process of patiently re-explaining the functions possible on a spreadsheet when the door opens and Carraway strolls silently in.

  He smiles when he sees Rich, then catches sight of Rafael and pauses, raising his eyebrows.

  “Sweetheart,” he says—not displeased, but bemused, like a man whose dog fetched him a full suit when sent to bring his slippers. “Seems like you grew another shadow.”

  Shadow. Of course. A small, dark, insubstantial thing in a bigger, paler man’s wake, voiceless and moving only as directed. If Carraway has one skill, it’s to find appellations that are tasteless, deeply cruel, or both. At this point it shouldn’t be a surprise.

  Rafael keeps his smile sweet and his eyes meekly on the desk, hands gripping his knees so hard that they briefly shake. He startles when Rich gives him a transparently concerned look and reaches over to rub artlessly at his back, concern for Rafael’s expertly-hidden distress written all over his big, pale face like a sign a hundred feet tall.

  Rich says, “There’s not a lot for the guys down there to do, is all, sir, and I figured—I thought it’d help him out if he could learn some new stuff, help get things done around here.”

  Carraway gives him a look of amused pity. “Treasure,” he says, “he already knows how to do the only thing he’s good for.”

  Rich gives a very faint rumbling chuff of disapproval in his chest, thick brows drawing down and titanic shoulders tensing.

  “Sir,” he says, and doesn’t look down to see the urgent twitch of Rafael’s hand behind the desk, don’t, DON’T. “Sorry, but, I don’t think that’s right at all. He’s a pretty amazing guy, have you ever seen—”

  “Alright, alright,” says Carraway, and waves him off, coming around his desk to settle into his chair with a condescending smile that immediately sets Rafael’s instincts prickling. “Have it your way, sugar. But I know how you get around a pretty boy, don’t blame me if you can’t keep your eyes on your work, now.”

  Rafael knows there’s some trap coming, knows it as surely as the palms of his own hands. The only surprise is that Rich is allowed thirty or forty minutes of peace to do his own work, quietly pointing out what he does as he goes. Then Carraway glances absently up, catches Rafael’s eye, and says, “Touch yourself, darlin’,” so carelessly disinterested the words take a moment to even register as an order.

  Rich falters, looking openly dismayed—Rafael doesn’t sigh, doesn’t roll his eyes or show any sign of his resigned frustration, only dutifully begins to play his hands across his own body, along his jaw, down his throat, thumbing at the piercing through one of his own nipples and shuddering at the electric jolt of pleasure from even his own touch.

  There’s no cause to work himself up too quickly when there are surely many hours left to work and little to no chance of Carraway taking mercy on him, so he keeps his hands as light as he can, presenting the appearance of touching more than the reality. Unfortunately the illusion is more than enough for Rich, who sits poleaxed and staring before Rafael nudges his ankle with one foot and Rich grinds back into motion, doggedly returning to his task.

  It’s a long, terrible day. Rich is obviously on edge and distracted by the show, hands faltering and eyes lingering every time Rafael gives a barely-audible noise of pleasure or rocks his hips into his own touch. Rafael himself is quickly lost to the painful hunger of being watched, being seen, being stared at with blatant desire. Rich’s bright green eyes fix on the path of his fingers trailing down his throat, the gleam of his piercings, the urgent hitch of his hips. Rich swallows when Rafael gasps, leans forward when he squirms, licks his pale pink lips when Rafael affects a shiveringly overwhelmed pleasure. There's a wretched, overwhelming transmutation between them, from Rafael’s hands to Rich’s eyes, and it sharpens the torturous pleasure to a golden knife.

  Rich is as helpless against it as Rafael, and struck by it ever more deeply. Every time Carraway speaks to either of them, Rich flinches guiltily, growing rapidly more flushed, and only through trembling force of will makes it to an hour until lunch before the first time he reaches down to adjust himself and gets caught there, breath hitching, shoulders shuddering. He looks to Rafael, longing writ as large as mountains across the slope of his shoulders, the arch of his neck, and beyond them Carraway gives a low, deadly chuckle.

  What follows is almost banal in its cruelty, which is a shame, since it would be surpassingly beautiful in kinder circumstances: Rafael is allowed to stop touching himself in favor of being sent after Rich instead, as he expected he would be from the moment Carraway remarked on distraction. Every half-hour or so, he looks up from his work and throws out a few casual orders, and Rafael has to pack up the screens he was working with, climb out of his chair and into Rich’s lap and kiss him, play with his dick, work him up, leave him to sit at his desk and shiver and stammer as he tries to get his focus back on whatever paperwork Carraway directs him to afterwards with sadistic good cheer.

  At lunch break Carraway has Rich push his chair back and puts Rafael’s mouth to the only use the man cares for; has him take Rich to the edge of relief and keep him there until he’s begging desperately to finally be allowed to come. He isn’t granted mercy. Instead he’s brought to sit on the edge of Carraway’s desk and the bastard feeds Rich his lunch bit by bit from his fingers, deigning to remove his claws to tease the man’s lips and his ears and the painfully red length of his dick until Rich is teary-eyed and trembling, gone blind with need and completely undone.

  An old wound in Rafael aches with new pain to see someone else tortured like this, and so effectively. Rich is so expressive, so easy to torment and take apart, and so unfailingly gentle no matter how he’s provoked. His huge fists stay knotted around the edge of Carraway’s desk the whole time, even though if Rich wanted to, if he so much as tried, he could break Carraway’s jaw. He could probably tear Carraway’s head clean off. The lykoi is taller, strong and graceful and wickedly confident in himself, but Rich outmasses him, broader shoulders and thicker arms and a body composed of the same heavy mechanisms as a war machine. If it ever came down to a fight Rafael would put his money on Rich winning.

  But Rich doesn’t have a single spark of violence in him. He bends and he submits and he sits there miserably hard and wanting and he takes whatever Carraway gives him like he’s no bigger than Rafael, no more powerful. After lunch Rich is poured back into his own chair and slumps there, lost to frustration.

  There’s nothing else to be done. Rafael quietly practices what few tricks he’s already been taught, nibbling away at the edges of their assignments like a tentative mouse. There’s so much more to learn, he’s keenly aware, but Rich has been pressed past the point of teaching, the point of reason, even the point of speech. His contribution is to vaguely pet Rafael’s back when he’s done something right, breathe heavily, and try not to squirm too much or get precome on the paperwork.

  Carraway shows no inclination to let Rafael come either, or in fact any awareness that he’d like to, but that’s unsurprising by now. When the game resumes and Rafael is sent back to touching Rich, he keeps his head down with the patience of long practice and endures the stupid, useless way his body gets hard, breathes faster, the way it tries to push him to do more than what he’s ordered to do. The way it makes him linger on each and every piece of Rich’s torment. The way Rafael keeps drinking in the hot red span of his dick, the throbbing whimper the man makes when he’s losing himself to pleasure, the taste of his skin under Rafael’s tongue, the electric thrill wherever he skates his huge fingers across Rafael’s skin. This is what’s been made of him, so simple and hungry, ravenous for every sweet, responsive gasp.

  It isn’t meant for him, of course. When Carraway’s done savoring the show, he claims his prey himself, and it’s Rich with the man’s commanding grip on his throat, Rich with wolf-sharp teeth nipping at his neck and ears as he flinches and freezes, Rich kissed breathless and gasping, held in place to take whatever he’s given, weak-kneed and teary-eyed.

  Even without Carraway’s focused attention, Rafael is miserable and tired and aching by the time the workday is over, and Rich looks even more ill-used than Rafael feels. He was still kind enough to make a plea for Rafael’s pleasure as well as his own before Carraway cut him free; he was dismissed summarily, of course, but after sufficient pleading this was altered with an off-handed order of “See to him later, doll,” which is more generosity than Rafael is accustomed to by a staggering margin.

  He allowed himself to respond in cautious delight and shock, and got barely an indulgent glance—as he expected, or should have. It’s clear that the boon had very little to do with Rafael’s obedience, and everything to do with Carraway’s smugly indulgent delight in his new favorite toy. Rich made a diverting distraction, although Rafael doubts he intended to; panting and moaning and crying out, making no attempt at heroism or defiance. When they have their permission and Carraway finally stalks off to whatever amusement he intends for the evening, Rich all but bolts from the office and crosses the mansion’s second floor at startling speed, leaving Rafael jogging in his wake.

  He’s breathless by the time they arrive at their own little sanctuary, and for the first time, Rich doesn’t notice. He sits on the edge of his bed like a tower collapsing, his elbows on his knees, his huge hands linked over the back of his neck, breathing raggedly.

  As Rafael stands there, staring in horror, Rich takes a deep, shuddering breath, then another that shakes even further, and then gives a single, hoarse, wrenching sob that tears at Rafael’s heart and has him stumbling forward on desperate impulse.

  Then the man swallows hard, straightens up, scrubs a hand over his face, and reaches out for the bottle of bourbon on the end table. It’s got small lines inked onto the side, like a measuring cup, and Rich unscrews the top, takes a number of deep swallows, and puts it back down one precise section emptier.

  “Okay,” he says, and sniffs hard. “Okay. Sorry. I’m okay now.”

  The cold, rigid orderliness of this room closes like a fist around Rafael’s throat. Even as he watches, Rich absently turns the bottle around so the label is facing precisely away from the wall. It’s a large bottle—and it’s all but emptied now.

  Rafael wouldn’t be hurt, or even surprised, if Rich growled or snapped or pushed him away, but he doesn’t. When Rafael takes a cautious step closer Rich looks up at him, desolation in his wide green eyes. He sways momentarily closer, arms twitching as though to reach out, and then draws back into himself, one hand rising to grip the back of his own neck again.

  It feels foolish to ask the question—but Rich asked only this morning, fearless and open-hearted, and it didn’t feel like some silly imposition. Rafael clears his throat, searching, finds the voice of a guardian, an older brother, someone gentle and understanding and strong.

  “I’m sorry he was so cruel to you today,” he says, and Rich’s hand works on the back of his neck again. “Would you—that is to say. Do you want a hug?”

  Rich blinks at him, glassy and dazed, and then some measure of presence returns to his eyes. For the first time since they left the office, he looks at Rafael and sees him.

  “Yeah,” he says hoarsely, and reaches out, plucking a few blunt, delicate fingertips at Rafael’s wrist. “Yeah, man. Please.”

  It’s a matter of a few short steps to stand between the man’s knees. Even with Rich sitting, Rafael has no need to bend his back to rest his arms around Rich’s huge shoulders, solid in his arms and so, so warm. Rich takes another shuddering breath, then brings his own arms up around Rafael’s back and lowers his face into Rafael’s shoulder, and Rafael's heart softly, silently breaks open.

  It aches, beginning to care for this man when they're both trapped in the same cage, under the same implacable rule. There's so little Rafael can do, but he finds that still, foolish as inevitable tragedy, he wants to help. Wants to do something, anything, for this boy, no matter how much it hurts in the end.

  “…Thanks,” Rich says after a while.

  “It’s alright,” Rafael says. “I wanted a hug, too.” He dares to bring a hand up into the thick bristle of Rich’s hair. He’s rough all over, this enormous Hastings, his white skin like tough leather and his red hair like a brush, but he’s so soft beneath that shell. It feels so good to hold him. Rafael’s arousal, temporarily damped by Rich’s distress, is rising again, reminding him he’s been nearly as hard and ready as Rich for just as long, and no one let him off afterwards. He’ll be damned if he’s going to do anything as graceless and selfish as to hump on the man like some mindless beast while he’s one scant breath away from weeping, but it’s a closer thing than he’d like.

  Rich finally loosens his grip and draws back, rubbing one hand over his eyes, and looks Rafael up and down.

  “How’re you doing?” he asks softly. “You didn’t get to come, did you?”

  “No,” Rafael says, and his throat closes up with the sudden wild flare of hope. He wouldn’t want to impose, to make anything about this terrible situation even worse, but if Rich wanted to… if he didn’t mind… “He said ‘later,’ so it seems if, ah, if you were inclined—”

  “Can I blow you?” Rich says. “I’d really like to, if you wanted.” He quirks a tentative little smile, like he’s worried Rafael might refuse.

  “Oh, god, yes,” Rafael says, stunned.

  “Well!” Rich says, and his smile broadens. “Okay, then! C’mere.”

  Rafael lets himself be repositioned, hardly daring to believe it as it happens. He's lifted to the bed, laid out on the pillows, and arranged there with absent fussing care, the same fastidious motions Rich used to straighten the blanket corners or perfect the angle of the bottle on the bedside table. Set in place, settled there. Rafael stays where he’s put, even as Rich runs those huge, tough hands over the curve of Rafael’s skull, down the sides of his throat and then further, holding the span of his ribcage and squeezing with incredible gentleness.

  Already breathless, Rafael is hard and growing harder. He clings to the sheets, staying obediently where he’s put even as Rich’s hands slip down to his hips, even as fingertips tease the inseam of his pants and the sensitive skin along the inside of his thighs.

  “Yeah,” Rich murmurs when that makes Rafael’s breath come short, his head falling back lax against the pillow. “Sorry you had to wait, you’re good now, you’re good… Gonna take care of it for you, okay?”

  “Okay,” Rafael repeats, voice choked, and digs his heels at the sheets, hips lifting briefly from the bed to follow Rich’s touch. “Oh…”

  “I know,” Rich says, and like this it feels that he might, that he understands the deep terror that grips Rafael whenever those hands pull away from his skin. “Hey, I gotcha, I know. C’mere, baby, we’ll get you there—fuck, you’re gorgeous…”

  Rafael mourns the loss when Rich’s mouth becomes too deeply occupied to whisper sweet nothings to him—but he can’t complain when the occupation is to please him instead. Rich’s touch is by turns gentle and hungry, and the feeling of being wanted, desired, enjoyed beyond his capacity for passive obedience, is a heady drug.

  Rafael tries to keep his hands to his sides, staying where he was laid, but when he raises his hands to the short brush of Rich’s hair and combs his fingers through it, Rich moans all around him and makes every effort to press up and meet the touch. Charmed and dazzled and lost at sea, Rafael takes a breath, buries his fingers in that thick, blood-red hair and keeps stroking, slow and steady.

  Rich brings him to completion like an earthquake, like a force of nature. Rafael shudders with it, a small, brief creature caught in that cataclysmic show of power. A house shaken by the earth, the foundations effortlessly breaking, the walls falling helplessly down, the whole of the thing taken apart and swallowed whole by the power that—that, god…

  He’s brought back from lofty thoughts by a huff of breath on his damp, sweaty skin, and Rich comes up on the bed with him. Rafael’s clothes are rearranged and then he’s gently lifted up into Rich’s lap. He goes willingly to curl up there, resting his ear against a broad, warm chest, listening to the steady, heavy thump, thump, thump of the earthquake’s heartbeat.

  It’s beautiful, a beautiful thing, to be warm and held and close. Rafael closes his eyes for a few moments, savoring it. He’s been mindless for so long, but this is different, this is the peace of soft animal comfort rather than the desolation of an abandoned toy. God, it’s so good.

  “If you wanted,” he dares after some long comfortable span of time, and nuzzles his face into Rich’s chest when Rich tries to look at him, muffling his voice so he can let the words out without struggling. “We might… watch something, again. If you would enjoy that? By any chance.”

  “Yeah?” says Rich, and he doesn’t sound bored or irritated, but warm, charmed. “You gonna pick something out for us?”

  “Julius Caesar,” Rafael says before he can think better of it. Rich’s broad chest shakes against him in a deep, sudden laugh.

  “That’s the one where the king gets stabbed, isn’t it?” he says, his voice warm with amusement.

  “Kings get stabbed in a great many plays,” Rafael murmurs, feeling his face heat.

  “We can watch those next,” Rich says. “Okay, Julius Caesar, coming up. When you’re feeling better we can start back on how to watch stuff on your own rings. Oh, and hey, soon you'll have stuff to read, too.”

  “Thanks to you,” Rafael says, rubbing his cheek against Rich's chest.

  “Well, I mean, it's not like it was hard,” Rich says, awkward with the appreciation, all but shy. “Okay, c’mere, sit up…”

  The enormous body he’s resting against rearranges itself, and he finds himself leaning back against it like a lounge chair, one huge pylon arm wrapped warmly around him. This much hard muscle isn’t anywhere near as comfortable to settle against as a bed, but it feels so much better. Rich’s heartbeat drums steadily against his back, and one of his hands slowly, absently pets at Rafael’s side. It feels so safe. For all that he does genuinely want to watch the play, Rafael finds himself struggling to keep his eyes open by the time the actors come onstage, and is asleep well before the second act.

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